For Love of the Game

- Helen Oyeyem

This is a rather playful outfit for a bright sunny day and I loved the general idea of it as it had a somewhat child-like vibe to it. As you know, I love red, white and blue put together so this outfit was definitely easy to pick out and put together. More so, the bow detail on my shoes made the outfit extra dainty and the side pocket on this beautiful midi skirt from Zalora is a current obsession of mine. It’s a crazy obsession- I love everything with side pockets right now. On a very important note, I would just like to share that I got this skirt online with the help of this amazing new app and service developed called PayMaya. PayMaya is a new brand that was launched in August 2015. It’s basically a virtual card to be used for shopping online. Meaning— no credit card? No problem…now you can still shop and pay for your online purchases! Now doesn’t that make life easier? Especially for me as I recently discovered I have a love-hate relationship with shopping.

Confession: Due to recent experience and my lack of good luck in the art of retail therapy, I would rather shop from the safety of my own home which is why this app is the best thing that happened to me. Add to that the fact that I am awfully shy in person especially around new people and that I’ve been feeling a bit antisocial lately and basically, I am sold. I think it stems out from the fact that I am such an awkward person so I tend to shut down and turn inward. No matter how well I try to dress for the part.  In this case, I am referring to my personal life because in business, it seems so easy: you know what they want from you, you know what you want from them and from the get-go, I can almost immediately gauge how a business relationship will be. I think that’s a good thing as I am set for building an empire or I think the more correct term is running one. What confuses me, however, is how I cannot do this when it comes to my personal life. Ask anyone who’s known me for a long time and I think they can attest to the fact that when it comes to my personal relationships: I am not the greatest judge of character.

I used to think I was supposed to read people well. I mean after all, one of my majors was Psychology but what people tend to forget is that things get more complicated especially when oneself is involved. Everyone tells me to enjoy the ride and master the art of playing the game and I think Jeanette Winterson said it best (to explain further), “You play, you win, you play, you lose. You play. It’s the playing that’s irresistible. Dicing from one year to the next with the things you love, what you risk reveals what you value.”

I hate risks which makes the game less fun and probably more confusing. The rules don’t make sense to me and I can barely keep up with all the updates and new features. Basically, let’s put it this way, I haven’t mastered the equation of boy meets girl (or person meets other person when it comes to friendships)  yet and now we add the internet, iMessage, weChat, Skype, TInder, Facetime into the mixture and my mind is basically ready to explode. Plus I am a person who seems to lack the skill of follow through. It’s kind of similar to how a kid would react after just about to understand numerical mathematics and then Algebra is introduced and the kid would go, “I was just finally getting how the numbers work… and NOW YOU’RE GOING TO ADD LETTERS?” Well, you get what I mean…

The funny thing is, my favorite thing to say to most people I meet (from the get-go) is that: “I don’t have time for games…” Actually, I say this particular line A LOT to many people on multiple occasions that I should probably record it and just hit playback to save myself the trouble. I was thinking about it in depth the other day as I was trying to analyze myself and my hesitation to establish things or commit to anything with other people and I have come to admit that: The truth is I do have time for games— I just choose not to play.

I’ve done my part, played my hand, even thrown in my cards when I had to. I’ve bet what I didn’t have and bluffed until I had it. I realize it now: we are all dealt different hands and the rules are simple. There are no winners in real games… So know when to stop playing.