The good, the bad and the ugly
The future will not wait for anyone. Its undertow will drag you and me, ready or not, along. The good and the bad and the ugly thing is that the future is already here. The fast pace at which the world not only changes but mutates as well is frightening but also pleasing. It all […]
The future will not wait for anyone. Its undertow will drag you and me, ready or not, along. The good and the bad and the ugly thing is that the future is already here. The fast pace at which the world not only changes but mutates as well is frightening but also pleasing. It all depends.
Sometime back, the word was that Nigeria was the happiest nation on earth. I heard that from many sources and I always thought that it was one of those self-serving coping mechanisms such as the whole “giant-of-Africa” pop culture sentiment Nigerians flaunt to sleep better at night.
Then I stumbled upon a well-researched book, “The Discovery of Happiness” edited by Stuart McCready which cited Nigeria and a certain Caribbean nation, I cannot remember, as the happiest countries on earth. That is despite the material destitution we have in common.
The book traces the history of happiness in Western and Asian societies using religion and philosophy as a basis for analysis. It analysed Hindu, Buddhist, Judaic, Christian scripture plus Greek philosophical points of views on contentment and happiness – and how those ancient views can be applied to achieve maximization in one’s life in the present day. Apparently, happiness is a state of mind that can only be achieved through internal self-maximisation, contentment, dignity and selfless concern for the welfare of others.
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Although, religion, relationships, democracy, prestige, love, and even artificial drugs can help achieve happiness on a short term basis—it is self-awareness, contentment, selfless concern of others which are the true first steps of achieving happiness.
But Nigeria has since lost that touch, and for all I know, it is the most depressing country on earth today. The things you see or hear should be things you only see and hear in horror flicks. From the dozens who perish in blazing infernos periodically while trying to scoop petrol from tankers involved in accidents to those who die gruesomely at the hands of sadistic rural bandits and to the almajirai burnt alive in their sleep after a fire started in the middle of the night.
In most towns and cities in northern Nigeria, the night does not only belong to prowlers. It belongs to men and especially women with sad stories on how they and the kids they left at home have not eaten the entire day. These days, you can hardly tell almajiri apart from innercity kids begging for food or some change to buy kuli-kuli for the garri they carry with them to make it edible.
The good and the bad and the ugly thing is that the future is here. And that is the reason, perhaps, Nigeria now ranks low on happiness. The good thing is that the grind it takes for development to occur is a vector for depression—a friend cites the examples of Far Eastern countries, places that are quite probably the most depressing places on earth. Japan and South Korea and to some extent China for instance are First World countries but they rate very low on the happiness scale.
A study I came across compared the mental health of young people in all three countries mentioned—Japan, South Korea, and China. Their mental health was measured by the Ochanomizu University Health Examination, which includes mental health scales composed of somatic symptoms, eating disorders, depression, interpersonal relationships, powerlessness, and impulsiveness; self-resilience; familial relationships; friendships; a feeling of gloom during the previous month; current well-being; and counseling.
The results of this study were as follows: first, the Japanese experienced more difficulties in interpersonal relationships and experienced more feelings of powerlessness than Koreans and Chinese. Koreans were vulnerable to somatic symptoms and impulsiveness, whereas the Chinese experienced more depression than Koreans and Japanese. Second, more females were in the poor mental health group than males. Third, Japanese females ranked the lowest of all groups for the Resilience Index scores. Fourth, when in need of counseling, they solicited advice for their problems, and asked for advice from friends regarding problems or worries about peer and family relations. However, a number of them received no counseling for their troubles.
The bad thing is that this is perhaps the route we will also have to take to make something of ourselves, to finally get ourselves out of the doldrums of despair. And that means we must prepare for the ugly.
The future will not wait for us. In developing countries, increased complexity of policies and programmes as well as shortened development cycles, and heightened expectations of quality will create major challenges at all the stages. As the issues surrounding the happiness, or lack thereof illustrate, there will be exciting improvements in the methodologies of model-driven development to meet many of our challenges. Even though the prevalent development practices are still immature, tools that embody MDD will eventually be incorporated in large-scale development programs.
There may be reason to hope for significant improvements in our quality of life, but it is far from a foregone conclusion that we will skip the rungs of bad and ugly to regain the happiness we were once known for. Nonetheless, the future will not wait. It will drag us along.