Life beyond Buttons, Needles and “Jippers”  J L J

How much money is important for life? … Can anyone: answer how money changes life? … Change everything? … Can we do anything about that? …. We are living in a world where we come up with answers and clarifications for every single matter but I don’t think it’s possible for anyone to give an exact answer for this question…..

I am very glad for the person who pinch my mind to write this… since we live in a world where we are not anymore bothers to think how others  feel… there is no wonder where most of us not noticing this freaky part of life…   So this is a story of people who hunt happiness among coins and notes…. Story of young men and women who scarifies the best time of their life to earn wealth for their loved once… story of youth who lost their emotions and who lost themselves…

I met him after long time…. With blurred scrawled face of emotions… well-built good looking guy with unreadable face (trying harder, putting an extra effort while verifying nobody is reading him) …. We all are running our own battle to live. Some playing it in their own lands where they born and grown up but some stop at other corner of the world where they have never smell the joy of that soil. So this story is about the professionals who temporarily lives in other countries to build the future of their loving once.

Bangladesh is a country surrounding by two giants: one commercially, one historically. Even the country is bigger in land rich in water; it’s a country with mixed hybrid culture. Highly populated cities…..numerous health issues… child labor, under age marriages and prostitution created a different cultural experience where you can’t experience in any other country in eastern world.   

The backbone of the economy is apparel. They do all types of manufacturing, assembling, packing etc. in apparel. So the foreign labor involvement is very popular and strong. Majority is from Sri Lanka. There are around 13000 Sri Lankan's who works in Dhaka & Chittagong. Most of them are young adults where age around 25 to 40. Even they getting paid in Dollars this is not UK… not any other blossomy country in Europe. Even they wear TOMMY or OLD NAVY this is not a road in Milan or in Barcelona. Even they spray Bleu De Chanel or Paco Rabanne no one is there to smell them sincerely… fill their heart from the fragrance and to induce in a sweet coma. These roads are dusty noisy and busy. People are innocent poor and uneducated. Breeze is warming dry and empty. So it’s about them who spend the golden times of their life in an unknown land to find laughter and joy for their dear ones… 

Most of countries in Asia still suffering from poverty. It’s same for us also. After 30 years of civil war still the economic conditions are not stable. As same as all other developing nations we too suffer from all life struggles. Fortunately our knowledge and skills are highly recognized all over the world. So we have big demand for employment. This pay solves most our problems. So we are coming here to hide among buttons, needles and “jippers” (Zippers).

They smell the scent of cotton but forget to inhale the life. They taste the sweetness of coins but never the taste of self-love. They became the victims of circumstance….. Suffering from loneliness, sadness fear, hopelessness and anxiety. Life is different and difficult here but fortunately we are not bothered to accept it. As he words it “we get sold every day for the highest price”.  Question is “is it worth?” most of them are less confident to struggle with happiness and more confident to fight against life matters. They have suggested to them self that it would be safer if they scarified their today for their tomorrow. This reflection rattled them.

Sometimes it is the best thing that ever can happen to an individual where getting lost in a large and unfamiliar city.  Coz it gives us a chance to discover who we are and what we really need in our life. But it is not happening all the time. In the world where we live, thinking we are the center of world gives an automatic consciousness that why we bother about others or why we bother about what we really need. The environment and the circumstances created a situation where we think that we can buy anything….annnnnny thing if we have enough money. Finally money became the ultimate goal and everything else just words without meaning.

It is sad that their individual identity is being consumed by the external forces and they have lost the consciousness of self-worth.  As far as I believe career is something that can help someone to make their own choices and when they do those choices won’t cause any harm to their inner personality. We lost in the middle and unfortunately we lost ourselves forever.  In a way they are selfless people who do lifesaving work and expect nothing other than the happiness of their dear ones. So how come I call him selfish or how come I’ll be judgmental. Life is not fair that’s what all I can say. How come we expect them to cry, laugh or love for someone unknown or for something lifeless when they have limit all their human interactions to whatsApp, Viber and FB. Knowingly or unknowingly we used to recognize the emoji’s but failed to realize the lines in the face of the person who is sitting next to us.  We listen to loud music but not sensitive to the long gasps of the loved once. We asked people to be polite, be committed, be honest but never bother to think why people can’t be sometimes.   

With all this they are great humans. Who lost but not for them. According to Willibald Ruch, a psychology professor at the University of Zurich who researches the effects of character strengths such as gratitude and humor, “gratitude does have a good impact on happiness, that it increases life satisfaction”.  So be sincere to them. Be grateful to them.  Coz for them your gratitude is how you connect yourself to them, and their gratitude is seeing themselves in connection with things larger than themselves.