Greetings my beloved readers I am sure glad to have rid myself of this b*t$h we call writers’ block and have been able to join you once again on blogville. How are we all? I hope you haven’t missed me too much but then again, how could you miss me that much? You are only four. Oops! My bad, I have a new follower. Welcome Nnpia Nua to my emotional sounding board.
Today, I wish to ask humanity a few questions and for once in our very long history I wish to have an honest reply.
· Why do we all strive to become better people when the only thing we get better at is convincing others we are an improved version of what we use to be?
· Why do we yearn to follow the ways of our role models, when the only model they offer are roles they themselves wish they didn’t have to act, but actually live it?
· And why don’t we practise what we preach but condemn the very actions for which we practise when we are not preaching?
The Greek philosopher Socrates once said, the greatest way to live with honour in this world is to become what we pretend to be.
This is an interesting philosophy but I believe many of you would not agree. Your first rebuttal would be, pretending to be what I am not is simply hypocrisy and how could that possibly bring honour. Well, my dear reader this is exactly what I am drawing your attention to today.
He was the perfect role model for the young men in the Church. He turned his first profit when he was 21 and has not looked back since. He is an astute business man, wealthy, handsome and the sole shareholder of one of the new banks in Ghana. He is young and married to one of the most beautiful women I have ever laid my eyes on. I wouldn’t say he is my role model but his sermons of how the younger generation should live a moral free life and the way he insists a true man should always make his word his bond, ignited a desire in me to try and emulate his ways.
So imagine my surprise when yesterday in the process of playing catch up with my old friend Celestine, she hinted she was having an affair with this very man I have just described. Despite the fact that she knew it was wrong, she could not help herself as the lies this guy had fed her, has made her fall so helplessly in love. In her own words “I have never met a 37 year old man who can make such passionate love in the back seat of a jaguar”. Imagine my disgust, my anger and the disappointment I felt.
This man I had paid good Ghanaian Cedis to go listen to whenever he was offering one of his motivational sermons, had turned out not to be whom I expected to be. I had been deceived, I had bought into something that wasn’t real and yet society considered him the knight in shining armour. In my view he was no short of being a grifter.
So in my anger and rage, I began writing about hypocrisy and that’s when it hit me.
- Don’t we all have some skeletons in our closets?
- Don’t we all pretend at one time or the other, covering our true selves at a period when we believed society will frown upon who we truly were?
- Don’t we go through a day without avoiding to tell a single lie but we come home and don’t even realise we had sinned? And if we did, we comfort our souls by saying “it was only a white lie”. When did lies have colours?
- Speaking about colours, in my disappointment I asked myself why life isn’t just black or white but people have to live within the different shades of grey that exist between these two colour spectrums?
Why can’t our yes be yes and no be no?
Before we go off judging Mr. Role model I think we need to take a second look at ourselves. In fact, earlier on today I witnessed a lighter version of hypocrisy when I honoured an Invitation to a Birthday party of a six year old.
Auntie Nancy, the mother of this sweet little birthday girl, in her bid to make the young ones enjoy the party, continued to serve sweets, fizzy drinks and slices upon slices of icing cake. Immediately she took her seat amongst the adult section of the party, she engulfed everyone in a conversation on the dangers of sugar and the effects of diabetes. Huh! What happened to that saying....Charity begins at home. The funny thing is Auntie Nancy is a physician.
So you see, the very fabric of our existence is embedded in the art of Hypocrisy. Why then will we continue to vote for our deceitful politicians when they continue to formulate policies that enshrine hypocrisy in our constitution?
Why do we then continue to hide some skeletons in our closets and then conceal ourselves behind the maxim “the truth shall set you free”?
Why would advertisers and companies for that matter, continue to sell as junk all in the name of good marketing?
So before we go off pointing fingers and accusing people of existing in those shades of grey, maybe we should take a closer look at our lives. It is then that we will realise we live in a misguided world of hypocrites.
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