A person that lacks centre has not fully grown nor fully alive. He is not aware of the complexities of life. He is fidgeted by the circumstances of his life. He is not always himself. He does not operate from the centre of his being. He is out of his script. He has many flaws. He drifts like a log of wood in the sea. The wave of the sea carries him anywhere and perhaps he lands at the shore like the Malaysian Air plane that crashed and some pieces landed in Mozambique. It took time to find some of the debris. Many people forgot about it but investigation was still going on. While the person who lacks centre continues doing mischief, he does not know that people are researching about him. When he fluctuates and dishes out terror and say many unhygienic things people are taking note of his actions.
When we say that a person lacks centre, we are inferring that the person is unspiritual, lacks spiritual synergy. He allows the old Adam in him to take control of him. He does not realize himself, he floats, and he has no base. No one knows what he will do next. He is an unpleasant extrovert. He speaks anyhow and what comes out of him is unimaginable. Because he does not have any spiritual base he speaks without knowing where he is and the people he is with. But he’s supposed to know that he is judged by what he says and does. If he does not know who he is, his life can be miserable. To deal with such is distressful. Can such be productive in the community? Because he lacks centre, he is unpredictable. We must always be conscious of who we are and not lose touch of our being. To lose the centre is disastrous. We meet many people like that in every sector of life.
The whole problem comes from the early childhood and when one messes up his life he pays for it. We must be given lessons on life to avoid being victims of ourselves. And perhaps when the child was so stubborn and no one corrected him he shifted from the centre and the self is affected and he could not meet up with the requirements of life. The family script is messed up and he sees life negatively. There is no positivity in him. He feels that everybody is after him and he becomes unfriendly. He becomes a vendor of all kinds of crimes. Those who adore him are those who are like him and they live in their own castle. What a life! A person like that lives a monotonous life, a life that has no connection to the real life, but a life of zombie culture, an unrealistic life. If what I have written touches you, there is room for you to refocus yourself and go back to your centre for the centre is the ensemble of our lives and we become something else by losing it.This kind of person has a lot of psychological, spiritual and social stuffs in him that make him unreasonable in the world of reasonable people. If someone tells me that I lack centre it means that I lack something in me, I am not balanced.
• Monsignor Livinus Ukah is a Catholic Priest, Author and Social Justice Advocate
