For most part of
this year 2017, I have had to commute to work and a few other places by public
transport not because I do not have a car to run around but because I decided
not to drive for most part of the year given some reasons including trying to
keep my sanity having being attacked in broad day light in traffic right in
front of a military cantonment and nothing was done by the patrol team who went
into the building the hoodlums ran into. Another reason was until Governor
Ambode sent those “special people” in uniforms off the streets who were
frustrating drivers and car owners thus making driving a nightmare as no matter
how hard you tried to keep your car documents together, they would always find
a fault or two so as to give you a fine which many times do not come cheap.
Unnecessary traffic in some areas was also a big “NO” for me including some
other reasons which are best known to me alone. in this city called Lagos.
On some of these
commuting by public transport, I would run into a couple of friends and foes
alike who would ask me questions such as “why didn’t you drive? I saw you at so
and so bus tops, what where you doing standing on the road waiting for a bus
when you could have easily driven? Including a host of other cynical questions.
My replies usually included “oh I didn’t
feel like driving too far today” or on the days when the car had a small fault
“I took it to the mechanic” or was it when I was still battling with road
safety for my drivers’ license? Too many instances when I had to be asked
questions upon questions on “why did you not drive”?
On several
occasions, some of these ‘concerned people’ would say “you like to
stress/suffer yourself sha” and my immediate reply would always be “shey before
we started owning cars and being driven around town, many of had to move around
by public transport until God started blessing us with the wherewithal to buy
cars?
Where am I going
with all of these?
Dear reader, let
me not bore you with long stories anymore.
My point is, we
are where we are today as a people and as a nation because of the mentality of
“what would people say” so many of us do things that we would not naturally do
because we do not want people to talk.
Well, I’m sorry to
be the one to re-echo that “no matter how hard you try, or what you do, people
will always talk” so no point killing yourself just to please anyone amongst
the crowd out there that think or care nothing about you.
Our leaders will
continue to steal us “red” because even when the good ones are elected into
power/positions, they are put under pressure by family, friends and those
around him to steal from the ‘big government pot to prove that they have
arrived’ even when they never intended to do such.
The incumbents look at the lives of predecessors who did not steal while in government and how society has all of a sudden forgotten them as they seemingly have nothing to offer being out of government. Their children are mocked and told such lines as “your father was in government for so and so number of years yet he couldn’t do this or that for himself yet see Mr A and Mr D who held the same position for just a few months, their properties, this that and so on all around the place but your father can only boast of that single flat you all live in at the moment”.
After such remarks, tell me why the next person will not steal when elected into power? That’s if he/she is not self-willed against all odds?
It’s really a terrible world we live in. where evil is applauded and good shamed!
The life that many of us live today is not what we ordinarily want but for the sake of society and what the next person would say, we tend to live our lives for people.
Dear reader, that kind of lifestyle must stop.
As 2017 grinds swiftly to an end, take time to access your life and decide upon how you want to run with 2018. If you want to live a simple life, by all means go for it and save yourself the brouhaha of trying to meet up with the bandwagon of those who want to live their lives to please others thereby killing themselves in the long run.
The awful part of joining that “bandwagon” is that if you drop dead today, many of them would not even notice that you are gone and even if they notice, they wouldn’t even attend your funeral. The least most of them would do is type ‘REST IN PEACE’ on your social media timeline for others to read when they visit your page and thereafter everyone would move on without you.
So dear reader, think about 2018 critically and run it at your pace.
Peace!!!
STELLA ENE-INYANG
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