Appearance and Income - A Complex Relationship

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Being clean is not necessarily dependent on income, but then in some cases, under certain conditions, it is. To further explain this statement, let us look at a scenario, shall we?

The thing is our life activities, as we've come to know, are tied to time. From the time you wake up to start the day, the clock is already ticking, and then some of us take up so many activities that 24 hours is barely enough, and usually these activities are tied to our productivity and earnings.

Imagine living in a densely populated city like Lagos, Nigeria, where traffic is not friendly and one has to leave their home as early as 5 am to beat the morning traffic just to be at work by 8 or 9 am.

In the same vein, such individuals close by 5pm, and they have to face the traffic to get home by possibly 1am on days when the traffic is worse.

Now, with this scenario, if such individuals do not have basic home appliances like a washing machine, a dishwasher, or probably a housekeeper, chances are their environment won't be sparkling clean, as they are liable to have dirty dishes, dirty laundry, or an unswept floor.

Given how challenging living in Lagos is, you now find individuals, even those without a family, employing housekeepers to clean up after them.

You know, there are people who work so hard that they barely get the time to look after themselves. I remember working at my first job managing two hotels in the same premises. One of the hotels has 50 rooms and the other 18 rooms.

I was both the receptionist, the accountant, and the manager. It wasn't an easy task, especially given the influx of people daily. I get so busy that I could go a day with just snacks, as I have no time to cook, and I am not one to eat out in local restaurants around.

Every day during those times I close by 12 am, and I sort out my personal hygiene to sleep by 2 or 3 am. It was quite annoying that when I try to get a shut-eye, the security personnel come to wake me up to tell me that someone needs a room or that a lodger is beating up his companion.

There were days I don't even close till past 1am because we have nightcrawlers drinking late. During festive periods it is worse, and sometimes I don't even sleep in 24 hours. As much as I wasn't a dirty person, I wasn't looking my best during those times, and people were concerned.

Eventually, I resigned from the job when I had a better opportunity, and today my appearance is better.
Personally, I have not seen any rich person that is dirty. I mean, even if they are dirty by default, they get to that particular stage where they know appearances matter, and in that moment, money will come into play by doing for them what they can't do for themselves in terms of housekeeping and up to their personal hygiene.

One thing with life is that situations will always make the difference in judgment.