Avoid the Fake Life

At the gym today, I had a very interesting conversation with a ‘gym friend’ and it was about living a fake life or the fake lives that some women live. My gym friend was alarmed at what happened in the company of their friend just the day before. We did not discuss the friend but the friend’s habit was bothering her and she asked me if she was crazy to think that her friend is living a fake life.
She said her friend vowed to pay out her ‘credit bills ‘ equals ‘gbese’ in this part of the world incurred from purchase of jewelry. When they got to the dealer/seller of ravishing gold jewelry, her friend not only paid up what she was owing, she ended up incurring two times (2x) the original debt. By the time they left, the friend was in debt to the tune of $14,000 and she has only come in to pay off one under $10,000. She said it was appalling. As they left the place, it got her thinking about such vain hobby aka vanity. She wondered when her friend will wear all the jewelry that she acquires. Then she said something very interesting, she said she told her friend that men do not notice these jewelry.
At that point I butted in saying, “Oh no! No woman wears such jewelry for a man to see or notice but they were it for other women to notice and as far as they are concerned, it places them in a class. It is a status statement.
I do not begrudge anyone who has the money to deck themselves up in gold and diamonds but to live perpetually in debt is a like living in self made prison without knowing it. I can understand getting into debt for the right reasons including paying school fees or hospital bills but one hears all sorts or ridiculous things people do to belong. Belong to what? Summer is fast approaching and people will take loans to travel for summer because ‘everyone travels for summer’. Who is the everyone that travels? Travels to where? Where did this fake living come from? We are all of a sudden defined by the jewelry or the designer bag that we wear and carry.
There is nothing wrong with luxury goods and there are people that all they know is luxury goods. They have never carried or worn anything less even if their parents looted the national treasury to give them the fake life but that is all they know but to now follow them and live in debt so that you can attend the same party with them and look like them is a calamity.
I was going to say that people should know that they can put such resources into other causes but anyone who is this shallow to dwell and think only about what to deck this mortal body with cannot and will not be able to understand living for something that has more meaning.
So I said to my gym friend, we need to be thinking about what value to add. What contributions to make to mankind to leave this place better than we have met it. We immediately moved to other treadmill kind of gist… our health, what are eating and the result of her recent health assessment. It was a much more edifying conversation than the fake life of people.