A Mystery Of The Universe (Manipulation)

I am not here to tell you how to manipulate people nor am I here to talk about the dark art of manipulation. I am here to talk about the good type of manipulation, sounds like a contradiction, right? Let's start with a story.

I still remembered when I went to play football, I was on the football pitch, knowing it had been a while and I really wanted to amaze everyone with the way I played when I got to the field I discovered I was really rusty, fair ball controls, shitty passes, bad ball juggling, and many more. The only thing that was above average was defence.

"Omo, bro you dey play oooo" someone hailing the way I played, I smiled and continued, pressing on what I could do better while gradually improving the necessary skills. The tall star player of the opponent is coming towards my team’s monkey post with speed, dribbling everyone as he progresses, I know not to rush in, I calculated the rhythm in which he pushed the ball forward, two short pushes, one long push. I intercepted at one of the long pushes with my right leg, then gave the ball to my left leg, pushed the ball forward before he could recover and as he was coming back to tackle me, I passed the ball to the open man I could find. After passing the ball as I was going back to my initial position as the last man, he looked at me sighted then nodded, I wasn’t shocked by his reaction, I have been intercepting all his balls, either with him or before the pass reaches him.

"Corper why you go do that kind rubbish na, na you be last man you con dey dribbling" I did fuck up, I tackled the ball then because I didn’t see anyone who was open, I started dribbling in my own house, the opposition tackled passed to the star of their team and he scored the goal.

"Fiyin you are the last man," the other corp member said, the rest of the comments from the villages I shut out, I wasn’t one to argue while the game is going on, I usually keep all my comments and by the time the game is over, my rage is down, the comments seem like they are no longer necessary so it fades off.
You are still waiting for the mystery, right? it is coming soon.

Another training match, after a lot of other training matches, my passes were now on point, and my ball control? Impeccable, Defense? almost impenetrable, lovely dribbling but I didn’t overdo it, but this particular match, I already had some injuries, my left and right knee were bad and it kept getting worse with every training match I took part in, I couldn’t run too fast, I couldn’t just stop to run all of a sudden, I had to slowly stop, every of my teammate keep shouting and I kept playing till my legs gave me up, I had to leave the pitch, but I sat on the fence to watch, a very good defender on my side made a mistake which resulted in a goal against my team, one bad comment and he storms off the field saying he wasn’t playing again.

I smiled; I thought; all their bad comments and I didn’t stop playing till my leg just couldn’t anymore, all the good comment and I didn’t let it get to my head. The ship determines what to do with the water when it enters the ship, then the ship starts to sink.

Is the mystery starting to unravel itself? Act don’t react - the principle of control, reacting implies that you are not in control, and acting denotes that you are in control.

Reacting to bad comments would have let me storm off the football pitch or at least played even worse, reacting to the good comment would have made it get to my head and I would have started playing rubbish.

I didn’t react, I acted.

The comments did not matter, I used them like the ship uses water, good comments drive me to improve, and bad comments fueled me to do better by all means, I smiled when I got good comments and when I got bad comments, I smiled too. The ship doesn’t matter if it is salty water or fresh water, it just moves on it. Don’t let it get in, use it as you deem fit.

Anger is destructive, you can use it as fuel to success, love is overwhelming, you can use it as motivation to achieve the impossible.

You can learn the ability to control anything, to manipulate anything, tangible or intangible into what you see fit

Act don’t react is the first principle in understanding the mystery, control is the first step in manipulating good and bad, tangible and intangible, feelings and actions into Results.