Yemisi says…A mile in my shoes!
For those of you who don’t already know, I love shoes…
Ever since I was a little child they have fascinated me. I love them with or without heels, with bows and buckles and sparkle and shine, and every colour of the rainbow – and even some that aren’t. I love the smell of new leather, the architecture of an unusual pair and the comfort of a well worn, old and trusty pair.
Sometimes a beautiful pair of shoes I want really, really, really! badly won’t fit, and I leave the store sad and dejected. Just like in Life, we may want something really, really, really! badly, and it may look great, but just may not fit where we are right now.
Occasionally, I will refuse to let them go, and buy them a size too small and spend my time mincing around uncomfortably, fitting a hexagonal peg into a round hole. Much like we find ourselves in places we ought not to be because we were hasty and couldn’t wait for the right opportunity to come along.
And other times the ones that are in my size are not quite what I want, but I buy them anyway. Sometimes I come to love them, sometimes I don’t, but I always have something to keep my feet out of the dirt. Just like the things that come to us in life may not be exactly what we envisioned – maybe you thought your husband when he finally arrived would be taller or richer; or the job, after waiting so long would be more prestigious, pay more, or wouldn’t eat up all your time. But hey, sometimes you come to appreciate what you thought you didn’t want. And maybe sometimes you don’t, but at least you are not left with nothing at all…
I have bought some beautiful shoes! Crafted with absolute precision, made from the finest materials, cost an arm, a leg, a kidney and a pancreas, but HURT LIKE CRAZY!!! You step out in them and everyone “ooohs” and “ahhhhs”, (apart from those throwing eye-daggers of envy at you that would kill you within 50 paces if they were real). Music stops playing, and cars screech to a halt when you show up in them, but wearing them for more than ten minutes can leave your “little piggies” screaming for release. (if only toes could talk…)
Similarly, other people’s lives may look beautiful, perfect and pristine, but only if you walk a mile in their shoes would you understand the pain, hardship and misery they truly endure while projecting to the outside world that “Life is good.”
Now my shoes have to earn their keep. I love to walk, so they have to be strong and last a long time. Nigerian roads are not known for being uniformly smooth and well paved, so my shoes have to endure sticks, stones, pebbles, rocks, potholes, puddles, roadkill, human, animal and mineral “substances,” et al. Sometimes I lose a heel, sometimes the glue comes unstuck, and sometimes I fall into a puddle and spoil the leather (for people who are well acquainted with my clumsiness, this happens more often than you’d think…), but a trip to the shoe maker to fix the heel, re stick the glue and reinforce the leather can be all it takes for the shoe to have a new lease on life…
We too have to endure the valleys, obstructions, distractions and rainstorms of life. Circumstances and people will test the limits of our endurance every single day. But we must be able to take a beating, and somehow find the strength to keep going and last as long as it takes for things to change…
And as much as I love new shoes, I also love my comfy, well worn, tatty shoes. The ones I’ve had for three hundred years and my face pushes me to wear sometimes because they’re literally falling apart. Stitching has come undone, they’ve changed colour and the soles have become diagonal or the heel caps have come off completely so I sound like a tap dancer every time I walk across the room. And yet, I find it hard to chuck them out, clear out the clutter, to let them go, to consign them to the cemetery of shoes…
Just like in life, there are things; physical, psychological and ideological, as well as people, that no longer “fit” in our lives. Yet we cling to them so tightly, refusing to move forward, refusing to let go, because they are comfortable, instead of cleaning out the junk, and allowing ourselves to attract the right things and the right people….
And you thought they were just shoes….
Yemisi says…The fast and the furious!
The Fast and the Furious
This is Lagos!
Where everything runs at the speed of light; “fast fast”, “sharp sharp” and “now now” are everyday lingo, and everyone seems to be rushing somewhere.
Impatience levels here are extremely high and everyday interactions can trigger fistfights and intense arguments. Queuing at a petrol station or being stuck in one of our legendary traffic jams can become an exercise in creative and highly colourful verbal and physical abuse, as everyone tries to get ahead unfairly and unjustly, possessed by a spirit of one-upmanship that makes cars maliciously speed up to cut you off when you indicate to move into their lane. After all, don’t you know my time and my destination are much more important than yours? Who do you think you are??? Do you know who I am???
I’ve always wondered what makes us so angry and crazy in this amazing and complex town that’s been described as “New York on crack.” The land of fast talk, fast money, fast cars, fast women and faster deals. My mom used to blame it on the heat, and the amount of pepper we consume. Well, that’s one theory. I think its because Lagosians have forgotten where we came from. No-one knows how to just be anymore. We are so caught up with “life” that we’ve forgotten how to really live…
The microwave lifestyle is a sign of the times. Once upon a time Africans used to pride ourselves on having some incontrovertible values:
Being our brother’s keeper…
Believing it takes a village to raise a child…
Looking out for each other…
Granted, it has not all been songs and roses, but all in all we’ve been thought to have more of a sense of community and caring than that which exists in the western world, where your eighty year old next door neighbour can be found dead in her flat after three weeks, but only after someone complained about the smell coming from her house and commented on the collection of full milk bottles on her doorstep.
