What If I Use My Left Hand?

 

Sometime last week I had to do a bit of runs around town with a friend of mine with respect to a certain project. While we moved from place to place we had to use the local inner city shuttle, hence made plenty of stops to board another at each point. During the Course Of our activities my friend was careful to observe something I wasn’t exactly conscious of; I paid all the drivers with my left hand.

We had just made a stop at Agip and I did same (all the while I was unconscious that I was using my left hand). She said to me, “That is a very bad practice”, lost for a moment I questioned, What?

she replied “Paying with your left hand”

Interesting, I echoed With a bit of surprise, then I asked,  what if I used my left hand? Is anything wrong with my left hand?

Yes!  She replied in an argument. It is very bad, says who I asked. Culture, our culture she said.

I wondered within me before asking “who is our culture?’
what exactly does this our culture have against the left hand?,
whose idea is this that, that we have all taken in without thinking?
What really makes it wrong using the left hand?
Any facts?.
Any valid information I need to know?

She replied back , we do not use left in our Culture, then she asked can you use your left to give an Elder something, I replied Yes I can. With a frown and that look of disbelief she replied he won’t take it from you. That made me really laugh, then I replied, I just hope that Elder is not in need of what I am offering with my left hand.

On a serious note I asked, what if I were left handed, what if my strength laid in my left hand…… then it clicked, I had used my left hand all the while reacting to what had happened to me some three days before this day.

I had boarded a cab and when I got to my destination, I was to pay the cab man. In my hand I had my tablet, my phone (the best gift I had in 2015), and my charger. Trying to pay with my right hand I moved all I was carrying to my left hand which is my weak hand and my phone slipped and came crashing to the ground. Cost of my cracked screen now? Twenty Thousand naira N20,000. Why? I was trying to pay with my right hand.

But then let us think about it critically. What exactly is wrong with using the left hand? Any valid points?

My friend said culture and I am asking, how do we validate that?

A lot of people are failing on the grounds of culture. Culture we cannot validate by any know fact. We have moved from doing what we must do with the left just because someone mentioned, Culture. We are growing our disadvantages at the expense of our strength because someone mentioned Culture.

I am not the kind to give into the norms, I will give into what gives me the advantage at every needed point.
These are my thoughts but then I ask again, What if I use my left hand?

Your feed back most definitely will be helpful.