As I write, I am knee-deep in an episode of Frasier. It’s a leap year in the series, and Frasier has encouraged his whole family to “try something different”, shake their lives up, and take a leap.

Of course, cue all the disasters, and one by one, everyone’s screaming at Frasier that they will never take his advice again. The episode’s climax is, frankly, hilarious. Frasier panics and decides that rather than following his own advice and shaking things up, he would stay his usual course to avoid disaster.

Because, and I quote, “It may be an unwise man who doesn’t learn from his own mistakes, but it’s an absolute idiot that doesn’t learn from other people’s!”

The twist in the tale is that even staying in his familiar lane, unexpected forces come along and still blow everythIt is all well and good working on yourself, keeping a positive attitude against all odds, and in all things trying to live your best life. Is it me, though, or are the “outside forces” nowadays of a different calibre; difficult to foresee and impossible to navigate?

The pandemic is still raging. You would absolutely be excused for thinking otherwise, but the United Kingdom ‘powers that be’ have decided to declassify it for their convenience. It is no longer news; we no longer need to isolate, they will no longer be testing for it, and people dying in their thousands DAILY is now ACCEPTABLE.ing up.

Don’t get me wrong. I understand why the UK government had to do it. The predicted post-lockdown economic downturn is unbearable in reality and will only worsen. People have lost their livelihoods, and now every cost of living expense you can imagine is rising. It is getting harder and harder to keep body and mind together.

And, the blows just keep coming. To my utter disbelief, the background noise of the frankly unbelievable spectacle happening in Europe casually ushering a potential kick-off to World War III (in my humble opinion) is happening.

Really? Under the flimsiest of excuses, the Russian despot started an invasion of Ukraine. I have been fighting a severe case of disassociation. My mind is struggling with this news.

Putin tears up the peace deal, and by air, land, and sea ensues a devastating attack on Ukraine. People are hunkering down in fallout shelters, embassies have left their staff to fend for themselves, destruction everywhere, photos of paediatric intensive care patients in bomb shelters, and the number of dead rising. One would like to think that common sense will prevail but could this be it? Not to take away from all the things happening closer to home. I do feel like northern Nigeria is on fire, and just like the declassified COVID, we are not in the correct state of concern because we just don’t hear about it deliberately! I am trying my best not to feel helpless and hopeless, a shocking phenomenon that seems to be filling our news consistently with alarming stories of young people taking their lives. In the meanwhile, as we try to maintain a positive attitude in the famous closing lines of the fictional Dr. Frazier Crane, “Take care of yourselves AND each other.”

Odun Ogunbiyi
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Odunayo Ogunbiyi is an ex pharmacist with a passion for food and pampering. Writing about her exploits wherever in the world she may find herself is just her way of staying sane in this zany world.