When Hard work Isn't Enough

When I first saw the theme of the week’s prompt, the first question that rose in my mind was “ has it ever been easy to earn more ? “ I know sometimes our countries might help in making things a bit easier but generally I still feel earning more requires more work.

Here in Nigeria, earning is already a whole lots of work let alone “earning more” it is not easy at all. When I was still in school I used to say “ when I am done with school, I would work very hard and earn more and I would acquire so many things” well that is easier said than done now.

As I grew older to take up some responsibilities I realized that working hard, finding opportunity is much harder than I had thought. The price of things keeps increasing geometrically, transport, house rent keeps increasing too and the money you worked hard to earn would just be gone before you could even realize, you would be left with little or nothing for savings.

This lifestyle keeps recurring over and over and it is not so easy at all, living in Nigeria is one thing but earning more is another different struggle.

The truth is, in Nigeria, the cost of living keeps increasing but the average income a person earns is still creeping and still the same. So we keep spending than earning and it looks like we are completely doing nothing.

The job market is growing everyday making it very difficult to even secure a job with good salary enough to pay your bills. Every year, so many people graduate from the university and still remain jobless for years even with their good grades and some who are first class graduates.

Some people hate to admit it but it is very true that a person can be very hardworking, skilled and even educated but still jobless or probably doing an underpaid job that is not even enough to pay transport and feed for a whole month.

This makes the whole thing very frustrating, lots of graduates are left with no choice but to take part in social vices like kidnapping, armed robbery, terrorism etc. Most times I might not really blame them, the society we now live has made things worse and people keep getting worse too.

Last week I went to the market and I saw a mob trying to burn someone, I was moved to asked a lady who stood by and she told me the young guy stole a woman’s basin of garri and tried to run away. I felt bad for the guy because he is probably very hungry and tried to steal.

I am not trying to justify what he did but I do know and understand that some people don’t steal because they love to, some do it out of severe hunger, and that’s very bad.

Yesterday, I entered a tricycle and the man spoke so well, he was actually telling me about some health tips and at the end of the conversation he told me he is an intern medical doctor but he has to drive just to have some savings as the money gotten from his internship isn’t even enough to feed and save up. Many Nigerians are depressed not because they are lazy but because life has been unfair.

That’s the nation we have found ourselves in, both the educated and uneducated, skilled and unskilled are struggling for survival. Some people will say “start up a business” but deep down we know that starting and sustaining a business in this part of the world is very challenging and requires a lot.

Sometimes whenever I go to the market I see so many market women who barely sell what they brought to the market but would be forced to pay taxes in market and if they do not have the money the tax collectors would take away their goods without even considering them. It pisses me off whenever is see things like that.

People that are actually earning more now are people that have digital skills and are able to utilize them. But even with that, it is never really easy, to earn more in my country, you don’t have to rely on one source of income, you have to have several streams of income, learn some digital skills and work not just hard but smart.

Thank you all for reading. You can also take part in this contest by reading more from the link here