These 20-somethings
If you’re reading this it’s probably too late.
The “real world” you’d been looking forward to is here and well, disappointing is an understatement.
You graduated with a solid plan; Get a good place to serve, start making your own money, get retained and commence your soft life; creamy pasta and pictures for the gram every other weekend. Or maybe move to a new state and get your own place, or even go for masters immediately, disobeying the clarion call. Point is, we all had very lovely plans.
Then you found out getting posted to that dream office wasn’t so easy after all, but you got an office. Then you heard your salary (more like your wages) and hoped it was a joke at first but no one was laughing. You planned to pay rent with this money but a mattress costs more than you earn. Still you moved, just a year, you planned to find something better after service. Relocating for masters went from being the next logical step to this long, complicated and expensive process and it had to wait a while.
Then, service year ended; you weren’t retained (to be fair you didn’t really want to stay), you didn’t have another job lined up and you weren’t going back to school. You had to ask yourself, “What now?”
Now, you’re an adult. Welcome to the ghetto.
Nosey individual 1: “Yeah, so what’s next for you, what are your plans?”
Response: “Omo…..”
Nosey individual 2: “So where are you working now, they retained you yeah?”
Response: “Omooo…..”
NI 3: “Guy how far your master’s, I thought you were going this September”
Response: …….
You get the point.
This problematic phase is so common that it now seems normal, like some necessary part of the journey so you’ll have content for your first Ted talk. But, while it’s okay for us to fall a couple of times while we’re trying to figure stuff out, what we cannot accept is that those falls somehow mean we aren’t good enough.
Even worse, we then begin to compare ourselves to other people; the truth is while many people are struggling, some are doing pretty well. Off the top of your head, I’m sure you can mention five (5) of your friends who look like they’ve figured it out; good jobs, businesses doing well, they’re blowing up in the creative industry or they’ve relocated and are never looking back. And that’s lovely, you’re truly happy for them, but then your brain just tosses in the question “Why isn’t it happening for me?”.
When the failed plans combine with the comparisons, it starts to feel like an indictment ourselves and our abilities and this is what CANNOT be normalized.
Why do we blame ourselves for not already doing big things in a brand new phase of life within a system that isn’t exactly set up for us to succeed?
Everyone knows how damaging our system is, but one disadvantage of the system that doesn’t get mentioned often enough is its effect on the mentality of young people, who by the time they’re adults are already very aware that the “Nigerian way” is the quickest (some even believe it’s the only) route to success. Now you have thousands of youth banking on nepotism as their strategy to get ahead, or resigned to the fact that this is their only option.
As disheartening as this is, our situation is worsened by the fact that we’re coming from a very different system. The educational system already does a questionable job preparing you for a system strong, merit based systems and ours is anything but that. Here you have to learn how to play politics, trade in favors and be at the mercy of religious & cultural sentiments.
But we still have to find a way to blow amidst all the nonsense so you can close out your Ted talk with something like “Pressure makes diamonds”. The world will never let you blame the system or any other factors for where you are, and they’re right to be honest; your life and its successes or failures are still your responsibility. Just remember; life will supply all the pressure you need and then some, your contribution is not needed.
Your journey is unique, it may not happen for you the same way it did for others, or even at the same time and that’s honestly fine. You won’t always succeed, take it easy on yourself when you come up short. The key is to keep going; you only fail when you stop trying.
