Life-both the being and doing facets of it-is hard. Nothing ever seems to go as planned.
At 6, you wanted to be a pilot.
At 13, you decided that sky and its limit were just too high so you settled for being a doctor.
At 18, JAMB* jambs you into being a zoologist.
At 26, you’re selling shoes, turkey gowns, and super double-drawn egg curls on WhatsApp.
Life really comes at you hard.
Just when you think you are getting the hang of it, just when you know the right time to zig and the right time to zag, the carpet is pulled out from under you. It disorients you and leaves you unsure of where you are and where you are going.
I like to think of life as that topic you’re told was too advanced for you in the final year of secondary school. “When you get to the University, they’ll explain further,” they smiled. Only for you to get to University and they tell you, “I assume they taught you this in your respective secondary schools? Great, let’s move on.”
No matter how hard you try, you cannot seem to catch a damn break. Something inexplicable is always happening at work or at school, in your relationships, or with your children. Like my Mom will say, “ Ezumike adiro na ndu. Sonso ndi nwulu anwu na-ezu ike… “ (There is no respite in life. Only the dead truly rest).
And honestly, we can’t even be sure the dead truly rest.
No one has come back to tell us. Maybe they are so busy they can’t even make out the time to check in with loved ones. Kinda gives ghosting a whole new meaning.
For me, philosophy will always be the purest of social sciences. It is the embodiment of man’s wide-eyed and child-like attempts to rationalize and reconcile the concentric events in his external and internal world. It treats the external as being both independent of and an extension of the internal. So to make sense of life’s hardships, we rationalize and postulate a grand, invisible purpose to the current struggle we are facing, a figurative pot of gold at the end of hardship’s rainbow.
It is quite poetic, actually.
Alone, life’s hardships are random, unjust punishments meted out by a fate that cannot be determined or appeased. With a purported purpose peeking from behind the tattered skirts of life’s hardships, life becomes more “meaningful”. This calms and irks my Mom at the same time. When things get bad and I say, “It’ll get better. I don’t know why, but I feel there is a reason this is happening…” usually she replies in the affirmative. But sometimes, she loses it and goes, “Human beings and useless rationalizations. Uchechukwu tell me why XYZ had to happen? Just say you don’t understand, chikina. Don’t come and tell me there’s a reason. Reason for what?” It’s at this point that I’d chip in that “God knows why” and she’ll retort, “Because you are his secretary, bah?” and we’ll laugh at my low-budget attempts at sagely wisdom.
While I cannot speak for all of life’s troubles, there is a reason we go through things we go through. Challenges cleanse and reform you. They are the crucibles on which we obtain genuine change. In Igbo, we say, “ mberede ka eji amara dike” (it is in troubled times we know the warriors.) Because I hate generalizations, I will reiterate there is a reason, a purpose, behind some of life’s troubles. I would be a liar if I told you I understand the grand purpose behind child killings, rape, the untimely death of good people, injustice and the “bloodless and bodiless murder” at the Lekki Toll Gate. No matter how much I turn these problems around, I cannot see even a glimmer of a silver lining.
Nevertheless, there are other things we go through in life that prepare us for something greater.
Some months ago, I was talking to a friend of mine about graduate school applications. This friend in question is a smart cookie.
You know those types that seem unserious but have read four weeks ahead and seem to have the whole work-life-school balance thingy down pat?
He was that person. He had the smart kid starter pack.
First-class, check.
Glorious CV, check.
Numerous certifications and awards, double check.
However, he was finding it hard to secure a place and funding for a graduate program. He applied to multiple schools in different countries. Still, nothing turned up. He submitted personal statements by the dozens-twenty-six personal statements, as far as I could count-and would only get those saccharine rejection letters that admission boards are so skilled at crafting. Now, this friend of mine had a “we meuve” attitude in life. He didn’t take himself so seriously to think life was out to get him or too lightly to think something was wrong with him. He just took the rejections in stride and kept working hard. The way he saw it, it was not time yet.
In the latter days of the second quarter of 2021, he had already started making plans on how best to approach applications for next year’s session when he struck gold. He got admission and a scholarship.
Pretty awesome, right?
Earlier this year, he told me something that stayed with me for quite a while, something I came to think about in the wake of his big win. He told me he was happy he didn’t get admission since he started trying in 2018. In his words, he wasn’t prepared. In applying, being rejected, and re-applying, he had learned a lot, and now, he was actually well-equipped to grapple with the demands ahead.
Mberede ka ejiri mara dike
With life’s struggles, you can choose to stay down or rise to the occasion.
Like a priest once told me, in life, there are no failures. You either win or you learn.
I like to think of the hurdles life throws our way as internships that prepare you for certain situations in the future. You know how we complain that adult-ing has no manual and we have to make things up as we go, right? These challenges serve as templates on which the whole adulting manual is formed. Each hurdle is a little bullet point in the ever-increasing, make-it-up-as-you-go, multipurpose adulting manual.
Those rejections forced you to get the skills you need in the next phase of your career.
That crappy job with the mean boss taught you what not to be when you taste success and how to treat your staff with respect and consideration.
That nasty relationship taught you how to quickly identify red flags and how to appreciate— and be— the right person.
That ritzy career of yours that rose from the ashes of failed investments and financial mishaps.
That divorce broke you but forced you to learn self-love and lead to you finding someone that truly valued you.
That turbulent childhood drew you to counseling, social work, saving people from themselves, and helping them heal from childhood trauma.
To quote Rumi, the wound is where the light enters you.
On this note, I wish you a slightly hard life filled with light.
Originally published on Medium.
Like what you read? Check out With Love from Jikwoyi and The Man in the Mirror for similar posts.
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