Ask for genuine favours, avoid exploiting others

By MUSYOKA NGUI

Covid-19 pandemic has exacerbated an already bad situation. There are so many job losses and failure to return to normalcy even after a dip in the number of new infections.

Some people store books for the sake of being seen on the shelves. Photo/FILE

However, some mobile phone users have used the idle time to fleece others. Okay, don’t get me wrong. But they have become lazy and thankless.

As a tech-savvy and keen user of the internet, I get complaints from new users happy to be finally on board but their virginity in using the zeros and ones falls into unscrupulous netizens.

So many groups are formed, especially on WhatsApp for various causes and motives.  It is not bad to help although most of the users only remember the friends they are adding to the groups without introduction when they have needs.

You will receive random phone calls from “strangers” who after introduction go ahead and ask for favours.

Yet those long lost friends never bother to contact you when they do not need your help. And as soon as they are assisted, they quickly delete your number until next time.

What happened to honesty? What happened to being satisfied with what you only deserve and nothing more until the giver in their own discretion awards you more gifts?

Someone I won’t name visited a place where they were nostalgic of the better days. Then they called. Yet they never called when they were around where I was. So, because they were haunted by ghosts of the past, they remembered to hit the dial with the proverbial UKO WAPI enquiry.

Prestige

Since I read a lot, I come across readings that can help and I send to those who may bother to care. But it is disgusting for them to ask a question that was answered in those texts which they just stored for prestige.

Yes, some people buy books to store in shelves or to be seen as being avid readers but when you engage them in a discussion about a book you think they read because it visible on their shelves, they come off as not having read the book.

But for the sake of prestige and being seen by others as being knowledgeable, they won’t mind placing the said popular text at somewhere strategic enough for everyone to see that they have curved a niche that is less populated than the one the rest of us are jostling in.

Sometimes, it is important to cut the chase and live within your intellectual realms that are manageable rather than appearing sophisticated.

In the community spirit of Africa, we should be our neighbour’s keepers. A neighbour being not only someone who is located next to you but who is in genuine need not one that is exploitative and mean.