Adulthood

I have noticed that adulthood comes with a lot of pressure, especially in Nigeria. Both internal and external pressure.

There's this perpetual pressure to be like or surpass your mates; agemates, school mates, course mates... whatever mates.

Your agemates are all getting married and having children but you're yet to figure out whether you want a relationship or not. There's pressure to be like normal people. You think that there's something wrong with you.

You think your school mates are doing better or earning better than you. There's pressure to work harder, to do better, to explore more options. You even begin to question your career path, you start wondering if you're on the right path or just wasting your time.

Your course mates are setting up their law firms, getting their LLMs and basically carving riches for themselves; but you're greeted every morning with rejection mails.

There's just a whole lot of pressure and it kills us silently (it has killed me before now)

Then, there is the black tax that most of us have to pay. Sometimes, we finish spending our salary before it hits our accounts. There's a younger sibling to take care of, an aged parent or just some random need to be attended to at home.

Sadly, things are not as they were during our parents' time. THERE ARE NO JOBS. THE NAIRA IS ALMOST VALUELESS. The standard of everything has dropped and prices of things, even things as basic as health care have gone so high. In Abuja, I consider it the exclusive preserve of the rich to fall sick.

Yet we're expected to survive, get married and raise children.

The pressure on young people is just so much. We may not admit it, but it is.

We put pressure on ourselves without realising it.

Our family, friends and supposed well wishers put pressure on us too and they don't even know it.

Sometimes, we unknowningly push ourselves past our breaking points. Sadness creeps, anxiety follows and if we don't watch it, we slowly slip into that dark corner.

To every young person out there, especially the minors...

To every young person struggling to make it...

To every young person who has to pay the black tax even when they are yet to find their feet...

To every young person who feels like the world has moved on and left them behind...

To every young person who thinks they are doing something wrong because they've been broker than they can remember and have barely saved a dime this year...

To every young person who has received more rejection mails than they can count...

To every young person who life has thrown several curve balls at...

To everyone of us, I need you to know that you're not alone. We will all get there. We will achieve our dreams and surpass them. We'll look back on these days and wonder why we ever worried.

We will survive, as long as we don't give up.

#this_is_the_best_moment_to_be_alive #Believe #BeerMoney