You might probably be thinking that I am about to narrate a tale or tales about some trial(s) conducted by the armed forces or covert operations agency for erring officers or operatives as it is such trials that are usually held in secret behind closed doors. The proceedings and outcomes of such trials are usually not public knowledge except when deemed necessary by the appropriate authorities.
The trials I refer to are the tests of sorts we undergo in secret. They are the trials we face alone when no prying eyes are about, when we can get away or so we think with succumbing to the dark side or selfish tendencies. It is these trials that are the easiest to fail especially when the circumstances or the environment surrounding such tests appear to tend towards our failure.
It is easier to stay the cause of maintaing the moral high ground when one is in public or in the midst of people as it is only human for the performance of good acts to be favoured or enhanced by the right company or environment. As I opined in a previous post, the real test of one's claim to goodness or doing what is right, is what happens in secret when there is no individual or authority figure to guide or compel one to do what is right.
And so it happened that during the Covid-19 lockdown I was faced with one such trial. I had placed an order on AliExpress for a product sometime around March, 2020 intended for retail via my little start up venture. After making payment , I contacted the seller who eventually shipped the product after some logistic delays occasioned by the pandemic. I also received the tracking number for the package shortly afterwards.
However as with virtually everything during the heat of the pandemic, the tracking services either appeared to be out of sync or didn't work at all. Consequently the tracking updates either came very late or didn't come at all. Although I expected delays because of the unusual times, impatience eventually set in as the window for purchase protection by AliExpress gradually approached its closure.
To put my mind at some sort of ease, I reached out to the seller informing him that I was yet to receive the product as it appears that it may have been lost in transit. The seller was quite responsive and sensitive to my plight , suggesting that I initiate a dispute for a full refund pending the eventual arrival of the package. This i promptly did and got a full refund after some time.
A few months later, there was an unexpected positive turn of events, I got a call from my local post office that I had an item to pick up. But how come? I had stalled placing orders because of the then logistic challenges. Then a thought popped up in my head, could it be that the "prodigal" package had indeed arrived? . I therefore made haste to the post office to unravel the mystery package which I suspected to be the one that had failed to arrive all this while. My suspision was eventually confirmed upon unboxing the package after completing the necessary documentation at the post office. The package had indeed finally arrived.
This was where my trial began. It so happened that at the time the package arrived , I was cash strapped and in dire need of funds to offsett some medical bills. I was faced with two options:
a. Contact the seller to notify him that the product has arrived and make payment
b. "Pretend" as though the product never actually arrived and take it as "my luck" or "gift" considering the fact that the seller would likely never know that the product was eventually delivered as tracking services at that time were a mess. Furthermore our last conversation suggested that the seller was tending towards counting the transaction as a loss due to the delivery failure.
I brooded over these two options for some time and eventually opted for option a. Why? you may ask. The reason for this was that my religious conviction thankfully kicked in and I was reminded of something important. The payment due to the seller for the product delivered was a debt that must be paid as unpaid debt had dire implications in the eventuality of the inevitable call of death which could come at anytime.
I was thankful that the heavens had been merciful to me by favouring me with heeding my conscience which served as a beacon of light in the midst of the turbulent seas of indecision and temptation that sought to overwhelm me to stray and begin a journey down the dark path of financial impropriety. I therefore contacted the seller informing him of the recent developments and my desire to settle my debt. He was glad and sent a link to me to pay off the debt which I promptly did.
The moment the transaction went through successfully, it was as though a huge burden had been taken off my chest and I heaved a sigh of relief although with mixed feelings about how close I had come to going astray.What would have happened if I had decided to ignore my conscience ? I would probaly have ended up like Pinnochio when he failed to listen to the advise from Gemini cricket although in my case instead of having a long nose I might have ended up living with the guilt for the misdeeed or worse still being enslaved to the black wolf as I had fed it by engaging in what was wrong. As the reality is that just as a single lie triggers a chain reaction of lies, a single evil deed has a similar domino effect.
We all need to walk the talk in our claim to goodness by striving to ensure that our public acts or deeds are in sync with our private lives. That way, it is easier to overcome the secret trials or tests that life throws at us whenever they come.
Shukran
Danke
Merci
Gracias
ขอบคุณ
ধন্যবাদ
Спасибо
for reading.
