I was thinking this morning...... I attended a training with some colleagues this past week and was discussing how we coped with life in the seventies and eighties. A colleague who became a seafarer at 18 told us how they routinely spend 6 months at sea without phones, video calls, or social media. This was a period when you sent an email, and the shortest time you got a response was 24 hours. How did they even survive those years? How did they not die of boredom?
As he spoke, I reflected on our lives in Warri. How we gathered in the yard to play and wait till 4 pm when TV station resumes. There were no flat screen TVs or video games for us as children. For those lucky enough to have a television, their screen time was no more than 5 hours daily. We didn't die of boredom. Our life was not slow.
Life today is different. Very different. Young people of today live in a bubble. They are the popcorn generation, who wants to change from corn to popcorn in seconds. They live in a fast world, eat fast foods, and drive fast cars except that they do not fast, to strengthen their spirit man.
Oh, the popcorn generation. They say they are socially and upwardly mobile and in a hurry to get rich. The Yahoo gang of that generation spend their time on mobile phones, live in mobile apartments, invest heavily in mobile data and at the end they become guests of mobile police.
For the rest of us that are legit, our lives have become virtual reality. We hold our family and business meetings in virtual spaces. Instead of going on vacation to appreciate nature, we do virtual tours. We spend virtual currency to pay for our kids to have virtual learning. Sadly, we have all become avatars in a virtual world.
When I recently saw my NYSC photo and how my trousers looked like skirt, I knew immediately that the popcorn generation would not understand. Every good thing in life takes time. The radio jingle of old says, "Jeje o, my friend o, no rush life o, you hear. Jeje o, jeje o, take am coolee oo." Where are we in a hurry to? Relax and appreciate life. Ecclesiastes 9:7-9 comes to mind. Be real. Be human. Be alive.
Stay hopeful. God's got our back.
Happy New Month!
......Just the thoughts of a certain Wey Mey