On Making Choices

​I walked into my side chic’s salon not being sure how I will be received. I had not been to hers for about seven months and well I had my reason.

Ah! Aunty!! Long time…. ‘You just forget me. She said,looking excited.

No o..Haba…I no fit…I quickly answered while smiling.

Ok. As always, she was happy to see me so I settled in and she started sorting my hair while we continued catching up.

In all fairness to side chic, she is good at her job but I only like to use her for braids, ghana weaving and styles that are close to home. She thinks she’s best of both world but I am convinced braiding is her forte. She is also really affordable and reminds me of those ladies that braid perfectly under the brigde in ikeja. The only difference is that she has a shop, you can watch tv comfortably and she offers you a cold drink when you feel like it. 

Now, main chic is best of both worlds and she knows it. Highly priced and very very good. Her craft is amazing but you also have to spend twice or sometimes thrice the amount of money you spend with the side chic. Main chic gives the VIP service and I go to her salon when I know I would not mind a strain in my wallet. Result is always outstanding.   

Today, as I sat on side chics chair I was glad I had her as an option and did not have to spend so much on hair in main chics salon. I appreciated the beauty of being able to choose especially as the infamous recession has made every supplier/service provider increase price on everything. Side chic increased her price as well but it was still very reasonable.

While thinking about this, I also remembered another sidechic/mainchic issue I knew I had to handle but did not get the time to sort until late december.

As usual, I had a perfect plan to send off some fabrics to main chic. She was to make outfits for the events I had lined up in december. One of the events got moved a week earlier and I knew main chic was definitely going to exploit my ‘express’ situation if I went to her. If you are conversant with Nigerian tailors, ‘express’ is a popular slang they use when your outfit had to be made in a hurry say two to five days. This was always the case with main chic and I. she was the only one and I needed to fix this but the opportunity never came because – no time to hunt a new tailor that can deliver within the time limit. 

I reluctantly set out for main chics shop and guess who found me right in the shopping complex that houses main chics space. I was not even looking. Serendipity!!

My friend!!! Goodafternoon……Do you want to sew? Come and see our styles. She called out.

Not being sure the commentaries were for me, I turned anyway and my eyes fell on some beautifully styled mannequin. It was probably love at first sight because I went in there and did not leave with my fabrics. She became side chic and she was going to make my outfits in time and at a very reasonable price….. recession and all. The outfits were as nice as she promised and better finished than outfits from main chic. I am absolutely contemplating promoting her to main chic….. for cloth affairs that is.

Being able to choose have always been therapeutic for me and this is important because first I have to be able to accept a condition before I can totally work with it. However, if I go ahead to do something I am not comfortable with, the feeling is very nauseating and definitely bad for ‘self-love’ because my happiness is being tampered with. Imagine being annoyed over something you know you could have done differently . Regret is lethal.

We wake up every morning with an opportunity to make changes to things we are not comfortable. Sometimes we do not make these changes because we do not have another option and we continue to do things against our will because ‘na condition make crayfish bend’. While we cannot always be certain about the result of a decision we have made, we can consciously choose our priorities and decide on our term who will handle them or how to handle them. Thereby still being able to control our happiness.

Being tied to a routine or just one service provider can be very addictive and if you always get good value or service, it is sometimes difficult to notice that minute detail that you really should not ignore. The human mind is built to settle in for easy procedures and this is why once we repeatedly get good results from a particular service provider, we get so comfortable and forget to do our checks and balances at intervals which is actually very important.

The typical behaviour is to just stay in our comfort zone until there is a serious need before we find an option B. This attitude is unsafe and does not allow you explore your ability to choose or make decisions effectively. You can only be really certain about an issue when you have weighed different options and can easily fall back on one of the other options if something goes wrong. The reason why we continue to stay with an option even after identifying the ills is because we have not looked for an alternative. Sometimes we need to be pushed to leave our comfort zone.

Being able to choose correctly affects too many of our life progressions from what school or church to attend, to what career to pursue, to a life partner, to the number of kids, to the friends that need to be dropped and to something as little as the tailor who should make your outfits. The feeling that comes with decision making stimulates your sense of responsibility as you have to make choices on the basis of how much you have to spend, friends you will hurt, your emotions, compromises, time limit, distance, risks and benefit, etc

I am also aware that having too many options to choose from can be difficult and time consuming. One might even make mistakes that will lead to remorse and worry but it is important that you organise your activities in a way that the period of ‘testing the waters’ does not halt your present lifestyle. Therefore, you do not choose and implement option  B until you have tested and you trust its result. There is even a chance that option A will start to behave better when he/she is aware there is now competition.

To get effective results from the decisions we make, we must broaden our options to choose from and be proactive. Waiting until plan A fails before looking for an alternative is as dicey as going to the examination hall with just one pen.

Love, Peace and cupcakes

Phaytea ??

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