Exposing the Modern-Day Hypocrisy: The Need to Trust Your Guts

Author: Mahmud Bezalel

There is this tradition among Nigerian students called sign-out, where those who have concluded their academic programme wear a white shirt on the day of their last exam. After coming out of the exam hall, this white shirt becomes filled with signatures inscribed by markers from different people, mostly fellow students. 

The beautiful thing about this tradition is that it gives numerous people, especially strangers, the chance to felicitate with you easily. Beautiful tradition, through and through, especially in a country whose leaders try their best to usurp academic importance in the minds of youths. 

It happened that this dude was in a store when a student wearing a sign-out shirt passed. In his bid to share in the happiness, he called out to the person for him to also sign on the shirt, the person obliged and the undergraduate hurried towards the graduate. 

On his return to his initial position, some ladies who were there started deriding him for his actions. Some of them even asked “Were you given anything as you hurried to sign, what is the reward for your enthusiasm to sign?” and all manners of demeaning questions. 

As Kismet would have it, a friend of the ladies who also wore a sign-out shirt passed by the scene, oblivious to the conversation that had just taken place. If a film director had been there, he or she would have been forgiven if they had concluded in their minds that the scene was for a film that no one was aware of. 

Otherwise, what could be the possible explanation for the change in those ladies’ behaviour? For as soon as they saw their friend, they started shouting, screaming and all other loud forms of expressing joy. All of them were eager to sign on the graduate’s shirt, even bickering endlessly over it. 

The young man who had been chastised earlier kept looking for the rewards for signing, as he could see, the graduate was empty-handed. After the signing on shirts and all, the graduates left, and the ladies returned to their original positions too. Unless you count “thank you” as a reward, they got no rewards either. 

Mind you, this is a real event that occurred before the writer’s eyes, not an excerpt from a fictional book by Charles Dickens or Chinua Achebe. 

What is the essence of this story? 

It is becoming more and more glaring that we are living in a world that has been engulfed in an atmosphere of hypocrisy. Online and offline, most people are dishing out advice and admonitions that they themselves do not follow. And for those who are not principled or disciplined enough, it is easy to be misled by this ill-fated advice. 

More so as a creative, there are times when others would make you feel like you have been underpaid for a job or that your works are not as good or as bad as you think.

Often, they might not be following the standards they have set, but in the world we live in today, anybody can claim to be or have anything if they can back it up with faux proof.

In these perilous times, it is becoming more and more obvious that one needs to pay close attention to the friends they have. Mind you, most people cannot discern between friends and acquaintances. (But that is a topic for another day.)

Friends should be able to tell you the truth, knowing that they themselves would do the same thing if they were in your shoes. You can’t see someone doing one thing and then telling you another thing and then believing that that person means well for you (unless, of course, in certain circumstances.)

To wrap things up, this is a solid reminder to not let anyone’s words or actions dictate your actions, especially if you believe you’re doing something right. 

Why? Because they might do more than you or less than you if placed in the same shoes.

It would be an Ignis Fatuus to believe that every advice you receive these days is good-intentioned. Absolutely erroneous. 

Go ALL OUT to achieve your goals, trust your guts! 

Let that be a daily affirmation!