I have over the years moved across the three divides. Growing up, I was responsible for few things so I had all the time to enjoy Christmas and my opinion was that Christmas is such a great season. As a grown up now, with the influx of responsibilities and the dynamics of Lagos traffic situation, I soon convinced myself that to say Christmas is a great season is the farthest thing from the truth. Over the years however, I have through constant exploration and ingenuity discover options that helps me strike a balance.
So, where is the major source of our stress at Christmas? First, almost everybody has the same routine. Especially in a place like Lagos, most people go to work between Mondays and Fridays and in a very religious environment like Nigeria, a Sunday is too sacred for anyone to go to the market. This leaves almost everybody with a singular option-shop on Saturday. When you get to the market on Saturday, it is flooded with people of like passion and it does not respect how early you wake up to do it, there will always be earlier risers.
What really is the problem? In an urban environment like Lagos, the number of middle class citizens is always on the rise. Middle-class citizenship also comes with middle-class responsibilities and middle-class desires. For instance, a middle class desire is the need to own a car. Having a car in itself is not the problem, it becomes a burden when the existing infrastructures (road) earmarked for these cars are not upgraded with the same speed with which people are en-massing into middle-class citizenship and buying more cars. The effect of this is seen in the constant traffic on Lagos roads.
In order to break through the barrier of traffic and fulfill their responsibilities of leaving early for work from Monday to Friday, the middle-class people have to wake up early and close late. While this is a solution, it also creates another problem-No time together as a family. The Christmas season and the various attached holidays are expected to provide this time with the family but it is also a time to buy things, more predominantly food items.
To save yourself stress, turn to internet technologies. You don’t have to visit the PHCN office before you get your bills paid neither do you have to visit any office of your cable TV providers before you can subscribe, most amazingly you don’t have to visit the market to buy pepper, tomatoes, fresh food, bag of rice or any supermarket product. Using a website like Supermart.ng for instance gives you access to over 70,000 items ranging from local products to foreign brands, baby product, cosmetics and many more. In fact, you will order and wait for it to be delivered the same day in as early as three hours and you can sit back and spend the time with your family rather than moving round the market without hope that what you set out to buy will be available and for the budgeted price.
This Christmas season, keep the stress in check and double your dose of wonder, with a little strategic rethinking about the Yuletide, the source of what usually stress you out and leverage on technology to give yourself the rest you deserve. This season comes only once in a year, make the most of it.