A smaller nothing

I imagine that one day I would be in a situation where I say to myself, “If I could do it all over again…” but I always try to cut myself there, because it becomes a sad song that won’t leave me alone if I don’t. 

Human beings are frivolous like that. When you are not someone sculpted in the ghastly crucible of trial and error and grave experiences, it is too difficult to understand and assimilate the lessons life offers you on golden platters. I see that the trend of following “who-know-road” is catching on. If you have no scars to help you remember, then you “no know road.”  

It is easier to live in the short-run, because far-seeing abstraction is a blind spot of human awareness. When you talk to someone of an advanced age, you’re likely to hear about things they would do more of, less of, or just better if they had the chance to do it all over again. Many would also decide and believe that they are generally happy with life, and would not let fly; they would spare nothing trying to not complain, desperately not wanting to let loose that floodgate. And sometimes you could feel this in their voices, and then you know. 

Maybe there is a way out. Instead of focusing on what comes next, maybe it would be better if we focus on what’s first before obsessing about where the biggest opportunity is. Those who are lit by this passion are usually the object of admiration among their peers and the subject of intense curiosity. They are the source of good ideas. They make the extra effort. They demonstrate commitment. They are the ones who, day by day, will rescue the drifting ship. And they will be rewarded; with money, sure, and responsibility, undoubtedly. But with something even better too; the kind of satisfaction that comes with knowing your place in the world. As Africans and Nigerians, we are sitting on a huge potential boom in productivity — if we could just get the square pegs out of the round holes. 

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Of course, addressing the question, what should I do with my life so I never have to wish I had a second chance isn’t just an issue of productivity. It is also a moral imperative. It is how we hold ourselves accountable to the opportunities we have been given. Most of us are blessed with the ultimate privilege; we get to be true to our individual nature. 

The Nigerian socioeconomic ecosystems are so vast that we don’t have to grind it out forever at livelihoods and social environments we hate. For the most part, we get to choose – if we put our imagination to good use. Nowhere on earth is there as much opportunity as in Africa. And being African in the 21st Century, that choice is not about a career search so much as an identity quest. Thinking along that line aspires to end the conflict between who you are and what you do. 

With respect to careers for instance, what I learnt talking to some of the old people I have had the privilege of knowing was more fascinating than what I had expected or assumed. The first assumption to get busted was the notion that certain jobs are inherently exciting and rewarding and that others are not. That was a big shift for me. Throughout my childhood and big part of adulthood, my basic philosophy was this: work is boring, but work plus speed and risk equal satisfaction. Speed and risk transformed the experience into something so stimulating, so exciting, and so intense, that we began to believe that those qualities defined “good work.” Now, betrayed by the reality of economic uncertainty as Nigerians and global instability as Africans, we are casting about for what really matters when it comes to a livelihood. 

I have spoken to people who spent their lives both in highly bureaucratic organisations and bland road-side industries who were absolutely committed to their work. That commitment sustained them through slow stretches and setbacks. They never watched the clock, never dreaded Mondays, never worried about the years passing by. Far often than not, they had no sense of the boko matrix of the 5-day work week, or 9 to 5 one-day unit. They didn’t wonder where they belonged in life. They were phenomenally productive and confident in their value. In places unusual and unexpected, they had found their calling, and those callings were as idiosyncratic as the Hausa-Bakwai and Banza-Bakwai individualities. 

And this is where the second big insight came in; your calling isn’t something you inherently “know,” some kind of destiny. Far from it! Almost all of the people I reference found their calling after great difficulties. They had made mistakes before getting it right. One tsohon soja is now the head of a commercial drivers’ union and owns a business with a fleet of mini-buses. He was a driver in the army and wasn’t sure of what to do after the Civil War. He says, beaming with infectious pride, that he knows the roads from Maiduguri to Lagos and from Sokoto to Port Harcourt like he knows the palm of his hands.   

This lesson in late, hard-fought discovery is good news. What it means is that today’s confused can be tomorrow’s dedicated. The current difficult climate serves as a form of reckoning. The tougher the times, the more clarity you gain about the difference between what really matters and what you only pretend to care about. The funny thing is that most people have good instincts about where they belong but make poor choices and waste productive years on the wrong thing because they lacked the drive, the self-agency and social thrust. What we do cuts to the heart of the question; what should I do now and not tomorrow? And how far will we go to get it done today, not tomorrow? As far as Abraham was willing to go to find his way, even if at the expense of an heir? 

Some are born princes of nothing, others born princes of Wales, or of Wall Street. But most princes of substance end up dying as princes of nothing. And even more princes of nothing end up dying princes of a smaller nothing. You are in for a rude shock finding out the reasons why. It all depends on what you do by practical action.  

The wrong turns hinge on a small number of basic assumptions that control our lives, career choices, and ambitions. I found hardly any consistency in how the people I refer to discovered what they love to do, because the human soul resists taxonomy, except when it comes to misconceptions that have calcified into hobbling fears. Yes, life is a difficult journey. This happens to be a thought too disconcerting for a Sallah Day, but those are the stumbling blocks we need to uproot before we can find our ways. These are the questions you will probably only be able answer on your deathbed after determining the prince you are(n’t).