The Lagos Chronicles: Why I don’t envy YOU and why…

…you SHOULDN’T envy ME?

I stepped into a supermarket deli in Lagos this weekend to get some food. I ordered a number of things. I told one lady to dish me some beans and plantain and some efo riro (i.e. a vegetable sauce). I walked further to the counters and picked a salad and coleslaw pack (not having picked up food that was being dished for me). A 40 something good-looking lady (also shopping) complimented me saying it was great that I was eating healthy and that my lifestyle looked and seemed encouraging. My response to her was “that beans and plantain being dished over there is also mine”.

She was like “wow, that is why you should never make assumptions of others, you never know what’s going on behind the scene”.

Her response drove me to write today. I live in Lagos, a city where “who you are”, “what you drive”, “where you eat”, “who you know/who you can convince people you know” and “where you live” plays a huge part in how people perceive or even treat you (From that CEO of that company to that guy that sells apples on the street – these factors affect how they treat you). I believe to a great extent people are not necessary only jealous but aspire to being perceived well-off/rich/affluent (Btw this is my own opinion o, you can disagree as much you like, that’s your own)

So why should we be weary of being jealous or envious of  one another?

 

  1. We do not know where their funds from their lifestyle came from (maybe from looting funds, pyramid scheme, LOANS??, maybe inherited, maybe company paid, maybe they went to one babalawo (oracle teller) to sacrifice a few chickens and some other things (check out #nollywood movies on youtube or ask your Nigerian friends for more explanation lol) – who knows?)
  2. We do not know what struggle they had to go through to get there (perhaps struggle you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy)
  3. Maybe the path God has destined for us is different and that is what we should spend our time embracing
  4. What we may be jealous of is perhaps the least of what fufils those people
  5. We lose sight of our own beauties and uniqueness

My hope for you is never to be jealous of others…Acknowledge what others have, their success, their drive, their achievements (YES) but don’t hope or pray for it as you could get more than you bargained for. That instagram picture or facebook gallery of that luxurious lifestyle, those luxurious bags, those amazing friendships, those amazing couples could be masking so much fakeness, unhappiness, grief, pain – who knows?

 

My hope is for you to focus you energy on YOU and YOURS so that you live YOUR life drowning in tears of happiness and success (YOUR definition of success)

What do you think of my rant today? I would love to hear your thoughts

#Sassy

“A lot of people get so hung up on what they can’t have that they don’t think for a second about whether they really want it.”

||Lionel Shriver

 

 

The Lagos Chronicles: The only good thing about Valentine’s day

So it’s nearly here, the day of love, the day of roses, the day of gifts . Valentine’s day means a lot to some and nothing to others. I have heard of relationships where the guy says “I don’t celebrate Valentine’s day, it’s a marketing ploy. One should be appreciated everyday and not only on Valentine’s”. My question for these guys is “do you appreciate your babe or babes every day?? (I digress).

OK, so my friends and I were gisting about why Valentine’s day is good. And what we came up with had nothing to do with gifts, roses or the works, it simply had to do with finding out whether your boo/bae/husband/main squeeze had another squeeze/side chic/main chic/side lover/bae/small chops.

  1. If he spends THE Valentines day with you (daylight time included) – YOU ARE THE BAE
  2. If he spends the night before Valentines day with you and says he has to work the next day (Vals day) or has family commitments – YOU ARE THE SMALL CHOPS
  3. If he spends 3 hours or less with you before Valentines day ends –YOU ARE STILL THE SMALL CHOPS

So I hope I have helped you in recognizing your role in your relationship( My own opinion o). Note that I am not saying being small chops is a bad thing ooo…I know some babes like being small chops (each to their own – am sure there are benefits).

What do you think of my ways to spot your role in a relationship? Please share others ways to help your sisters out there xxx

The Lagos Chronicles: Why am I in love with Lagos?

You may wonder what there is in Lagos to love (being that #ThirdWorldCountry with all that bad press and so on and so forth)..Is it the traffic jams that can make a 10 minute journey last over an 1hr or the constant disrespect of time (both personally and professionally) or the sometimes over-priced, sub par restaurants? Lagos certainly has it challenges and I will not downplay them.

Some days, it takes me over an 1hr to get to work and sometimes 2 hours to get back home (thankfully I am not driving myself). Having to constantly remind people of an appointment is something I am not used to, but for my sanity, it has become a daily ritual. Knowing that I will not know how my weekend will plan out is another thing…plans change the same way the wind changes direction (but I am enjoying the unpredictability of things here).

What does my life in lagos like? To be honest my weekdays are a little boring (and so they should be, I very much like boring. Staying home, watching tv means so much to me and I am proud to say so). I am either at work, on the netball court or at the gym. Let me digress quickly into my netball sessions. These sessions where near 30 women come together to train and play sports has truly helped my perception of women in Lagos. I have grown to know and like a bunch of smart, intelligent women who to me are simply refreshing to be around (there is a no discrimination, no looking down at anyone here, the air is CLEAN). So, I try to keep my routine during the week simple and tbh I dislike when I am invited for activities during the week (please this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t keep inviting me o lol).

