I propose we start by declaring 6 days of the week National ‘Selfless Days.’
By Maryamu Aminu
August is the month of long lazy days and warm evening breezes.
It also anniversary month of Heirs Holdings, and you will have seen other articles and photo montages relating to this event in this month’s issue of our magazine. So, all this talk about anniversaries has got me thinking. Anniversaries are of course a time for celebration. But they are also a time of reflection, when one can look back and assess accomplishments we’ve achieved, choices we’ve made, directions we’ve taken and how we’ve evolved, both as a corporate entity and as individuals.
In the last 20 years, there has been a proliferation of self-help books to help with self-examination and self-improvement. However, in recent years, the concept, on account progress in technology, the concept of self-reflection seems to be giving way to a new fascination with our literal self-reflections.
I’m speaking of the world’s current obsession with Selfies!
While selfies were intended to free us of the necessity of stopping strangers on the street, on the beach or in front of monuments with a request to take photos of ourselves and our companions, they have come to represent the permission and imperative to only make ourselves celebrities in our own lives and the lives of people who know us. This has also created a new culture of self-inflicted and peer pressure to make ourselves the center of our universe ALL day, EVERY day. And sadly, this new cultural revolution has delivered galleries of what is effectively the same picture-me-looking-in-my-bathroom-mirror, or me—just-having-my-makeup-done, or me at my desk at 9:00 a.m., 9:15 and 9:30, me in this morning’s outfit, me and my lunch, me on a jet, in front of a jet, me looking at a jet in a magazine, me spending much of my outing with my friends or on my smartphone showing you how much fun I’m having with my friends.
Basically, ME, ME, ME!!!
Even as I write this piece, I am sitting here watching my smart colleagues interrupt their working day to indulge in a selfie photoshoot.
There seems to be no end to this nightmare and no one is calling this pandemic a global emergency that deserves both individual and collective responses! Where is the UN on this? Where are the sanctions for the repeat offenders and the vaccines to inoculate the next generation from this scourge? As we spend our time focused on our reflections, we’ve forgotten that the Zika Virus is making its way to a mosquito near us, that climate change is cooking the planet and Donald Trump, the living embodiment of self-obsession is inching closer to getting access to the US nuclear arsenal which with just one 140-character insult designed to breach his thin-skin could be unleashed on millions. Now, how do we bring this spiral into an apocalyptic mess to a screeching halt?
I propose we start by declaring 6 days of the week National ‘Selfless Days.’ On Selfless Days, selfies are totally banned. On Selfless Days people have to take time out to think of what they bring to the very situations, moments or events that they usually like to photograph themselves in. And on Selfless Days, there is no chance that anyone votes self-centered bloviating windbags President of the street corner acapella group, much-less President of the United States of God Help Us All!
And in the spirit of practicing what one preaches, I’ve had some time to self-reflect on this piece and have come to the conclusion, that selfies may not be the harbinger or cause of a coming apocalyptic hell scape. In fact, selfies may not be at big of a deal at all, and I can probably just ignore them.
Upon further reflection, I probably shouldn’t submit this piece. But, I’ve got a deadline to meet and no time to write anything else so “SEND.”
