The Whispers of my Soul..

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Oh, my guts! If only I had listened to you, things wouldn't have gone this bad.

About three months ago, our community had a power supply issue. There was a heavy storm that brought down so many electric poles in my neighborhood that we were in total darkness for about a month.

For the first week, I didn't feel it much, as I had about two power banks that were fully charged before this ordeal.

Everybody in the house relied on me, as I had a source of power for them to charge their gadgets. They all looked up to me to find a way to charge these power banks so they too could always charge. Mind you, there was also a hike in fuel prices, which made it a bit difficult to buy fuel to power the generator at home.

I quickly remembered I had a friend who uses solar energy, so I felt a bit relaxed. What I did was drop one of my power banks with her to charge while we all used the remaining one in the house, and I kept switching power banks with her.

After retrieving one of my power banks this fateful evening, she politely told me, "Amie, it's been raining all day, so I wouldn't be able to collect another power bank from you; please don't be offended".

I understood perfectly because she also needs the power to carry out most of her activities at home, and she's been of help to me, so I never took offense at all, happily I replied, "I know right, when the sun is out, I'd surely come back to charge. Thank you so much, Ese."

Now, I needed to look for a way to charge the other power bank, so our phone's battery doesn't go low, this was where the problem started, I started to look for someone whom I could trust to charge my power banks and phones too, for all the people they came to mind, a part of me wasn't so pleased to drop my gadgets with them, so I decided to manage the power on the only power bank left until it was okay to charge at Ese's house again.

However, I received an email from one of the companies to which I submitted a proposal saying that I would be having a virtual interview in the next 6 hours. This was great news, but this time the two power banks were low already, and my phone's battery was about 30%. Well, this might last up to the next 4 hours if my phone was set to power-saving mode; however, it might not carry me to the next 6 hours, or maybe it might; I just wasn't sure.

"Ha! What do I do now? I surely cannot miss this interview", I soliloquized, I knew it's been raining consistently for days, so going to Ese's house wasn't even an option.

I had to make a very drastic decision at this point, I got dressed and was about to leave home, but my instinct kept telling me not to, "manage your phone's battery, it's better safe than sorry" It kept whispering and wouldn't shut up!

However, I kept suppressing it with "What if the battery goes off in the middle of the interview", this intuition kept resisting and then I halted it by saying "You aren't always right, life is all about risk, I hope this doesn't hurt, there's no harm in trying.".

I stood up and left the house in search of a trusted place to charge my phone for a while. Then I saw this barbershop, right in my heart of hearts, I knew this was a very risky thing to do, to plug my phone into a commercial shop, but I bit myself into believing that since I was there, nothing bad would happen.

I walked into the shop, greeted everyone, and asked to see the boss, I told him my ordeal and so, he offered to help, "Where's the phone?" He demanded, I reluctantly handed the phone and charger to him, and since the whole shop was a bit stuffy, I sat just at the corner of the balcony.

After about an hour, I felt my phone's battery should have increased to a reasonable percentage or even fully charged by now, I walked right into the shop to demand my phone.

"Sir, can I have my phone, please?" I politely requested The boss told one of his apprentices in Nigerian pidgin, "Kayode, go bring the phone come." As soon as I sighted Kayode with my phone, my heart sank already because I knew something was wrong merely by looking at his facial expression, but to give him the benefit of the doubt, I waited for him to bring me my phone. "Auntie, I'm sorry; while I was trying to plug the charger in, I damaged the charging port of your phone, but I couldn't tell you immediately." Kayode managed to utter. "Damn!" It dawned on me that moment that my intuition was right after all.

The look on my face was like that of a prodigal son who rebelled against his father; I felt broken because I rebelled against my intuition, I managed to collect my phone, but when I double-tapped the screen, a part of the screen was even broken, I guess they stepped on it mistakenly, and lastly, the battery even reduced to 10%. "I should have listened to you", I soliloquized, but all I heard was "It's too late now!"

My whole mood changed, and so I missed that interview slated for that day. Days later, the screen of my phone got even worse, and eventually went blind, and from that day on, I realized what Anne Wilson said in a quote is true.

Trusting your intuition often saves us from disaster.” — Anne Wilson Schae

If only, I had listened to my inner mind, I might have saved myself from fixing the screen of my phone which was almost the cost price of my phone.

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