Wahala No Dey Finish: Exploring the Influence of Language-Use and Adaptability on Life Satisfaction among Public Servants in Nigeria

Life satisfaction is a basic problem that transcends age, gender, and cultural boundaries among Nigeria workers. It is a representation of an individual's level of happiness and contentment, taking into account their surroundings, relationships, and experiences. This study therefore examined how language use and adaptability techniques enhanced mental health, improved job performance and increased general well-being by combining the wisdom of adages and proverbs with the creativity of slangs to help create a distinctive outlook on life and come up with creative solutions to problems among public servants in Nigeria. The study employed Career Construction Theory (CCT) which offered a thorough framework for comprehending how people build their careers through the dynamic interaction of contextual and personal issues that highlighted the importance of professional satisfaction. The sample population for this study are 148 workers of Rufus Giwa Polytechnic (RUGIPO) (formerly Ondo State Polytechnic), Owo, Ondo State, Nigeria selected across different units/departments in the institution. The findings of this study revealed that language-use and adaptability techniques significantly jointly predicted life satisfaction among Rufus Giwa Polytechnic staff, and these tested factors had contributed 34% variation (R2=0.34; F=18.16, p< .01) to changes observed in life satisfaction among the workers of the institution while 51(34.5%) and 80 (54.1%) respondents strongly agreed and agreed that slangs words like ‘wahala no dey finish’ are helpful in psychological adaptability of having life satisfaction .In conclusion, the study recommended that organization should implement interventions that could contribute to the exploration of ways to improve the well-being of its employees, help employees learn how to solve issues and promote the use of positive language, which will ultimately help reframe challenging circumstances, use the right language hence developing the necessary capacity process for life satisfaction.

Adages, Adaptability, Proverbs, Public servants, Slangs, Wahala

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