Sometimes, it can get super overwhelming. Doing your best to figure things out and watching how your efforts seem futile in every attempt you make. It makes you question a lot of things like;
"Are there evil forces behind me?"
"Why can't I get things right? Am I meant to never succeed in this life?"
And a lot more questions which are damaging to the soul. Oftentimes, the reason things don't go well for us is because we are living in a broken world, with people who are broken(us included) who do broken things.
Knowingly or unknowingly, you must have done something to mess things up for people that will come after you. I know that some of us try to do our best wherever we find ourselves, well... I know I do. I put my best in all I do but the fact that we live in a world filled with complicated people, we sometimes step on toes we shouldn't have and that may end up being the record set for people who come from the same region like we do.
Being from an African country, I understand how it feels when you can't get jobs, especially online, because of our nationality despite being very good at what we do. It gets frustrating because the country's leaders don't care about the citizens. What they care about is enriching their pockets and paving the way for generational wealth.
Being a citizen from such a country, it feels like you are fighting the same struggle each day and failing desperately at it. Your sense of motivation quietly dies down with each attempt, hence frustration and then acceptance, which leads to doing whatever menial job you can find just to survive life.
When surviving, you end up accepting and doing a lot of things. You live life with no pride in the things you do, and before you know it, years pass by like seconds and decades become a minute.
You'd find your offspring fighting the same struggle you did and it will remind you of your youth, maybe there may be some fun memories but you won't get to remember many fun things because you gave up fighting when things got super hard. And because of that, your youth may be filled with memories of you struggling to survive and still struggling at this point and watching your children struggling the same thing.
I know things will get tough and excruciating sometimes. You'd cry, you may end up losing your life savings, become penniless at some point, be pushed around, and beaten by life to the very core of your soul but you shouldn't give up. I know it is difficult because life hasn't been utterly good to me either. I have cried, gotten close to the point I don't believe in anything again, but I have taught myself to always bounce back. Maybe not immediately, but surely, I know I won't be going down easily, not after all the struggles I have endured so far.
So the question now is... "How far are you willing to go to be able to achieve your dreams no matter how long it takes or the obstacles that lay?"
To your future self, I think you should live a life where you don't have to fight the same battle. Face the struggle you have head on, self reflect, and learn from every attempt you've made so far, and don't forget to do fun things. Stack as many fun memories as you can so that you can one day sit down with a cup of coffee or tea and a newspaper, magazine, phone in hand or in your perfect place with your own people as memories of your youth fills you up.
Since today is #threetunestuesday by @ablaze, I'll be adding a few songs to this post.
Overcomer; Madison.
Powerful; Empire Cast.
Billion Naira Dream; Brymo.
Image-Source and videos used were gotten from #YouTube
Still yours truly,
Balikis.
Thanks for reading and listening.
Peace be unto those who crave it and more to those who chase it away.