My younger sister came to visit on Sunday, we had not seen each other in over 1 year, so we had a lot of things to catch up on. She was telling me about a friend of ours who had gained weight as though he was living comfortably. According to her, the guy has reloaded to Abuja and is now working with a multinational company. Apparently, she was intimidated or should I say motivated by his success that she, who was never interested in anything online, bought an affiliate marketing course for 15,000 naira against my warning and is now pushing to figure out a way to make sales from it. It took a lot to let her understand there's a whole build-up process to this, and it will take time before she starts seeing results but she's still hell-bent on providing otherwise even though she's coming to terms with it little by little.
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Just like her, I know what that pressure looks like. I've been in that position countless times than I can remember but I'm glad each time I always figure out a way. I mean I taught the guy in question the basics of what he's making success with and he was financially buoyant enough to learn more and grow while I struggled to see myself through school without support. Not that I'm making excuses here, but looking at it as it is, if I was in a better position getting 10% of the support he got along the way, I would have been in a better situation financially. All the same, I'm happy to have gone out of the pressure of comparison, as friends can be intimidating when they make it.
A friend of mine was telling me a while back how she's building her first mini estate in the city of Lagos. This was someone I taught to speak English when she just entered school from the village she was in. When I had to drop out because of my parent's finances, she continued and not only graduated before me but also came across opportunities that brought her great fortune. To be honest, I was intimidated by her success and on several occasions begged her to tag me along, but I gave up after seeing she was intentionally deciding not to help. I can't blame her, neither I'm I angry at her actions, it's just life.
So you see I've been through societal pressure through and through, and even right now I'm faced with pressure from the family. It's the reason my sister came to live with me. Now I'm done with school and working. Everyone is expecting money to flow like water, my sister gave me a lot of things she wanted done in my place to feel comfortable, but then I'm spending money almost every day to meet basic needs. She understands sometimes, but other times behaves as though she knows nothing about my daily struggles. I do have big plans for my family, especially setting them up financially, but I can't do that if I'm spending on them daily and that's what they don't understand.
