One of the easiest things in the world is to mistake an outcome for a story. A beautiful home. A thriving business. A failed marriage. A child in an expensive school. A forty-year-old with no savings. Someone who seems to have it all. Someone who appears to have fallen behind. We see the destination and instinctively begin filling in the journey. Hardworking. Lazy. Disciplined. Irresponsible. Lucky. Entitled. Deserving. Wasteful. Perhaps the most dangerous thing about human beings is not that we judge one another. It is how quickly we become certain that our judgment is correct. Because every life has invisible expenses. Not just financial ones. The kind that never appear on a bank statement or a résumé. Some are chosen. Some are imposed. Some are wise. Some are costly mistakes. Most are a complicated mixture of both. One person reaches middle age with very little savings because they spent years paying school fees for younger siblings. Another because they repeatedly made poor financi...
Chris Brown’s song Loyal is catchy, no doubt. But listen closely to the lyrics: “When a rich man wants you, and your man can’t do nothing for you… these hoes ain’t loyal.” The entire weight of betrayal is dumped on the woman. The man who knowingly chases someone else’s partner? He is invisible, blameless, even glorified. This narrative isn’t confined to music — it mirrors society. The Invisible Man, the Visible Woman Think about it: a man pursues a married woman, or a man flirts with someone in a relationship. When the story breaks, the woman is branded “unfaithful,” “cheap,” “disloyal.” Yet the man is rarely dragged into the spotlight. He is excused as “just being a man,” or worse, admired for his boldness. In Kenya , scandals play out the same way. Side chicks become national gossip. Their faces and names are plastered everywhere. But the married men who approached them, funded them, or promised them the world? Their reputations remain intact. The blame is not shared. It is ske...