I was surfing YouTube a few weeks ago, watching and listening to motivational speeches from different speakers at TedX events. I came across the video of Charles Oputa popularly called Area father or Charlie boy.

Like many other people out there, I had prior knowledge of who Charlee boy is; the man is 69 years of age but he keeps behaving like a rascal so I felt there was no need to watch his speech, what would the old man even say? Probably encourage rascality and how to be a thug so I decided to skip the video.

But on second thought, I decided to watch the clip; Though I played the video for playing sake and when he started speaking, he spoke about the ‘unstoppable you’. Firstly I looked at how he dressed; a black hat with some designs on it, a black T-shirt, black jackets, black shoes and rings on almost all his fingers. That alone reaffirmed what I have read about him and that's a turn-off but I continued watching.

I was amazed at the way he spoke; the man speaks English very well like he literally commands the language. Interestingly I kept watching the 22 minutes video; it was from that video I got to know that he had a master's degree in 1979, which was 41 years ago. I was like wow!..

He said a whole lot of things that sharpened my thoughts. Though I do not agree with some of his philosophy and kind of lifestyle but he said a lot of things that inspired me and I picked few quotes instantly from what he said;

“When we lose the right to be different we lose the privilege to be free”, “You see what you see from where you stand”, “The hardest struggle is to be something different from the average, a normal person is” to mention a few.

After listening to his speech I felt more inspired & determined to strive to do better despite the challenges I'm facing as a young man trying to be different and rise above mediocrity. It was indeed a push for me

But the question is, what would have happened if I had decided to overlook his video, not listen to the speech because I had prior knowledge of who he was? I wouldn't have gotten those motivations I got from the video because I felt he was a rascal and an irresponsible old man.

Oftentimes we tend to write-off people just by what we feel about them and we end up missing the blessing God has for us via such people we tag “Bad, irresponsible” etc. We program our minds about certain people and once we see them we feel can anything good come out of this person?.

Someone might have probably told you that a particular lady is rude and without confirming, the moment you see that particular lady you automatically see everything she does as being rude, even if she's not. That's because you have programmed your mind about the said lady because of what you were told without even giving her the benefit of doubt.

Remember, it was a prostitute that hid the two spices from being killed while those that were tagged holy and righteous rejected them. I urge us all to make our minds flexible to be able to learn even from people we feel we have a piece of prior knowledge about.

No matter how bad we feel someone is, there's always something to learn only if you will listen long enough and also have a flexible mind.

A Wiseman once said, “If you listen to a fool long enough, you will learn something from him”.

Musa Affos (Rhapsodi) Is a Blogger & Social Media Activist.

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