My environment and I
Greetings, people!🙌
To be truthful, the environment in which we find ourselves has a way of influencing almost every aspect of our lives, but I strongly believe these influences work with the will of our lifestyle.
I live in one of the busiest spots in my city, a place where nighttime seems like a hot afternoon due to the ever busy Lounge in the street. The busy lounge has influenced almost everything, especially the goods in stores and services from entrepreneurs around.
It's a very common thing in Lounges in Nigeria. A large percentage of people that patronize those places are mostly people who are stinking rich, people who don't haggle prices before they buy commodities.
These are the types of people that often visit our area, and it has greatly pushed up the cost of livelihood. The entrepreneurs there have used the extravagant lifestyles of the people that come around to influence their sales.
The thing is that I wasn't brought up in a party lifestyle, and this has made me blind to the tempting things happening.
There were times that some of my acquaintances in the street tried pulling me up to visit the lounge; they would come with words like, "This is our street; let's go and feel ourselves with what's happening" and "I know you don't take alcohol; they have soft drinks there; just a bottle would do."
I would smile and dodge the invites because there's no way that one will enter the lounge without spending. No way!
There was a day one of my clients came in the night to pay for a service I rendered. After he gave me money, I waved the notes on the air and jokingly told him that I'd use this money to go and chill in the lounge. The man laughed and said, "Do you think this N5,000 will amount to anything in that lounge? You better go and sleep. Yes, go and sleep because it's late"
He said the truth: N5,000 is just nothing when used to enter the lounge. This is the same N5,000 that will give me a good pot of soup if i use it to prepare food.
The only way I've been coping with the high cost of living there is that I make most of my purchases in the main market, which are cheaper. I buy them in bulk, too.
For services like barbering my hair, I have a fixed barber who treats me considerately.
See how fresh the green plants are 😍
The only thing I enjoy in the area is the surrounding nature. The area is a newly found site (developing area). Apart from the noises, the back of the lounge has nice scenes of green leaves from plantations, and I love to visit there often.
Most times, when I want to go out and I feel like walking, I usually pass through the bushy areas to feed my eyes with the scenes.
I was brought up in the village, and I'm very used to plants and trees, so whenever I see a farm, it reminds me of how we used to enjoy the peaceful villa.
A just weeded cassava farm. You don't see this often 😍
Those green plants have a way of relieving the mind from stress.
Thanks for reading
This is in response to #KISS prompt
All images used are mine