PAPERING IT OVER

The other morning, a young friend of mine came to visit. After pleasantries and stuff, I asked about his girlfriend – one in whose company he had visited me on two occasions at least. He dismissingly said I should leave girlfriend matter; that money was his prime pursuit now.
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Providentially, about an hour earlier, just before he called to ask if it was okay to stop by at my place that early in the morning, I’d woken up to a realization that had been pretty much me; pretty much my disposition to life… to relationships… to everything that matters.
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I’m a man of few words, but I’ve realized it’s not a good trait in every sense. Some of us keep mum, and wait for money to be available to do the talking for us. Money talks, bullsht works; but how can we trust work done by bullsht?!
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You see, my friend is struggling financially, so he wants to keep away from relationships, from people… because he ‘can’t shout’. If there were money, he would comfortably have a girl around; and if there happened to be any friction, he would throw money at it.
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Somewhere there’s a mom who’s been having recurrent back aches. Every time the son is visiting and the topic comes up, his mind goes to that contract that could click any minute. His mom should just wait and see: he would take her to the best hospital!
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While he is hoping, his mom misses out on the simple sorry he could have told her. A simple massage given with care and attention; soothing words; reviewing her daily routine; implementing your own intuitive physiotherapy – these will go further than money.
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My friend tells me that when he’s flat, there’s a lady friend of his whom he could just talk to, and she would square him some cash before he even finishes asking. But what do they both want from each other? I tell him they’re papering it over.
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If she stifles communication with money, how awkward it will be for the two of you on the day it happens that she’s also flat! At least she should let you finish asking. At least you two should carry on a conversation about being broke for a while… about hopelessness, about short and long term economic fears… before money is eventually produced.
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Do not paper over your life and relationships with money. Most Nigerian men are so embarrassed by financial malaise that they postpone basic coexistence until money comes. It’s the male alter ego. He’s sweet when he has his top job, but sneaks away when he loses it. Simply means he wasn’t really sweet ab initio!
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When you’re on top of your game, communication gaps are not perceived, because of the numerous activities that money can command. But when you’re at your wits’ end, it’s pretty clear.
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In primary school pupils are not necessarily taught mechanized agriculture; they’re taught the basic principles of making a heap, planting a seed, and watering it. Every farmer ought to know these basics; mechanization is for ease, scale, speed. You can call it a luxury.
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We ought to know how to keep the people that matter to us in our lives, and live happily with them. We should already be cheerful and smiling and living without money; money is for flattery, for laughter. Like they say in job circles, it is an added advantage.
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I say to my friend who’s on the borderline between 26 and 27, I thought you had found something you would want to keep, how thoughtlessly have you discarded it! Pursuit of money is very important, but if you have a girl who genuinely listens when you talk, and to whom you listen as well, money not replacing or interrupting your communication flow… I think you should prize that.
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Not that he’s a novice and didn’t have defenses… so it was kinda like an argument. I argue a lot, but after every argument, I go away seriously pondering all that I was told. Sometimes I gain new insight and yield, but my ‘adversaries’ don’t have to know. They too ought to ponder what they heard; so I’m hoping my friend did.
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If we’re deadwood when we’re broke, and active when we’re paid, then we’re papered over. Much like most mass houses in Abuja… poor foundation, poor block work, poor plastering, but excellent painting. When you see them you say wow. If only you knew!
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There are people who are genuinely fond of each other, but like the Magi they’re watching the alignment of the economic stars to determine whether they should embark on journeys of commitment. Well, this may be the part of that journey where money is more a disadvantage than a plus. Make your heaps, plant your seeds… you would have done your part. The rains aren’t up to you.
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God is our helper, handing us bricks, mortar, paint as we erect the structures of our lives. He’s probably delaying to hand us the paint, perhaps because there are skewed bricks in our wall… perhaps because our plastering is undulating. He doesn’t want us glossing it all over with paint.
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If the carpet that is our money is pulled up, will character be found underneath? Is our carpet an enhancement of a good and well done floor, or is it merely concealing shoddy masonry?
So take the delay in handing you the carpet as an opportunity to redo your floor.
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As the twilight of 2016 is upon us, let us go out in twos, threes, fours… Let us sit on short fences and watch the sunset. Honestly, I think that ‘Crossover Night’ isn’t the only program fitting for year end. We escape real interpersonal and communal introspection, and go and scream away in church.
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Then couples arrive home hoping that their time in church would have swallowed up their unvoiced discomfitures. And they saunter into every New Year unchanged, unimproved.
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Go sit with him, with her, at dusk, watch the sunset. Take on your tale, and amend it. Those inadequacies you want money to hide, rework them… So that you’re not looking up to money to hide your ugliness, let it enhance your beauty.
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Best wishes for 2017, guys!