Cheeky

Cheeky

         If there is anything I hate more than stupidity, it should be stereotyping. I, among all things, do not like to be defined; I do not like to be interpreted especially wrongly. But the interesting thing is: I should not blame others for trying to understand my behavior and come up with words characterizing me; they have to make a meaning for me. This trait comes from years and years of people telling me what to do and I obeying them believing they know me better than I know myself, but if life has taught me anything, it's that no one can never know me as much as I do. I would, at this point, like to indicate that what I mean is not somewhere along the lines of 'don't judge me, you don't know my story', no, not at all; I find that clause very suggestive of a low IQ. What I wish to let you understand is that I don't like to be told who I am, not because people do not know my 'story' or what I have been through but due to the fact that they just can't.

         Cheeky is a word with which I have been defined time and time again. I never took it seriously until I decided to look it up about 2 weeks ago, when a certain feminine individual labeled me with the C-word. Her arrival at this conclusion was something I found both appalling and sweet at the same time, perhaps due to the harmony with which the word flew out of her mouth. Cheeky means 'offensively bold', and for me it means 'story of my life'. I, Victor, am indeed very offensively bold; I would always feel obliged to tell you how I feel with or without reference to how I think it would make you feel - offensive, and I would say it to your face - bold. Now, my cheeky attitude is not something I have been entirely ignorant of but also a thing of which I am not entirely aware. In other words, I am not cheeky to people because I want to be, that is just the way it turns out, and for this young lady who had only heard me speak for less than 15 minutes to jump to such a conclusion had a lot to say about how I should conduct myself in front of people, especially those who have a short fuse or don't know me too well.

         This particular lady had drawn her conclusion from my intrusions in her attempt to tell her friend, who was preparing for an exam, that everything would be okay. They were having a sort-of private conversation (in front of me) where the lady in question was trying to motivate a friend of mine in order for her to gather courage to go face her examiner in her forthcoming hygiene exams, but my friend had earlier put forth that she had indeed not studied her notes and as for the multiple choice she was answering, she hadn't even accomplished half. I intruded into the discussion by the time I heard someone say, "Everything would be okay, you are going to pass and YOU HAVE NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT". I had bared loads of tragic crap bleed from the mouths of both correspondents, but this particular one was unbearable for my uncomprehending mind. "That's a lie, you actually have a lot to worry about" was my unexpected reply to what the speaker had no idea was a question posed to me. With a look of what I would like to call surprise but frankly seemed like insult, she asked "why did you say that?" and thus began my rant of things my friend had to worry about. For beginners I pointed out that she had in fact not studied and even though she was what you'd call a good student, knowledge is of particular importance when it comes to exams, then I hinted at her unfortunate lack of preparation; the biggest step to success in the sense that she had not studied her notebooks and had not finished answering her MCQs, and her lack of aforementioned knowledge insinuates that even the MCQs that have been answered have more than a 70% chance of being wrong and putting all this together, a word of encouragement plays but an insignificant role in her success story today; if she hadn't studied for an exam she was to sit for in less than 2 hours time, she indeed had a lot to worry about. I also threw in a thing or two about wars all over globe and people dying of hunger in obscure places, all things we should worry about every now and then. That was what I said to the face of this apparent stranger and she immediately labeled me cheeky.

         They say you never get a second chance to make a first impression and that's great advice, one I'd most likely bear in mind but on that day I had a higher calling; to point out the shortcomings of my friend's companion's piece of motivation. But a very important subject I had failed to attend was that nothing was actually wrong in what was going on and nothing was absolutely wrong with my perceptions of the matter too. The lady and I only had what we call a difference of opinion; her mind was lighted down a path different from my own. While she sought to calm the flaring nerves of her close friend, I sought to look at things from a more realistic point of view. I did not need to tell my friend that she had not studied, mainly because she was well aware of this fact and I definitely did not have to interject to the 'you have nothing to worry about' bit because my friend indeed knew she had something to worry about, but the fact that someone was telling her otherwise might have lightened her view on her upcoming doom in the hands of the hygiene exams and softened her heart towards her remaining bit of preparation, all signs of a noble course

         I am cheeky at best and that, among many others, is a trait I would most likely want to keep. After all, the world needs a little cheeky at times, people who wouldn't care how it looked but told you the whole truth and anything but. In my more sober moments, I have come to realize that I should have to exert more control on my offensively bold antics. I should, instead of pouring my heart out, look around me to observe the mood of the room; try to acknowledge the true meaning of the goings on in my current atmosphere and weigh the implications of most of my opinions, after all, to everything there is an appointed time.