WORRY!!! WORRY!!! WORRY!!!

     From the time I was in my mother’s womb,I have been worried. I worried about the fact that my parents were Nigerians and also the type of life they would give me when I was born,I worried about the constant heat that would bleed my skin dry all day long, worried about my mother not understanding what I was saying in baby gibberish and I also  worried about the state of my buttocks because my mum was trying to be economical by using towel nappies instead of dry nappies for me as a kid.

    Wikipedia.org defines worry as thoughts, images and emotions of a negative nature in which mental attempts are made to avoid anticipated potential threats. As an emotion it is expressed as anxiety or concern about a real or imagined situation. (en.wikipedia.org)

Everyone worries ,but an average  Nigerian worries more than every other human being I know.  The things we worry about are determined by our priorities, personality and economic status.

I cannot remember a time when I wasn’t worried about something, even in my sleep.

  As a kid I worried about all sorts of stuff.

 I worried about:

 * What type of Christmas cloth I was going to get.

* If Wale the class bully would to pick on me.

* If my mum would let me play football with my friends.

* How many strokes of the cane Uncle Akuma would spank me with for coming late to school.

* Why I didn’t like stuff other girls liked.

* Why I hated R and B music and only had ears for Michael Jackson and Whitney Houston.

* Why the eba my aunt Ndidi gave us for lunch always had to be as big as a pyramid.

* Why my dad’s eyes got red with tears every time he inhaled snuff.

* When I would go to China to learn Kung Fu.

* If my mum would win the Tom-Tom lottery.

If I would get kidnapped by Gbomo-Gbomo(kidnappers).

* Why I always got beaten by the same person every year in inter-house sports.

* Why my hips were as stiff as a robbot's and couldn’t do the dance moves of TLC like Queen and Adaeze.

    My priorities changed after I got into Kabba and so did my worries,and for the six years I was in secondary school, I worried about;

* How fast my hair would disappear from carrying water for seniors.

* If it was possible to eat stew that had the feet of a cockroach floating on top without any health hazard.

* How long I could keep baba dudu away from myself.

* If bush babies were real or not.

* Why someone three times my size would slap me for stealing her panties if they could never fit my lean frame.

* If violet house would ever win the inter-house sports competition.

* How many times a week my parents would quarrel over mundane things.

* Why I wasn’t getting pimples like the rest of my mates.

* If my crush on Corper Francis was short term or Long term.

* When I would ever get to win a prize on speech and prize giving day.

* If the water I was drinking had the lesser of three demons; shine-shine, frog or dirt.

* How Mr. Awoke ever got a job as a math teacher when we kept correcting him even while solving simple examples.

* Why Mrs. Kolawole married Mr. Kolawole.

* How I could pass my maths exams

    By the time I left Kabba and got into the university, these priorities seemed mundane,new ones developed and my hierarchy of needs changed.  I worried about

how to get past the advances of some sleezy lecturers,how to avoid any course that had to do with mathematics,how to get a boyfriend who was eight years older than I was,and not hormonally charged all the time and who would take care of all my domestic expenses,I also worried about how to get the guy I had been crushing on to become my friend,and also,how to graduate without bribing my project supervisor.

    After I left the university, I was thrown into the realities of the real world immediately, my parents stopped sending me money, my uncles just assumed I had a means of sustainance and I had to start working before I went for my NYSC. My priorities included:

* What to eat when I woke up in the morning.

* How to budget my salary in such a way that it took me through.

* How to spend on toiletries.

* How many people had to be deleted off my blackberry phone.

* The type of man I wanted as a life partner.

* How many times I had to be disappointed to finally get appointed.

* How to keep my relationship with Jesus Fresh and constant.

      Nigeria is a very difficult place to live in, this is why people take thanksgiving so seriously because they know that the fact that they are able to see a new month without dying of hunger, or being evacuated from their homes,or being laid off from their place of  work, etc. is a miracle in itself, so we thank God and ask him in faith to do it again for us next month.

  My father worries so much that he got a baldhead before he was thirty-three years old and white hair by the time he was thirty-eight. My dad worries about so many things that it’s like I have to capture the moment when he is relaxed enough to smile. He worries about paying rent both for his shop and at home, he worries about paying school fees, buying books, buying cloths, paying off his debts, sending money to those in the village, the food we are going to eat each day, the type of future we are going to have… It’s not surprising anymore to find my dad turning when he is sleeping because he worries about his children even when he is resting.                                 Most married men worry about their family first, how to keep their jobs and how to take care of the family in the village. My mum worries that she is getting older, she worries about all the things she hasn’t tried out yet, she worries about how many different types of food we are able to cook for our future husbands, she worries if they will be catholic like us, she worries about when I will start acting like a lady, about how many native wears she is able to sew each month and the type of cloths she has to pack to make a fabulous impression for the annual August meeting in the village.

   Right now, I worry about ;Getting a job, I worry about dying unfulfilled,marrying a man I will wake up ten years from now being bored with and unhealthily jealous about all the women I suspect him of having extra marital affairs with,how many lives I can affect,not being able to express myself like I want to,

If i am an hypocrite,if I will make heaven, hell and rapture,that Manchester united will not win the premier league this season,if Nigeria will experience a heat wave soon.

When I will go to Japan to see the skyscrapers and admire the view?

If i will ever be enough.

Finally and most of all, I worry about when the political thief, became a charismatic hero.

 Most of my friends who are women within my age group worry about heaven, marrying early and the future, while men within my age group worry first about their families, getting a job and settling down with the right woman. These are examples of what a few of my friends worry about;

 Nicholas worries about not having enough sex, not giving enough pleasure to women and his family,

Okechukwu worries about money, and how to get a the perfect poison to kill Nani.

Kike worries about not making it in life, getting bored with marriage and getting fat.

Augustine worries about inequality, poverty and employment.

   Poor people living in my area in Lagos worry about;

* Poverty and if it will kill them  before hunger does.

* Where to get the best deals on hand me downs.

* If their kids will end up like them

* How to keep their children away from yahoo yahoo .

* The best public schools they can send their children to.

   The Rich ones there worry about;

* How quick August can arrive so they can travel to London for summer break.

* Which Highbrow schools to enroll their children.

* Why the building they are erecting in the village isn’t coming along quickly.

* If their kids will be professionals in a field or administrators.

* How to get the latest tech gadget that was just released.

* How much money would be enough bribes to get the new contract from a government agency.

   You can never get too high up to forget to worry as a Nigerian, because you know someone lesser is far worse off than you. WHERE ONE MAN’S PROBLEM ENDS, THAT IS WHERE ANOTHER PERSON’S OWN BEGINS.

We never stop worrying about everything, but that does not mean that there are things that we cannot be thankful for, all you have to do is look at the person next to you, count the lines on his forehead and realize you are better off than others!!!