I honestly dislike the average Nigerian that confuse their pessimism as wisdom; people like this guy:
Some people have been hit by disappointment so many times that they quietly gave up on the idea of ever reaching a certain level of success.
But instead of seeing that as their experience, they turn it into a rule for everyone else.
They feel so certain in their own limitation that they start treating your ambition like a personal insult. If they couldn’t make it, then surely you can’t either. And if you still believe you can, they’ll try to recruit you into their worldview.
They do it in different ways:
1. They’ll throw statistics at you to “prove” that people like you don’t make it…because they use them as a shield for their fear.
2. They’ll also laugh at your dreams and call you unrealistic.
What they’re really reacting to is the discomfort of seeing someone still believe in something they themselves abandoned.
They confuse pessimism with wisdom & They think they’re being “mature” or “realistic,” when in truth they’re just projecting their past disappointments onto the future.
Psychologically, this is what people do when failure bruises their ego.
Instead of saying, “I tried, I got hurt, and now I’m scared to hope again,” they build a philosophy around their pain. They turn their fear into “advice.”
But your future is not automatically limited by somebody else’s history.
A person’s past can shape their expectations, yes but it is not always a reliable map of what is possible for you. Different timing. Different decisions. Different level of persistence. Different opportunities. Different outcome.
So be careful whose voice you let into your head.
If you listen to this sort of bitter, defeated people for too long, you can start to internalize battles you never fought, and limits that were never yours to begin with.
We need to stop promoting these fatuous and simplistic “big bad West” narratives as a counterpoint to African development, which appeal to the visceral sentiment by repeating a “primordial fact of all history”- nations seek to dominate others for the benefit of their citizens.
1) The international market economy is NOT a branch of the International Red Cross
2) African nations are very much capable of directing their own resources and navigating the interminable course of their own destinies. To argue otherwise is to deny them of agency - 60 years after independence (where was China 40 years ago?)
3) You don’t hear that argument in Asia which shares a similar experience of colonialism.
4) Dangote and Kasapreko and Aba leather goods, etc are selling across Africa.
I said the narrative is simplistic. Let me tell you a story. I have spent the last 5 years and millions of my own money having invented a digital system for local currency Exchange (a retail component of the PAPSS currency exchange) that allows Africans (54 countries, 42 different currencies) to use their local currencies for cross-border trade (USD exchange depletes national reserves and attracts $5.3 billion in yearly costs).
The U.S. government through its Commercial Service and Embassies, has left no stone unturned to make this project successful.
And African Central Banks? Only very few have responded positively. Can you guess what it takes to secure a regulatory license in Africa? 3- 4 years of undiluted pain and a boatload of money. (The process takes about 3 months here in the U.S.)
Make of this fact what you will.
We’re not ready for prime time
Books are so powerful, most things that have brought me to where I am today are books.
I lived in a neighborhood where gang fights broke out often. Most of my childhood friends ended up either in prison or shot.
I lived around a lot of homicides.
…and I genuinely think what saved my life was my mother, and books.
I’d literally delete social media apps on my phone to force me to read books that contain answers to the next stage I want to break into.
They are how you get years of experience in one week without spending years to live through them
one of the quotes i find most inspiring on a hard day:
"Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the realm of the dead, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom"
Ecclesiastes 9:10
I fell in love with this quote:
"No matter your age, you'll always wish you started younger, but today is the youngest you'll ever be. So start today."
The world does not reward potential. It rewards proof. Nobody cares how intelligent, talented, or visionary you believe yourself to be if your life produces no visible evidence of it.
life hacks every man should learn and do at least once a year
1. wake up early on a saturday and take yourself out for breakfast. dress clean, smell good, go somewhere calm and order a proper meal. no rush, no pressure. just sit, eat slowly and enjoy the moment. take a few selfies too even if you usually don’t.
2. book a decent hotel room in your city for one night. nothing too expensive, just comfortable. carry a small bag like you’re escaping life for a bit. order food, take a long shower, put your phone away for some time and rest properly. learn that peace is the luxury.
3. take yourself to the cinema alone. buy popcorn. pick the exact seat you actually want. think deeply, laugh hard, cry if you need to, feel whatever you feel, no one talking to you. just you and the movie.
4. go to a café on a weekday, order a drink and a small pastry. sit by the window and face your phone down for a bit. watch people going to work, students rushing, cars passing, birds singing, children playing, just life moving in that pace.
5. take yourself somewhere peaceful outdoors. maybe a park, a quiet road, a waterfront or anywhere with fresh air. walk slowly with music in your ears or just enjoy the silence. clear your head a little.
6. learn to genuinely enjoy your own company, brother. if you can be happy alone, you become harder to break, harder to pressure and harder to control.
7. enjoy yourself man. come on, you need it, you deserve it.
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share to men who needs the reminder
buena suerte 👍