CHAPTER 55
OPEN THAT DOOR: HERE IS THE KEY
Fifteen years may seem such a long time, but in mind’s calendar,it’s only but a few moments back. I had just being admitted into a public secondary school as a first year student in the junior cadre. It was a new world with a new set of rules and principles. I had heard from senior colleagues the wonders that characterized secondary school life. Cultism and gangsters were major phenomenon. And the phrase “master key”, I understood for the first time as a key in the possession of some of the senior students who claimed to be members of one cult or the other. Acclaimed possessors bragged of the key’s capability to open all doors.
While I wondered in awe how powerful such a key could be and hoped I would someday have one, rumors filtered across the school that some students had used the master key to break into the school’s chief security officer’s office removing all seized properties of students. The student who had done this were considered heroes by other students. This gave impetus to the power embedded in the key that I thought it was some mystic key. But as I grew, I discovered that the master key still had limitations. It could not open all doors.
My search for a key that had the capabilities to open all doors sent me back to my primary school books where I had once stumbled on the phrase “the key that opens all doors.”I dusted a poetry book and opened to a poem that carried a key sign. There it was, I had seen the key. You may be anxious to know what key I’m writing about. I’ll let the cat out of the bag.
I read the poem and watered down the contents. I had read it all those years in my primary school but it was such an anthem we sang. It made no difference then as it made this time.
The poem consist a storyline of twin girls who often visited the house of a nearby neighbor to fetch water. One was Ruth, always welcoming, smiling and wouldn’t pass bye without saying a good morning, good day, good afternoon or good evening. The other Ralia carried an odious face, frowning and never caring to pass a word. This two had always visited this neighbor for water together but on an occasion, the smiling welcoming Ruth was too busy with mama that Ralia had to go all alone. Ralia would often bust into her neighbor’s compound without offering a word of acknowledgement to the gatekeeper. In anger, the gatekeeper returned her with her bucket empty.
Ralia returned home infuriated and filled with pride complaining to her mother and sister what the gatekeeper had done.Her mother sent Ruth back with the bucket. Ruth met the gatekeeper, greeted him, spoke nice words, apologized for her sister’s unruly behavior, and got her water home. Their mom turned to Ralia understanding what she had done and said “greeting is the only key that opens all doors”
I mused at the thought of the poem and began to apply the same principle in my life. It’s worked wonders. I have seen doors literally open because of my seeming submissiveness even when in reality I am not.
We seem dazed with a decreasing greeting culture especially as more wealth gets into the younger generation. The respect culture is fast waning and money now seems to be the object of respect. This ought not to be. While wealth generation is great, we still need more doors of opportunities that our wealth can’t provide us. We cannot afford to close future doors by letting pride take over our head.
The greeting key is a door opener any day. Cultures across the world value this very important part of their culture. A consensus is that those who don’t greet are untamed and untrained. These cultures therefore develop greeting body languages as a show of humility and submissiveness. Some cultures bow their heads, some kneel, some lay flat on the ground, some bow from their waist, others make use of the handshake. A host of greeting styles have being developed by varying cultures because of the importance they hold to greeting.
The power embedded in greeting isan attribute some of the greatest accomplished dictators have applied. It is seducing and misinforming showing off a weak and humane front even for the strongest men. Hitler, Castro, Gaddafi, Napoleon are some of history’s finest men who laid siege on the hearts of followers by their charismatic greeting weapon. When they released it, crowd felt safe in their hands.
Greeting can do so much as to get you space at the topmost offices in the country if you apply it rightly. Open your doors. Get the key.