Stop Being a WOPI

Are you the kind of person who goes out to fancy restaurants but struggles to pay the makolet bills? Do you live in a beautiful house but every time you need to pay mortgage you panic? Do you work a little and play a lot? Do you send your kids to school in the hippest clothes and latest Nike sneakers only to not be able to afford the monthly soccer chug payments? If you can answer YES to these questions then you are a WOPI – Wealthy (on the) Outside, Poor (on the) Inside and it’s time to stop.

The term is a spin-off of TOFI (Thin [on the] outside, Fat [on the] Inside), coined by Dr. Jimmy Bell to describe those individuals who seem really thin when they’re in their skinny jeans, but put them in a two-piece and you’ll be begging them to cover up in no time. They’re hardly “thin” when you really look inside – layers muffin tops with lumpy cellulite scattered throughout their “apparently” perfect bodies – aka “the skinny fats.”

Anyway back to the WOPIs. First of all, everyone thinks they know everything about everyone else. Which is why we are currently living in such a jealous-driven society. What looks to one person as rich, is so often not. Well, you may argue, how about the fact that they just got the newest BMW? Erm, do you actually know for sure that they bought it? Perhaps it was part of a bribe from the outlaws. Or maybe they won it in the lottery. Or if they did “buy” it, they may be paying off for it in installments until they die.

And you might think that the couple down the block who consistently complain about their grocery bills, doing anything to make them lower, are poor. Not necessarily so. In fact, there is a good chance that they are the opposite of WOPIs and are actually POWIs (I don’t think I need to spell it out for you).

The point is, none of us really knows what goes on behind closed doors. But living a life that’s not real, and not true to our essence most likely to end up being way too much pressure (like the skinny fat girl who shocks everyone in her two piece) to maintain.

Of course, WOPI could be interpreted on a deeper level – wealthy on the outside (seems really happy and lots of money and what else could they need) but poor (miserable) on the inside.  But that’s the topic of a different blog.

Besides which, everyone in Israel is poor and if there’s one place you can live without people comparing cars, houses, and clothes, I reckon it’s right here in the West Bank.