Orifunke Lawal

I am going to tell you three personal lessons I learnt from the stranger who kissed me today. Today, something that has never happened to me since I started living in Lagos happened to me and I found it very very humorous. I am still laughing to myself even as I remember it. Loool. Every day on my way to work, I walk from my home to the Napep park which takes me to where I’ll board another bus before I eventually get to my office. The walk from my home to the park is about ten minutes on days when I am not in a hurry and have enough time to a catwalk down. Today was one of such days. My home is very close to the road so I have to walk across it; more like cross and cross and cross and cross again to get to the other side. (I hope you get the picture I am trying to paint)

So, as I made my first two crosses and waited for the next road to be clear again, (I really don’t know but…) I felt the urge to look behind to the road I had just crossed. And to my amazement, I saw this young driver pouting his lips and blowing me a kiss just as he continued to drive by. I stopped in my tracks and hurriedly tried to analyze his face to know if he was someone I probably knew from somewhere. He didn’t stop for a minute or second, he drove off after sending me the kiss.

I crossed the remaining laps of the road wondering if what I had just seen was real or if the guy was okay in his head. But by the time I had crossed, I was already laughing so hard that I had to stop to laugh my heart out. It was funny for reasons I do not know. While somebody else might have seen it as offensive or what not, I honestly do not know why I found it extremely funny that a stranger blew me a kiss… in Nigeria.

I took to my Facebook and posted about it and the incident lingered in my heart all through the day. While I do not know this young man’s reason for blowing me a kiss, I have deducted some vital lessons that that occurrence taught me today. And I hope you learn from it too.

ONE, Sometimes, you don’t need to bring heaven down to make somebody smile. Many times, we think our heads out looking for things to make random people smile but we forget that the little, insignificant things may count. I have been thinking all day, what if I just make someone smile by blowing them a kiss in transit tomorrow? They’ll probably think I’m crazy, no doubt, but I’ll be in transit so they won’t be able to know me or recognize me. Abi? Loool.

TWO, If you want to be remembered, be memorable. This is especially one vital branding lesson you may not always get to hear. But if you want people to remember you as a person or as a brand, you have to do something that will make them remember you; something extraordinary; something that would make you stay on their mind and, as a mentor would say, at the back of their heads. And no, it doesn’t have to be kissing them. Haha!

THREE, A little silliness is needed for some sanity in this life. Sometimes I find myself so down and too much into work. These times are very important opportunities for me to be silly and to have some good laugh. And usually, I get my good laugh by “looking for people’s trouble”. In the end, I get a good laugh, the other person does as well and life is fine. I think sometimes we need to get off that platform of seriousness that the adult life has offered us and act like kids once again, making other people feel good while we feel good. Or what do you think?

One of these days, when I finally have my full mind, I might just blow a kiss to someone I do not know and who does not know me as well. The memory would keep me laughing for as long as I can remember.