Why is Societal Pressure at an All-Time High?

haywenzo
4 min readJul 21, 2021

Everything is happening so fast these days. Everyone wants to make it at any cost. The pressure on young people to prove a point is a tad too much. Social media is leading a lot of people to depression because they won’t stop comparing themselves to random people they would otherwise never meet. Why are we caving in to society’s ridiculous demands? Why are young men throwing all of their dignity away simply to impress their fellow men as well as women? Why are young women so desperate to be used as someone’s header or profile picture?

I woke up a few days ago and I was uncontrollably angry. Why? I mean, why not? I don’t know if it’s a justifiable reason but the world is full of stupid people. People who are incapable of thinking for themselves. Which is exactly the reason why social media is having an adverse effect on too many folks. And it is a lot worse here in Nigeria. A couple posts a picture on a social media platform and everyone goes haywire because they are “cute”. Nobody ever pauses for a moment to ask themselves if they know anything about the relationship. What many people are concerned about is the ostentation that comes with having a partner that is a good fit for social media.

What actually triggered my anger was the deluge of posts on social media about the burial of Obi Cubana’s mother. For those who don’t know Obi Cubana, he is one of the executives of Cubana group — a hospitality company that provides entertainment services. The first news that got out about the burial was the outrageous amount of cows that were bought. Almost as if for sacrificial purposes. Afterwards, videos of big-bellied men spraying money passionately and recklessly made it to social media. And like it is with most social media trends, everyone lost their shit.

I still find it difficult to understand what is so appealing about spraying money. But I guess that’s not a conversation anyone is ready for. Tweets about becoming wealthy enough to flex for the gram started surfacing. Some people started querying the reason for their existence. Why they weren’t in that kind of position yet. Some even went as far as mocking the career paths they followed because they obviously didn’t see themselves making such money. Then there were the endless jokes about losing your girlfriend to that caliber of men. Jokes about there being levels to sugar daddyism. All of it is hilarious, if not so fucked up.

I’ve always found Nigeria to be a comedy show. For a country that ranks as one of the poorest countries in the world, we are surely too obsessed with the status of wealth. To worsen it all, hardly does anybody want to do anything of value in order to earn money. Instead we are all looking for shortcuts, wanting to get to the top without even using a ladder. Our generation is rife with young men and women who believe that you have to be better than the next person, and for that to happen, you need to make a lot of money. Sometimes, at the expense of another person’s loss. What a shit show.

You meet someone randomly and you engage them in a conversation. You talk about the things you like and don’t like. The conversation steers towards dreams and goals, and before you know it the person is already talking about making so much money so they can buy expensive things without having to check their balance. So they can travel round the world and tension people on Instagram. There’s really no room for introspection. No room for thinking carefully about what you really want. No room for growth. No room for building something of value. They just want money, and more money.

Of course, everyone wants to ball like Obi Cubana. But I can assuredly say that only a select number of people will attain such heights. This is simply because many Nigerians refuse to acknowledge the fact that everything comes with a price. Whether it is legal or illegal, absolutely nothing comes free. Except maybe air. Are you willing to sacrifice whatever it takes to achieve your dreams? Do you have the resilience to go after what you want regardless of the obstacles you encounter?

And for those who cannot be patient enough to go through the process, I hope it doesn’t come back to bite you in the ass. The same goes to those who have long forgotten the passion they wanted to pursue, and are now following that which society considers to be cool. I hope it never gets too late before you realize that no matter how much money you make, it can never fill the void if you don’t have a purpose. I hope you don’t succumb to the pressure of getting married before you find your own person. I hope you are free enough to live life on your terms and not according to how someone thinks you should.

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