THE THINGS WE HANKER AFTER!

Thanks to SKYPE I have almost daily conversations with my family. Thankfully my dad is a night owl so I have caught him at odd hours and had wonderful conversations. Now how does this relate to the topic of my blog post. Well you see my dad was talking to me about the things we spend so much time pursuing and how the passage of time renders them useless, inept, out of fashion and downright laughable.

He told me the story of how his parents came back home one day excited after purchasing a Peugeot 403. Has anyone ever heard of this model?:) Anyway what were the most exciting features of this car? It had triplex glass instead of real glass as windshields. This meant that if your Pigot( pronounced naija style) was involved in an accident, the glass would not shatter and cut you! It also had an electric trafficator!( I am guessing these are lights) LOL! Prior to this if you were driving and needed to turn left or right, out popped a mechanical arm to indicate what direction you were about to turn. I am sure you can see how ludicrous this concept of the latest Peugeot sounds. It had no carpets, air conditioning, no radios, what made it the latest model was its shatter proof windshield and trafficator!

It is amazing how quickly things go out of fashion and the once latest model of anything becomes outdated and certainly not chic. I remember when I was in elementary school the 'Santana' by Volkswagen was the latest car. If you go out today and buy a brand new santana you would probably be thought to have addled mental faculties. So why then do we strive so hard to acquire the latest things? Why is having the latest computer or blackberry the unconscious but all consuming drive of our lives. THINGS will pass away. I once heard someone lament that his daughter laughed at him because he took typing classes! In those days, typing was for those interested in secretarial studies or had administrative duties or were journalists. These days, children learn to type as soon as their little fingers can hit the keys. Time changes the importance we place on things.

Yearning after material things never brings the satisfaction we humans crave. There are more important things in life than driving the latest cars or owning the latest gadgets and living in what is considered the lap of luxury. Whatever happened to our ability to love, care and cherish the people around us? People whose lives will be made richer because they happened to know us, people who will forever cherish our memories! People who may forget what car we drove ten years ago but will never forget that good deed we did that changed the course of their lives. There are children to adopt, children to sponsor, people who need an encouraging word/smile, people who need just a meal to convince them that they are as human as the rest of us. Touch a life today, make a difference, forget the rat race for no one is a winner on that particular track!

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