THE PAID WORKER AND HIS IRON CHAINS

If you are thinking that i am being too graphic with this topic..well maybe you are right but at times like this its appropriate we tell ourselves the truth.
who do i blame for this white collar mentality?? well actually everyone gets a piece of the blame pie , i mean i don't know how you all grew up but when i grew up parents wanted their kids to become doctors, Lawyers, accountants..you know professionals, we lived in our civil servants quarters, with the official cars, furniture was paid by the office, hospital bills, travel allowances i mean to be honest lets face it, having a good government job was fantastic back then, the government took care of its own and so it was not out of place for parents to want their children to follow in their footsteps. I never knew one child who replied "i want to run my own business when i grow up" when asked "what do you want to be when you grow up?" , that was the same era Charles Oputa aka Charly Boy and Fela Anikulapo kuti were respected by the masses but ridiculed by the elite , you see these two musicians had decided to forgo their middle class backgrounds and pursue their passion which was music, and not just any type of music,music that appealed to the masses ( this era was in the 80"s by the way) 20 years later Fela Kuti is a Legend and regarded as one of the most successful African artistes in the world and Charly Boy Oputa has become extremely successful.



If only folks knew how the tides would turn, they would not have broken that piano when their child rebelled at becoming a musician instead of a surgeon or had their sons on consistent curfew when the boys decided they wanted to play football professionally and not be bankers and accountants, many little girls would not have been dragged to church for deliverance when they stomped their foot on the ground crying that they did not want to read Business Administration in the university but wanted to become Actresses (ok i exaggerated just a bit) but you see the picture i am trying to paint right, now footballers are one of the highest paid athletes in the world and don't get me started on how much it is rumored Genevieve Nnaji gets paid per movie , most of us would hide our certificates and run around circles on location if it would get us that kind of salary , the world has moved beyond the suit and tie approach and settled on the service provider model. Bill Gates one of the richest men in the world dropped out of Harvard to start off one of the most successful companies in the world and don't get me started on Mark Zuckerberg we all watched the Social Network i don't know if i was the only one who left that cinema hall feeling like a complete fool with my life ..that 26 years old is a freaking billionaire off selling what we didn't know we needed all along, our self love ...don't start with me, don't tell me you don't screen your pictures like a zillion times before posting them on Facebook and get a slight good buzz whenever someone drops a comment telling you how beautiful and dashing you look (ok is that just me??..wrong post) i meant social networking with intimacy and privacy .

The year is 2011, the recession is biting like a Hyena with its jaws locked on your ass, America's credit rating has just been downgraded from a AAA to AA+, Unemployment is at an all time high, 50,000 people or more are applying for job vacancies that require only 500 people, Entertainers are the new Rich kids, Corruption is everywhere and has taken a firm seat in the Government house (this is not just peculiar to Nigeria by the way), the Arab region is on fire with uprisings everywhere and so the price of petrol keeps on increasing, unemployed youths are picking up arms, the European union is confused, the African union is ...(don't know what that group has been up to?) Financial institutions have shut down leaving a lot of highly skilled professionals jobless , prices of food stuff in the markets keep rising and in Nigeria the Financial sector is now being run like a school with a professor whose marking skills are so subjective you have no idea what is expected of you to write to land an A or F what next now i wonder?

Listen i have a habit, i like to browse through several stuff in my different phases in life so yes i have read some of those motivational books, Rich dad Poor dad, Richest Man in Babylon, Who moved my cheese etc and the underlying message is clear, this is not the time to carry your cap in hands and wait every end of the month for your salary, This is not the time to be a slave to your employer, this is the time to begin to look closely at your hands and discover your hidden talents, imagine if Susan Boyle had decided that the time for her to become a singer had passed and never went to audition for Britain got talent, Imagine if Oprah Winfrey had never believed in herself enough to start off her own show, Imagine if you lose your paid employment today what will become of you??? there is nothing wrong with working for someone do not misquote me, we all have to learn from somewhere, there is equally nothing wrong from winning the best employee of the year, every year and retire with a fat pension but there is equally nothing wrong from removing the iron chains of dependence on your monthly salary from your neck and seeking out other sources of income, even if its a hobby because you never know when that rug comes off from under your feet...i know guys (talk is cheap)..i guess that's why i am writing, i needed my fingers to talk to me as well.