One of the things I hear every day whenever I step out of my house is that George, Nigeria no reach your side which means that the present situation of the country isn't affecting me just because I am living just fine but they are mistaken. I am having some challenges with the economy too but God has been always good to me and people barely see my struggles because I don't sit them down to tell them what happening in my life.
While growing up, one of the things I learned from my mom is to always face my problems no matter how huge they are because no one is coming to help you and when help eventually comes, it would be a compliment or an addition to the reward of your efforts. In a situation where you choose to only tell people about your problem with the aim of getting help while doing nothing to help yourself, that would only mean that the problems would remain there for a long time.
I am not disputing the fact that a problem shared is a problem solved but I find it really difficult to tell people what I am going through and they can barely predict without me giving a hint.
One of the things that makes people clueless about my problems is my way of living within my means, people can barely differentiate between when I am financially good and vice versa because I always live my life as simple as possible. This way of life has taken away any form of pressure from me and it's worth emulating so when people tell me the country situation is not affecting me, I just laugh but the people close to me can tell that I have my struggles too.
The truth is that there is no man without a problem in life and it only ends when life ends so as long as we want to stay alive, we must be ready to take on problems. Everyone has a problem, yours might be bigger than mine and vice versa but we all have one particular thing we are struggling so much with. This isn't about being rich or poor and I am sure we are familiar with the saying that the rich also cry.
At the moment, my biggest problem is the same as that of many Nigerians and it would have been better if this problem could be solved generally but it can't and the only option we are left with is to find the means of coping individually.
The country's economy isn't making any sense and it's really eating deep into the little money we are making from our daily hustle. Understandably, there is inflation globally but the Naira to Dollar exchange rate has made things quite complicated for many Nigerians.
As the first child of the family, I am not finding the situation funny at all because I have different bills to pay and coupled with the rate at which the price of goods has skyrocketed, the economy issue is becoming life-threatening. I remember how much I spent monthly this time last year and the years before, the estimate of my monthly budget has doubled despite cutting it down and reducing the food consumption in the house.
Things have become really expensive and a lot of people including myself are struggling to cope. This turbulent economy is affecting business so badly and it's the first time I have experienced having to add money to my capital just because there is always an increase in the price of things every day.
I don't know how long this will last because it would only bring more problems if things got worse than it is at the moment. For instance, the crime rate in the country has stepped up a bit since all these started and we are yet to see the worst reaction to this harsh economy.
Sadly, there is nothing we can do collectively to bring a balance to the economy if the government isn't doing the right thing but as individuals, we must keep pushing through.
All images belongs to me