Chronicles of Living in London part 1: Concept Vs Commitment
A number of people set goals because they imagine a concept in their minds. They are unable to comprehend that the details and processes in arriving at the picture formed in their mind requires commitment.
So some years ago, if you asked me my best holiday destination, I would say Paris. So I chose to go to Paris for school and realized how much that is a far cry from the reality I experienced! Yes, it has the beautiful museums, monuments and delicious healthy foods, etc but it is crazy expensive and customer service is the opposite of what ever meaning I had in my head!( I guess Oprah wasn’t being ‘extra’ after all!) I realize how warm London and Lagos feel in comparison, and I never felt home sick anywhere until I had spent two weeks in Paris. I moved to London from Lagos about a year ago and I never thought I would call London ‘home’, but it has grown on me and schooling a few weeks in Paris made me realize how much it sure felt like home.
Similarly, the concept of Living in London seems very sexy and I’m sure it is one of the top questions I get asked on Quora. ‘How does it feel to live in London?’ I used to ignore it and murmur to myself, ‘its never as rosy as it looks!’ In reality I find that is the same everywhere you go.
In the true sense of it, it always depends on so many variables. It depends on what your concept of Living is. In Lagos, living in Lagos for me, came with the concept of creativity, music, bright coloured dressing, a high peaked pulse rate business environment, loud talking people and laughter always ringing in the air! It however came with the commitment of always having strangers in your life, either driving you around or helping you in the home, or even talking to you like they’ve known your business at every opportunity they get. It comes with the commitment of getting networks that are involved in how you power your electricity or generate water or even buy clothes and food for your house. It comes with the commitment of dealing with these strangers, incomprehensible number of sights, smells and sounds of celebrations and parties, power and traffic, the choice of what side of the bridge to live in or do business in. Yet, it is its outstanding magic of inspiration, resourcefulness and creative motivation concepts that endear people to move to Lagos. Unfortunately the reality and enormity of its appendage commitments can also be the reason to frustrate you out of it!
So, the concept of living in Paris was just probably a ‘see Paris and die!’ concept. It was more about what I heard, read or fantasized about it! It however required the commitment of learning, not just the language, but the language nuances, the French style and mood to actually enjoy the city.
Back to London, the tourist concept of seeing the red buses, the beautifully outstanding transport network, listening to conversations in the awe inspiring Queen’s English. The sweet shortbreads and Earl Grey teas, tweed coats and monumental Victorian buildings, the Big Ben, the Buckingham palace, the fairy tales like life of the Royals and all the beauties of shopping in London and the world class education can be as enchanting. However, the true concept of Living in London comes with its own commitments.
London is the most socialist capitalist state I’ve lived in, so you have to be committed to work. I’m sure there are fewer words more spoken about in the Londoners’ vocabulary than W-O-R-K ! So, if you don’t mind working, you will love it here. And need I remind you that you can’t jump queues here, neither can you ‘fake it to make it’. You need to enjoy process, queues and quiet. The latter being my best part! London used to be quiet everywhere, and I even heard a very strange concept called ‘indoor voices’ for the first time from my children! (People whispering in their own house for no reason!) I fell in love with that concept, until I went to a Public Library (to escape my own not very quiet home when my british children forgot about the very same concept they taught me!) and I heard people still whispering, this time, so loud that I couldn’t read there! I asked the Librarian and she apologised to me that it was now a family space so they cannot provide absolute quiet! What a paradox! London has a myriad of awesome concepts, but watch out for it’s paradoxes! I am yet to live anywhere with as many! I will talk about the rest in my next Chronicle, don’t forget to give me a clap below if you enjoyed the read! Thank you!
