One of the things that once drove me up the wall was when a bank closed my account on grounds of ‘not enough activity’. It was of course a streamlining process meant to cull what they perceived to be now low range clients in their system. Despite much arguing, raging, venting the account was closed and I had to seek solace in a building society.

This incident came to me a few days ago while trying to put a prayer argument to God (I still am trying to let the Almighty understand things from my point of view (but I am not winning). The incident reminded me of how our emotional accounts go through all phases of transition and how we treat those transitions.

Our emotions are like bank accounts. When overdrawn, the account goes into deficit and the bank might call a foreclosure. I have learnt in my stint on earth that all my emotional postures must be carefully treaded for fear of overreacting, embarrassing or even straining one beyond recovery.

Accounts cannot be neglected. So are our emotions. One cannot open an account and not deposit of any input and hope to gain credit by virtue of a blank file in the bank registry with not a coin to support the name of the account. We should invest in our emotional well-being , we should seek to do and achieve those things that make us happy for by so doing, we are depositing in the account of emotions( for a needy day).

Accounts cannot be abused. Banks are known to clamp down heavily and penalize overdrafts, credit card abuse etc.  It is the same apparent truth with our emotions. We can scarce afford to drag them through abuse, degradation, humiliation, insults, derogation and all the pain that comes with emotional abuse. Sooner or later the accounts become overdrawn. This is when we find ourselves running on reserve with no emotional respite in sight and the result is obvious: stress, breakdown, burnout, depression etc.

The noble clients have the grace of walking up to a teller and asking to close their account than suffer foreclosure. I am tempted to think that this is where we miss it as human beings. When our accounts are at the edge and we can’t keep them open we just keep drawing (the plastic smiles, the deep sighs, the one word answers) but all these serve no purpose than to extend the pain.

I am no advocate of walking away from tough situations but if the issues constantly draw on your emotional being without replenishing you what good is it to you? If standing for your emotional well-being is not a concern to the drawing party then the good deed to do is to withdraw the drawing rights (that is what banks do when we fall afoul of our accounts!!).

As the sun rises tomorrow, how are your drawing rights? Are you not overdrawn on someone without depositing and yet expecting them to always have a good balance? How is your emotional account? It is the barometer of your emotional well-being and may your account never suffer foreclosure.