Superficial Irresponsibility

Today I had a deeply concerning conversation with an acquaintance of mine. We discussed our frustrations, in quite a respectfully passionate way, regarding fellow Black women who are superficially irresponsible. Before I go into further details, let me put this disclaimer out...

*DISCLAIMER*

Neither I, nor my acquaintance have any hatred, malice, or ill-will towards our Black sistahs. Furthermore, nor do we harbor any feelings of jealousy or envy towards one another or any other Black woman for that matter, as we are very confident, critical thinking individuals who strongly believe in personal growth and development, Black unity, and love...so if you think this post is about bashing Black women, IT IS NOT! My goal with this post is to bring about awareness and to empower other Black women to regularly practice self-analyzation that brings about growth.

We went on to discuss this Million Dollar question:  Why do we see so many Black women putting their wants before their needs by buying superficial things to go out of their way to make themselves more glamorized than they already are? 

We literally engaged in a heated discussion about this, because we're both very modest spenders and can't wrap our minds around the fact that some of our fellow Black sistahs are robbing Peter to pay Paul and are going broke just to look like a million bucks by spending unnecessary amounts of money on hair weave, expensive make-up, nails, eyelashes, etc...

The biggest concern I discovered that we both have is this: How can a sistah complain about not having enough money to catch up on traffic tickets or past due bills, yet manage to irresponsibly splurge on such superficial items as listed above as well as fast food meals several times a week? Neither one of us could understand the logic in that; because the amount of money that is spent on such superficial things within a month or two, could very well be the equivalent to what is needed to pay off or pay down the very debts they complain about. 

The discussion ended with us agreeing on a lot of things, especially the fact that many of our sistahs weren't taught basic principles of being modest with their finances or the importance of inward beauty first. We also agreed that there's nothing wrong with having nice things; however, when you have goals and accomplishments to achieve, sometimes it's important to sacrifice your wants for your needs. It's all about being responsible adults.

Here's a mentality that I had to learn in my mid-twenties...

TIP: When you're out shopping and you see something you like, ask yourself these 2 very important questions - 

1. Is this something I "NEED" or is this something I "WANT"? 
2. Can I live without this item (meaning, am I going to literally die without it)?

*Once you've mastered this concept or mentality of taking care of business FIRST, then the reward will be so much sweeter, whether short term or long term.