LOSING YOURSELF

LOSING YOURSELF

And at that instant I realized I had lost the real me. The person I was, was long gone and I couldn’t recognize the person in the mirror. It all happened so fast, I had just graduated from secondary school with an overall excellent result and dad was the proudest father on planet Earth. Dad said I could ask for anything I wanted but that wasn’t going to be easy considering there were so many things I wanted so I asked to be surprised and I was. Dad had bought me a smartphone not just any smartphone but the coolest of them. I was amazed; I quickly switched my chip from my now old and ugly phone to the new one. I really can’t remember what became of my old phone.

My new phone became my best friend, I would be in my room all day with my phone, I was on every social media that ever existed and I downloaded every application that was in vogue. Gradually, I started pulling away from my actual friends, my siblings complained that I never hangout with them and that I rarely did chores anymore. Mum and Dad complained too but I didn’t care because I was happy in my own world well at least that was what I thought.

Seven months later my phone was stolen, it was like an important part of me had just been stolen, I was traumatized and I locked myself up in my room for days. I felt lonely, I reached out to my friends but they had moved on and my siblings, well they had adapted to a life without me. It hurt so much, in just seven months I had lost my so called smartphone, my friends and my siblings.

Someone once said you never cherish what you have got until you lose it. The world has developed and man has evolved yet every step forward moves us ten steps backwards. We are gradually losing sight of the things that really matter; we are beginning to replace the valuable things with the worthless things of life. Technology is advancement, development, growth it’s meant to make life easier for man not take away life from man. We need technology, we need to keep up with the world but the world is constantly changing, in the meantime family and friends will always be there, they make us who we are and they form  a real part of our lives.

We need to realize that there is a thin line between things and people and if we are not careful, we could misplace our priorities. People and relationships form part of our basic necessities and just like in the Bible, man wasn’t created to be alone. So let’s take time to reflect, when finally we get to that point in life when we lose our memory, when are hair turns grey and our teeth can no longer chew, only our loved ones and the relationships we have built during our life’s journey can keep us going. Losing our loved ones to the not so important things of life while we can still create wonderful memories with them will cost us so much more when we no longer can.

The things of this world are beautiful and we ought to enjoy them but let’s not miss out on the priceless gifts of life while enjoying the material things.

                                  Written by: Onyinye Mbata