Adanna Elechi: All Of Us Are Packaging

Years ago, before the coming of social media on the scale it is on right now, a few people in your school or street or even your office might have made you feel like you weren’t doing well enough. It didn’t really matter because one or two people out of the seven billion people on earth cannot oppress you to the point of feeling like a failure or in extreme cases have you consider suicide.

Now social media has brought all the tensioners and oppressors from different schools, offices, and streets and put all of them in your home feed. It feels like you cannot avoid them. You are afraid to post your own pictures because when you look at how perfect theirs are you tell yourself, “I no reach.” Everybody seems to have it all together; from relationships to fashion to shapeless bank accounts to a banging body, and you can only dream about to how happy they always are. Every day someone is building a house or buying a 2019 Brabus but you can barely afford to feed. But are these things enough to lead you into depression?

Why do you let strangers tension you so much? Let us analyze this and talk about why you shouldn’t feel less than yourself because of people you don’t know. I have some questions to ask you, answer them honestly and tell me how you feel after. Leggo!

1. How many times have you typed ROTFLMAO with tears pouring down your cheeks?

2. Have you ever rocked your ‘bend down select’ aka okrika aka second-hand clothes so well you looked like Kim K or at least another fine celebrity on the gram?

3. Have you ever posted a picture of you with your plate in front of you in a fancy restaurant like that is where you eat 3 times a day, 7 days a week?

4. Have you ever visited a very beautiful place and had your mate take a million pictures of you that you post every other week with “take me back” as a caption or at least a hashtag?

5. Have you ever fought with your partner but still booed up like Ella and with ‘Better’ blasting in the background on Snapchat?

6. Do you have club snaps of you dancing and singing like you were born just to turn up but you’d rather be in bed hugging your pillow or teddy bear?

7. Do you know your good angles or nah?

If your answer is yes to most of them, then why do you think other people are not doing the same things as you? Why do you feel their lives are perfect and yours isn’t? Stop tensioning yourself because all of us are packaging! What I am trying to say in essence is that nobody has it all. You may be packaging in a different way and they are packaging in their own way. You buy things and you know there are different types of packaging materials.

It is possible you are still in the kpekere polythene phase, don’t look at the people in the tin plantain chips level. Growth is a gradual process and if that is what you aim to be then it is all good and fine but make sure you have content because all that packaging is nonsense if the content is trash. Sometimes the polythene kpekere tastes better than the plantain chips in fancy containers so work on yourself.

This article was inspired by Khloe and Tristan’s drama. She has the perfect life in most people’s eyes including mine. We wish we were her, but with all that money, fame, beauty, she could still be cheated on and publicly embarrassed by the father of her child like that. So all I am trying to say is that you should never envy anybody to the point where their material or physical possessions make you feel like an underachiever because to be honest nobody has it all.

Now repeat after me: “I am enough! I won’t let any stranger on social media make me feel like a loser. I am doing enough, I am working hard to achieve my goals and live out my dreams. One day I will own all the things I need and want. Own o, not borrowpose for the people. I will never ever envy anyone again! So help me God.”

As for people who don’t know what kpekere is, it is plantain chips, but not the beautifully packaged ones.

Photo Credit: Dreamstime