Do not let the pressure get to you

 Recently one of the topi­cal issues being discussed on various media plat­forms is the infamous act of one Chef Smith that led to his arrest by the police.

Shortly after the public event patronised by the me­dia, that Chef Smith had won a cook-a-thon contest, news quickly circulated that he had been arrested for fraud.

Rumours were rife that he had perpetrated fraud on Ghanaians and the world at large, regarding his claim that he had officially been recognised as the new cook-a-thon record holder by Guin­ness book of records.

Couple of days ago in his own words and on live TV, he confessed that it was all a hoax and that he engineered the whole thing. Asked by the host why he did what he did he initially said he did not know.

Then upon further probing he confessed that he was pressured by economic cir­cumstances to indulge in that deceptive act. He explained that he could hardly take care of his bills and that some­times it was difficult for him to pay his children’s school fees.

He then apologised profuse­ly to some individuals he had hurt by his actions, the peo­ple of Ghana and the world in general that he deserve to die and all should forgive him, amidst weeping.

It was sad to witness a young man weeping uncon­trollably, all because he allowed the current economic pressure to get to him and therefore cloud his judge­ment.

There is a twist to this issue regarding the person who was interviewing Chef Smith and the question of hypocrisy given the rumours surround­ing the person who was doing the questioning on grounds of morality.

This was a person who had been mired in allegations of immorality and there she was asking someone why he scammed a whole bunch of people? Let us leave this for another day.

When a person becomes desperate, common sense flies out the window and ac­tions that one will not usually carry out, gets executed. People usually blame the dev­il when caught in the web of bizarre acts which dents the reputation.

As the Chef was being pushed to the wall to tell why he orchestrated that charade, I was saying to myself not again, not again, thinking he was going to say “it was the devil who made me do it.”

Fortunately, this time, the chef took responsibility and said economic pressure pushed him to commit that grand deception. I might have taken a decision to go to court to sue the chef on behalf the devil if he had laid the blame at the devil’s doorstep.

It was becoming too much for me to bear to hear of peo­ple always blaming the devil for things they and they alone are responsible for.

The underlying causes of some of the wrong actions are a combination of economic pressures and selfishness or economic pressures and greed or a combination of all three.

It is therefore important to deal with selfish tendencies or greed so as to minimise the potential for problems in our lives.

The embarrassment caused by Chef Smith to his family, friends, and his extended family is huge. This could all have been avoided if greed had been dealt with in his life and had exercised patience as well.

The idea of doing more than one job should be something that the crop of young people in the country now and even older folks should consider. It reduces the economic stress people often go through and therefore the potential for temptation to engage in risky behaviour.

Nobody should think that the cost of living is going to reduce drastically as time goes on. Climate change is affecting food production to some extent and resourc­es like water are gradually diminishing so things are not going to be cheaper as the years go by.

Population is increasing year after year and so in our part of the world, innovation, prudent financial manage­ment and self-discipline are required, to be able to over­come the stress.

By Laud Kissi-Mensah