Understanding How Quality Defines Choices - Chalya Princess Miri-Gazhi

Every product has a grade, a tag, a label, a brand and a price – which is yours?

Our daily vocabulary is spiced with different adjectives to describe the different perceptions of what we experience each day. For example, we tend to notice the way we were treated at a bank, received in a home, the taste of the food we were served, the type of comfort we got in a hotel, the depth of the sermon we heard in church. So we inwardly question, was the speech evocative? Did it stir me up in an impactful manner? Does she dress well?

Can he speak good English? We want to know where he works? What she does? Where they live?  On and on we go, all in the spirit to qualify what we meet, see, feel, or understand.

We see red roses, we call them beautiful flowers. We eat a great meal, we call it delicious. We read a novel and we just can’t put it down. We stay at a Trump hotel

and we experience luxurious service at its best; we watch a game of throne series, and we want to keep on watching. We read an article and we rave about it. Our human nature loves to qualify what our senses like or do not like. Without realizing it, our traditional five senses (sight, smell, touch, taste and sound) are always on the lookout for better, richer, sweeter and exceptional. And that is as it should be for God in His infinite wisdom created man to go after perfection and that is why we grow, we upgrade, we keep on developing to acquire or attain a certain quality in standards.

A simple definition of quality to me is:  conformance to requirements. (Crosby 1979) Going further, quality can be a perceived degree or grade of excellence or expectations with minimum defaults or deficiencies that are acceptable to the recipient. Since there are varying degrees of qualities to different people, in no particular order, these are a few of the many bases on which the quality of an individual is judged in our society:

1) Social status or employment position (Pedigree, Son or daughter of whom, fame, Occupation, type of business, financial wealth, etc)
2) Personality or Character traits (kindness, honesty, generosity, integrity, consistency, hardworking, etc)
3) Accomplishment or attainment including (fame, wealth, academic degrees, Olympic Athletes, International Football players, renowned singer/musician/actor etc)
4) Physical Form or Structure (height, skin colours, shape, age, etc)
5) Charisma (charming, engaging, seductive, confidence, baritone voice, dress style, intellect, poise, swag, comportment, flow, fascinating, etc)
6) Faith/Beliefs (Being spiritually inclined, religious, fanatic, tolerance, liberal, Atheist, etc)

VETTING THAT OPTION

Identifying your own definition of quality is crucial if you want to make great choices in life. There is absolutely no shame in writing down your list of requirements. Setting up parameters to guide one in making quality choices is imperative for successful living. What is a deal breaker for you when you are vetting your options? What are the must-have-attributes you cannot do without? What is the one attribute that must not make that list? Do your own home work, have your own guidelines before you make that choice. With time you may amend that list with a few additions or subtractions, but always create your list of preferred/not-preferred attributes when deciding on life-changing choices. Nothing can be set on stone unless it is the Ten Commandments! So be flexible with that list when it comes to certain adjustable areas.

With individual preferences, comes relativity. What is acceptable to you may be unacceptable to me. You may prefer intellect over beauty. Another would prefer wealth over form. Still, another would prioritize faith over anything else. On a scale of one to ten of likes and dislikes, some people would gladly settle for 3, 5 or 6 qualities while others would aim between 7 to 10 or even higher. And everyone may go home happy. The choice is yours. Your quality will certainly define your choices. You may make tradeoffs along the way but you can never compromise the top three essentials on your expectations without which all other things could be disastrous to your overall well being.

If I was a car dealer and you came to me and said you want a quality car, I will first have to ask you what your definition of quality is in order to understand your need. Do you want a factory fitted AC?

Would you prefer a car that starts with a key or a button, would you want a car that comes with a TV and a wine bar? Do you want a car with a turbo engine etc. You may say yes and go ahead and add that a car that consumes fuel is no problem to you if it has certain vital features. Same with quality food. You cannot tell someone like Nky Iweka that you want Edikang Ekong without expecting her to put in shrimps, prawns, dry fish, stockfish, snails, periwinkles, goat meat, you name it except you specifically told her to exempt an item or two. The car dealer will expect you to know that a quality car is pricey and cost money while Nky will expect you to know that soup wey sweet na money kill am.

On the other hand, if all you had ever known was a canoe or bicycle, you may settle for any car you can afford. Yet, another may hold on until he can acquire a certain kind of car. He may sacrifice immediate gratification to own just any car for the long haul of owning a functional, classy and beautiful car in the foreseeable future. Your quality is that trait {vision} that defines your life-changing-choices, based on who you want to be tomorrow and not who you are now.

It is so easy to mistake the lack {or abundance} of money for quality. Wrong!

I may not have money now but I know how to make money and soon enough I will have money. Another person may have money now but do not know how to invest money and soon enough, he will have none.

I have seen people I know {yours truly included} make decisive mistakes because they thought they could sacrifice a fundamental part of who they were for what they thought was quality. You cannot sacrifice certain fundamental requirements of your own definition of quality except it is for a greater purpose much greater than the sacrifice itself. I believe human beings were made to strive for improvement in every area of our lives. We cannot afford to be satisfied with the way we are and so we advance in technology, self-improvement, family values, national values, societal values, spiritual values, professional values, and relationship values…we graduate from one level in life to the other with the goal of going upwards and never downwards. The status-quo eventually becomes boring and we must spice it up, change, alter, diversify but we cannot be stagnated in one area forever or we die. WE WERE ALL BORN TO DEVELOP. Only GOD is unchangeable.

I believe quality is an ongoing process of improvement towards a certain goal, however developing the ability to identify the ever-changing needs of our future transformations to fulfil our aspirations will help us make great satisfying choices.

I hope you enjoyed this piece. I look forward to catching up with you via my handle: @signetseal and yes, would like to read your comments too. Have a great week. :-)