Okey Ugwu
I was discussing
with one of my male friends recently, and he made some revelations to me. He
told me that once he receives his monthly salary, the first thing he does is to
go to the market to buy two pairs of trousers and two pays of shirt for himself.
And for the past couple of years that he has been working, this has been his
culture. I asked him what actually is he doing with all these clothes he is
acquiring, he simply replied me with the phrase “Looking good is a good business”
hmmm! on further interaction the fellow told me he has like 28pairs of
different materials and qualities of trousers with extra 10 jeans trousers to
himself and his shirts he can’t actually count them. He boasted further that
his clothes can serve him for 1 month plus without wearing any of them twice. Although
he said he occasionally gives out the old clothes to the “ABOKIs”.
Now the problem
of our society lies in the fact that we have a lot of misplaced priorities and
people just do things with a one-way traffic mentality. This new generation is
simply obsessed to looking successful instead of actually being successful. We
attach too much importance on frivolities, on things that do not matter. We
have sacrificed the nitty-gritty of our human existence at the
altar of ignorance. No doubt looking good is a good business but when it
becomes an obsession then it is a dangerous signal that highlights the outward
manifestation of inward hollowness. All over our streets today, we see beautifully
dressed ladies and handsomely dressed guys everywhere but then when you
interact with some of them, you cannot but shake your head in embarrassment.
Naturally when you see a beautifully dressed lady or a handsomely dressed man,
chances are that we assume that such people will also be sound mentally but
today what we see is directly the opposite. We have misplaced our priorities a
lot in this society. Just like Sigmund Freud argues in his Theory of
Personality, that human behaviour is the result of the interactions among the
parts of the mind viz the Id, ego and superego. Sometimes we dress to showcase
“class” which is a by-product of ego. Our id (what i want to do) should be
balanced.
My attention was
caught yesterday on CNN when Theresa May the new British prime minister was
addressing the French president Francois Hollande in her maiden visit to France,
I couldn’t help but admire her appearance. Paintings and designs in the name of make up on the face which has become a trademark
today with most women both young and old was conspicuously missing on her own
face, i couldn’t see her boobs as most women today will display theirs in the name of fashion. She was elegantly dressed and it
showed the substance in her. Likewise most other great women, Dr Okonjo Iwela,
late Prof Dora Akunyili, Mrs Mitchell Obama, Hillary Clinton, and even the
younger Chimamanda Adichie. etc
In all these, it
is important we get back to the rudiments of human development and place our
priorities right, while it is important to look good, it is super important to
educate and liberate our minds after all Monsignor Theophilus Okere says that “the
highest freedom you can give to any man is to educate
him”. Obviously not certificate education as has become the case in our
society.
By the time we get our priorities right we would have solved most of the
problems we face in the society. Just like the fellow above, i told him if he
invests half of the money he spends on fashion to buying of books, he would see
a rapid transformation in his life. Just like the story of an old teacher who
once told his son “Stay away from
television as much as possible. You can watch Educational channels but Men with big television sets sit down to watch men with big
libraries. Likewise Men suffering from fashion obsession sit down to watch men with big libraries.
Follow my twitter handle @okeydegeneral
Very interesting
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