The River, the Mirror, and the Quiet: Things I Have Been Learning About People, Including Myself

Muwado Ad by Muwado - Africa's Storytelling Platform

There is a saying that goes, you can take a horse to the river, but you cannot make it drink the water. The older I get, the more I realize that this saying has very little to do with horses and everything to do with people. You can tell someone they are beautiful every single day, but if they have already decided that they are not, your words will always lose the battle against the voice in their head. You can remind someone that they are intelligent, capable, worthy of love, deserving of peace, but if they cannot receive those words, there is very little more you can do.

Compliments are invitations, not convictions. People have to choose to believe what is good about themselves. The same thing happens in rehabilitation. You can admit someone into rehab. You can provide counsellors, doctors, medication, support systems, family, friends and every possible resource. Yet none of those things can replace the one decision that matters most: the person’s own willingness to let go.

Recovery begins where personal responsibility starts. No one can make another human being heal. No one can force another person to change. No one can think differently on behalf of someone else. Eventually, every person has to do the internal work themselves. And I think that is both terrifying and beautiful.

Something else I have come to realize is this: many of the things people do to us are things we are fully capable of doing ourselves. I have told a few people around me something that often surprises them. “You see those bad manners of yours? I can also do them.” Many times, I already have. I know how to ignore people. I know how to manipulate. I know how to become petty (Oh! I know how to invest in beef). I know how to say the words that hurt. I know how to withdraw affection. I know how to become difficult. Do not mistake my refusal to behave badly as an inability to do so. It is simply a choice. Character is rarely the absence of opportunity to do wrong. More often than not, it is the decision not to.

Sometimes people assume kindness comes from weakness. It doesn’t. Many kind people are simply people who have decided that becoming the thing that hurt them is too expensive. Because if I ever chose to compete in bad behaviour, I genuinely believe even the devil would have to sit down and revise his notes. Thankfully, I do not want that job.

Relationships make me wonder sometimes. Why do couples spend so much energy fighting each other instead of fighting the problem? Somewhere along the way, the issue becomes secondary. The objective quietly changes from solving the problem to winning the argument. It becomes me versus you instead of us versus this. But isn’t the relationship supposed to be the team? Imagine disagreements where both people remained curious instead of defensive. Imagine asking, “Help me understand why this hurt you.” Imagine saying, “How do we solve this together?” Imagine if understanding became more important than being right. Perhaps conflict would still happen. But maybe fewer people would leave feeling defeated and misunderstood.

Lately, when asked how I am, I have been responding so easily with: I am great. If you ever hear me say that about myself, please don’t believe me. I only use that word when I am trying to encourage myself. It is the equivalent of standing in front of a mirror before a difficult day and saying, “You’ve got this.” It is not confidence. It is survival. Many times the loudest encouragement I receive is the one I have to give myself.

One thing about me is this: When I am repeatedly misunderstood, I become quiet. Not because I have nothing to say. But because I have become tired of translating myself. Silence has never been unfamiliar to me. I have lived in households where people genuinely believed I hardly spoke. So becoming quiet is not difficult. I know how to disappear without physically leaving. I know how to occupy a room without occupying a conversation. Silence has, in many ways, become one of the languages I speak most fluently.

The problem is that my silence rarely comes alone. It usually arrives holding hands with detachment. People often confuse detachment with not caring. They are not the same thing. Detachment is rarely the absence of feeling. More often, it is what happens after feelings have been ignored, dismissed or exhausted. Emotionally, detachment is a protective response. It is the mind quietly reducing emotional investment because carrying the weight has become too costly. You stop expecting. You stop explaining. You stop reaching. Not because the love disappeared overnight. But because hope became too painful to keep feeding. Detachment often begins long before anyone notices it. The body may still be present. The conversations may still happen. The routines may remain unchanged. Yet emotionally, a person has already started packing their bags. That is why detachment can be so dangerous in relationships.

It is quieter than anger. Quieter than shouting. Quieter than arguments. At least angry people are still emotionally engaged. Detachment is different. It whispers, I no longer have the energy to convince you to see me. When someone reaches that point, returning is rarely as simple as saying sorry. Because what was left was not merely affection. It was emotional safety.

I think many people fear loud endings. I fear quiet ones. The conversations that slowly become shorter. The laughter that becomes polite. The checking in that becomes an obligation. The excitement that quietly disappears. Those are the endings that scare me. Because by the time they become visible, they have often been happening for months. Perhaps this is what I keep learning about people. We cannot make someone see themselves differently. We cannot force someone to heal. We cannot love someone into becoming whole if they refuse to do the work. We cannot keep explaining ourselves to people who have already decided not to understand us. And we cannot keep pouring from a cup that has quietly emptied itself. Maybe maturity is recognizing where our responsibility ends.

Offer the compliment. Extend the apology. Start a difficult conversation. Fight the problem instead of the person. Choose kindness even when you are capable of cruelty. But understand this too: After you have brought the horse to the river, the drinking has never been your responsibility. Some journeys can be walked beside people. Others can only be walked within them. And perhaps that is one of the hardest truths about being human.

@UlokcwinyuUbi

Img: BedBathAndBeyond

Written by

Ulokcwinyu Ubia

A writer and arts administrator

Follow

Did this story move you? Every gift goes directly to Ulokcwinyu Ubia — writers on Muwado earn from reader appreciation, not algorithms. Even $1 makes a difference.

Gift Once Gift Monthly