I got my first official job when I was 15.
It was boring mostly and exhausting, but I’ll never forget how excited I was to receive my first pay cheque, or the extremely ugly overpriced bag I bought with it. I felt such a sense of accomplishment, I was employable, my work was deemed worthy of reward.
It was the first of many, varied jobs
Work is a firm part of the doctrine we’re all fed. In the Abroad it goes something like this: As a teenager, you have a job to ‘teach you how to be responsible’ aka being able to pay for the cinema/paintballing/shopping yourself. During University you have a job because your student loan doesn’t quite cover it, or you want to go on holiday with your friends to celebrate surviving another set of exams.
After you’ve received that shiny, expensive piece of paper, you need a real job. No more part-time, weekend, assistant stuff. You have bills to pay. You want to get a flat, meaning there will be a mortgage. Marriage on the mind? Another set of expenses. Then there’s the occasional holiday so that your life doesn’t feel empty. Along comes the firstborn, meaning the flat will likely need an upgrade, a different mortgage, maybe a car. Then there’s the rainy day account. More holidays. More children. More expenses.
All of this, this ‘life’ is powered by work. It doesn’t really matter what work it is, as long as it’s work.
By the time the day is done, we’re too tired to listen to that nagging voice telling us to try something new. Set up a business or try and see if that idea that keeps rolling around in your head is worthwhile.
In my mind, Lagos had almost become synonymous with the word ‘hustle.’ My friends sounded almost in awe of it, the intensity, the single-mindedness, how driven everyone is to succeed. A city of hustlers, where everyone is ‘on the grind.’
It’s something you have to see to believe.
I remember being struck by how many people I met that had day jobs and a side business or a business plan. Or multiple jobs and a side business. How many people had a five or even ten year plans. How every book being read was either ‘an entrepreneur’s guide to… ‘ or ‘how to run a business.’ How hard people worked as they juggled their various interests all while keeping their respective bosses happy and fuel in their generators. A day job is not the end. It pays the bills but the dream fuels life.
Lagos, city of dreamers. Where all and sundry come in search of something bigger, something better, whether they get it or not of course is another matter. But it’s hard not to get caught up in the energy of it, the desire to pursue what it is you really what, to go sleeplessness nights for it, to sweat on danfos for it, to hustle for it. To buy into the idea, even if it’s a lie , that it’s possible. Here the dream is possible.
It’s hard not to get caught up in that.