My weekends are a bit more interesting as I try to attend brunches, low key get-togethers, dinners and games nights (I am not about that club life but I can certainly have a good party once in a while lol). When I think about my life in Lagos, I realise that I could have this life anywhere (well aside from anywhere cold – I am not going back to the UK) but I have been more willing to create an ecosystem in an environment which I have chosen as ideal for me. So my love of Lagos I believe has less to do with Lagos itself and more to do with the choice I have made with making this my home and taking every step to ensure that this home is everything and more to me.

So to my most important lesson for you today, the love of anything, anywhere or anyone has not much to do with the thing, place or person but everything to do with you and your personal choice to love it or them.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this. Do you agree and if you don’t, why?

#Sassy

The Lagos Chronicles: “You women are the worst”

Before I received my driving license here in Lagos, I went through a number of hurdles, one of which was an interview style test I had at the test centre (I am sure you will debate whether this exists but it does). I took this test amongst 4 other men. What was interesting to me was the comments made by the test administrator prior to initiating the test. He spent a few minutes talking to us about how women were bad drivers (of course apologizing to me in advance). He said there is no way a woman would allow you to overtake them and how we women were very aggressive and needed to be more courteous on the road.

A few weeks later, I made an attempt to queue up at a Mobil petrol station. I noticed two cars (with male drivers) in front of me (but on the other side of the road) making a turn around. I assumed they were turning to drive off in my direction but it seemed they were also trying to queue up. One made it in front of me, the other didn’t. They went on to give me dirty looks and throw words I couldn’t quite make out, all of which I of course ignored. Anyways fast forward, once we reached the petrol pumps and I stepped out to fill my tank, the guy in front of me at another pump came over to ask why I behaved like that. I asked him why he was being aggressive, he said and I quote “you women are the worst, you are never nice on the road, so aggressive”.

These two experiences and other similar ones I had since I have moved back made me reflect deeper as to why women were perceived this way. I realized that when women are nice or perceived sweet, they are taken advantaged of so women automatically take a defensive approach on the road (I am generalizing by the way). I think this reasoning further applies off the road. I have heard men complain that women are quick to say in regard to relationships “what do you want from me?” or “if you’re not serious about me, leave me alone” or “are we exclusive, if not leave me?” all in a bid to protect themselves. The question is can you blame them? Everyone has a natural instinct to protect one’s self from pain so maybe, just maybe it’s the experiences that we have endured that has “hardened” us. The truth is there is nothing hard about us, dig deeper and you will find that we are soft shells fearful of being taken advantage.

 

“Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.” 
|| Marie Curie

I would love to hear you thoughts on this piece. Can you relate?

Till next time

#Sassy

The LAGOS Chronicles: This thing called trust

I have been back in Lagos for over 2 months now and haven’t really written much about my experience thus far as I wanted to have a better picture of reality (my reality anyways). To be honest my first few weeks were not the best weeks of my time here. Not that there was anything significant made my experience less than pleasant but because I genuinely believed people weren’t that nice. They were not so welcoming.

Coming from business school where my classmates were literally like family to an environment where people barely said hi or met each other with clear reservations unless there were close mutuals of close friends. I literally was battling whether my choice to move was going to be as great as I anticipated. You will be glad to hear that I feel differently than I did before. So to dive into what I have grown to learn here…there is a lack of trust/openness amongst people (perhaps more so amongst women).

I was having coffee on a weekend with a friend and we were discussing this issue of trust. The coffee shop was like a creative space where likeminded open individuals worked. I was pleasantly surprised when a lady interjected into our conversation and a two-way conversation became a three-way one. This I found surprising as Lagos people form (Nigerian slang meaning a little up themselves) too much. We talked about how Lagosian were not themselves and also how they seeked to live the status quo (Apparently, some girls lie they have boyfriends when they don’t…This is a slight distraction so I will leave the topic for another day lol).

What do we gain from thinking we are better than others (not necessary better but maybe thinking people are “not on our level” and as such they don’t deserve our light of day?) To be honest I understand a bit why people “form”, it’s simply a coping mechanism to avoid people from over stepping their boundaries and a distrust of others. The saying “give them a inch and they take a mile” applies very much in the country.

With that said, I still believe we need to be more trusting of others, to be more open, more welcoming because what we could gain is more than anything we could lose. I have gained the best friendships of my life my simply being open. Just because others are untrustworthy doesn’t mean we should meet everyone with distrust. To change the environment we inhabit, we need to stay away from the norm and get to a place whereby we create our versions of the lives we want for ourselves, our community and our country, not the versions laid for us. That is something I am learning to do myself everyday.

 

“To be trusted is a greater compliment than being loved.” || George MacDonald

#SassyFunke – Stay tuned for further posts on my move to Lagos. Let me know if there are any topics/issues you would love to hear about xx

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