But we have now become followers of the “Cult of Me,” which advocates getting ahead at all costs, pushing and elbowing people out of the way. Using others as a stepping stone to climb the ladder; being concerned only about “my” time, “my” work “my” bills, “my” family, “my” things; striving to have more of “all”, if there is any such thing, and faster than ever, employing anger, aggression and disrespect to get it.
We want it now, don’t waste our time.
Having an alternative view or hankering for the old order of things may make one seem radical at best, or just plain stupid. A Johnny Just Come. A “mumu,” whose “eye never open.”
I live in the middle of the chaos of this awesome, frenzied city. But I aim to learn to stop and really see people and things instead of just glancing at them; to learn to be content, and not accumulate empty things harder!better!faster!more!!!; to really feel things instead of just hopping from one experience to the next in the search of the next big thrill…
I want to slow down, so I can intensify my experience of the beauty of life amidst the chaos of Lagos living…
I want to be in the eye of the storm. Could use some company…
YS
Yemisi says…
EwellAfrica would like to introduce you to a new blogger! Welcome Yemisi Sawyerr.
Yemisi Sawyerr is a Nigerian HR Practitioner whose great love affair with words began at a very early age. With too many opinions she can’t keep to herself, she writes to share her perspective on the world, life, shoes and everything in-between.
Yemisi will be writing bimonthly and she has great insights to wellness matters concerning the spirit and the mind. Look for her blog and get inspired, informed and empowered.
The fear factor.
I often imagine fear as a person…
On a day to day basis, usually a seemingly benign, well intentioned, unpaid yet ever present person walking around behind me all day and night – kind of like a bodyguard – telling me all the things that can go wrong with the decisions I plan to make.
“Don’t let your guard down, this person will only hurt you,” “Don’t go to that dinner, get together/party; you’re not as accomplished as everyone there and you’ll only feel out of place and inferior,” “Don’t start that business, it will only take time away from the job you have now, and that’s safe and comfortable and stable,” “Don’t take that risk, because you never know something terrible might happen.. you know my advice is only for your own good, I’m only looking out for you, I don’t want to see you hurt or disappointed, ” it says.
It’s easy to listen to the voice sometimes. Cloak yourself in the comfort and sameness and stability it seems to provide. Reducing your life to a 5 by 10 foot box where everything is controlled and predictable and life is a black and white movie with no soundtrack…A meal without flavour is still a meal after all…It will provide nourishment and sustenance, but absolutely nothing else…
But when the really big decisions and opportunities come, I imagine fear as an armed bandit, pointing a gun at my head with the safety off, trying to rob me of my dreams before I have even dreamed them, my vision before I’ve even seen it, and my desires before I can articulate them. This manifestation of fear is aggressive, persistent and adamant and only shows up when we sense we are about to birth something big, bringing with it its no less insidious cousins, Doubt and Insecurity to complete the wet work and chop up the vestiges of our resolve with pickaxes…
It’s the one that shows up when you discover a God given gift of writing and tells you loudly when you’re building your confidence and honing your skills…
“You better stop wasting your time; nobody wants to hear what you have to say.”
When you meet the man/woman of your dreams:
“You know you have all these issues. You’re too needy/aggressive/argumentative/manipulative/insecure… (please feel free to add your own adjective) to make this relationship work, you better end it now before it gets messy and you sabotage it ….”
When you’re building the confidence to change your lifestyle, your job, your priorities:
“Who are you kidding?? You have no willpower!! You’ll never be able to sustain this!! You better quit while you’re ahead. ”
For all its ability to disguise itself as “caution” and “self preservation,” This I know to be true:
Fear is an enemy
There is nothing worse than being held hostage by your own fear. Every vision to better yourself viciously kidnapped at birth. To be paralysed, forced into inertia by voices in your own head making you afraid to “do” and to “be.” Missing out on a life full of colour and music, existing always at the level of “potential”, never fully coming in to your own and manifesting your talents, abilities, visions and dreams…
Fear is a cold blooded murderer of the spirit. A premature reaper of destinies… An author and finisher of regrets… As with all enemies this one can only be defeated one way…
Face it and Fight.
Fear thrives on silence. The voices are in our heads and expect to stay there, manning the controls that cause us to apply the brakes on our lives before we can manifest the gifts inherent in us.
How do I fight? I talk to God. I read His love letter to me, and He says He hasn’t given me the spirit of fear. But of Power, Love and a Sound Mind. I confess it, I speak it. I am learning to answer the voices with the Sword of the Spirit when they tell me I can’t/I won’t/I shouldn’t.
I fight them and speak them into silence. I write them into silence. I am choosing everyday, one day at a time to believe the opposite of what they say. They have stolen too much, its time to get it back…
It’s a long battle, one I will probably have to fight all my life. But I won’t give up. And I am not alone.
Bring.It.On.
My life will not be a pirated copy of the original
I choose to live it in Technicolor…