Kawangu 1
Pascal Kawangu Kazadi
Professor: Katie Austin-Miranda
English 093
August 17, 2023
The consequences of my actions
An anonymous quote says, “Don’t base your decision on the advice of those who don’t
have to deal with the results.” Sometimes, we encounter problems that we can’t find a solution to
easily. To find a solution to our problems, we sometimes need to ask for advice from people
around us. This advice can be good or bad, but it is our responsibility to listen to it or not.
Sometimes, we can listen to advice thinking it is a good one, but the results may be so bad that
we regret immediately having taken this advice or worse even asking for advice. Through my
story, I will tell you and I will show how I have gained wisdom toward advice and actions. From
my experience with this type of situation, I learned not to trust a friend completely and to
evaluate advice before taking it.
The source of the problem started when I was fifteen years old. I was walking after
school with a friend named Nathan, talking about girls, money, and cars. As we were walking, I
saw my little sister walking with a boy whom I had never seen before. This boy was studying at
the same school as me and my little sister. Nathan with whom I was walking told me that I
needed to do something about this situation. He told me a story and he said, “My big sister got
pregnant before her marriage because of this kind of boy, if you don’t do anything you will regret
it one day”. After listening to his story, I was scared that something happened to my little sister.
Kawangu 2
She was only fourteen years old. Because of this fear, I decided to do something about that. I
decided to scare this boy so that he would never approach my sister again.
I and Nathan took another way, and we ran so that we could arrive at our home before
them. When we arrived, I told the security of our home, and I explained the situation and sent
him to go and scare this boy for me. But he understood my asking in another way and for him, I
asked to go and hit the boy. He went to find the boy and he started to slap him seriously. Just
after, my mother came and told the security to take this boy out of our property.
The feeling after this situation was horrible. The night that followed this event, I couldn’t
sleep because I was wondering if this boy would get his revenge on me. Rapidly everybody in
the school that I was studying knew what I did. Many people came to see me to ask how this
problem started and why I did what I did. I was worried about myself. I had some rumors saying
that he would get his revenge soon. This situation was stressing me out so much. Among those
people who were coming to ask me for an explanation. Some good people comforted me and
helped me to stress less and one of my classmates said, “Don’t worry if he comes to aggress you,
we will protect you”. A week after this event I was walking alone to return home and suddenly I
saw the boy who was slapped by our security. He looked at me with a hateful look and he moved
with his fingers meaning I would catch you. I gulped and I started to be afraid of him.
The consequences of my acts had started. A few weeks, it was the period of the final
exam and the end of my school year. Then came the final day of the exam. It was during this day
the boy who was slapped had his revenge. The day started normally, I woke up in the morning, I
took my shower, and I wore my uniform. I went to school, and I took my exam. After that, I was
with my friend talking about some stuff and because it was the last day of the exam I didn’t want
to go back home earlier. We were walking together, me, Nathan and another friend. Nathan said
Kawangu 3
to me “You need to return home because I won’t stay with you for a long time. And then he left
me and returned to his home. I decided not to listen, and I continued to walk with the last friend
with whom we were walking and without realizing it he had brought me to the friend of the boy
who was slapped.
There was a big guy who said that it was because of you my friend was a slap and today I
will get his revenge. He took one bottle of alcohol and then he grabbed my neck, and we started
walking together. During the walk, he started to become angry and then he threw a punch on my
forehead. I was young and I was so terrified that I started to cry. But there was nobody to help
me. There was some face that I recognized but nobody raised his voice to help me. After the
punch, we continued walking and met the slapped boy. He came to speak with me, and he asked
why I did that. He said, “Why did you call your security to slap me, I never did anything to you
so why just an innocent person like me?” I started to explain to him and said, “I did what I did
because of Nathan’s advice and I am very sorry for that, Please forgive me” “I didn’t know that
the security could slap you” “ I am very sorry” After that boy let me go home because he felt pity
for me and forgave me.
This story has had a big impact on my life. I took time to think about it and I made some
conclusions. The first conclusion is before taking the advice of someone take time to meditate.
Because when we don’t evaluate advice, we can end up in a bad situation. For example, I end up
in a bad situation because of that. The second conclusion is to never have a big trust in people
around us. Because I have put a lot of trust in my friend, I didn’t realize that one day he could
betray me and leave like that. So, it is not bad to trust a friend but take time to really know who
is who before putting your trust.