By Olusola Adeyegbe
When we were children playing table tennis, the game was never just about the bat and the ball. It was about the score.
As each rally ended, the counting would begin. Convenient counting. Creative counting. Strategic counting.
If I won the point, the score sounded clear and confident. If I lost it, memory suddenly became flexible. My opponent did the same. We both knew what was happening. Each of us tilted reality slightly in our favour.
Then came the arguments.
“You missed.”
“No, it touched the edge.”
“That was my point.”
“No, it wasn’t.”
Of course only one person could win a rally. But ego has a way of multiplying winners.
After enough back and forth, exhaustion would set in. And someone would finally say it.
“Ojoro cancel.”
Cheating cancelled. Pretence suspended. Let us count properly now.
It was a truce. A reset. A return to fairness.
Looking back, I realise that childhood table tennis was rehearsal for adult life.
Many of us continue to count our wins and losses just as we did back in our childhood games.
We adjust narratives to protect our pride. We reinterpret facts to suit our self-image. We present versions of ourselves that earn applause while hiding the parts that need work. We subtly inflate our victories and quietly bury our defeats.
But life keeps score accurately.
Reality does not bend because we argue with it.
There comes a point in every serious life when a person must stand still and say to himself, with complete honesty, “Ojoro cancel.”
No more self-deception.
No more curated morality.
No more outward performance that does not match inward conviction.
Let the inside and the outside agree.
When our inward ideals genuinely shape our outward conduct, something shifts. Integrity is not merely ethical decoration. It is alignment. And alignment connects us to something larger than social approval or material success.
We must develop ourselves into inwardly upright, genuine human beings. Not performatively descent. Not situationally honest. But fundamentally true.
The moment a human being becomes real within, he establishes an intimate connection with the whole of Creation. Life begins to respond differently. Clarity increases. Direction sharpens. Strength grows quietly from within.
This cannot be achieved or forced by ambition. No amount of striving or effort compensates for inner disorder.
Everything we truly need, peace, joy, stability, right opportunities, flows naturally when we are aligned with the higher Laws that sustain life itself. Not before. Never before.
The time always comes when a person must open himself to the Word of God. That is not a religious slogan. It is an adjustment. It is the decision to align with the Laws of His Will that uphold Creation. It is choosing truth over image. Substance over display. Obedience over ego.
Without that inward correction, we keep arguing over the score. We keep living slightly tilted. We keep wondering why fulfilment feels delayed.
So today, pause.
Where are you still negotiating with truth?
Where are you counting in your own favour?
Where does your outward image exceed your inward reality?
Say it quietly if you must. But say it decisively.
Ojoro cancel.
Then turn inward. Seek help from above. Ask for the courage to see yourself as you are, and the strength to become what you ought to be.
Because when the inside becomes clean and true, life begins to count in your favour without argument.
And that victory is real.
