When I was a boy, I wanted to grow up for some reasons; the primary one was that I hated the fact that I always had the smallest meat in the house at dinner. Well, dinner because breakfast was decentralised and lunch was a myth the government propagated in school books (I always thought 3 square meals was a thing in utopia). I wanted to grow up so bad so that I could be like my dad that got multiple portions of meat, pomo and fish all in one plate - it's safe to say I really hated on the guy.
With this as my primary thought, I navigated my childhood, and as time went on, other reasons came for why I wanted to grow up; like having access to the food pot by myself, being able to go out when I wanted to, without being scrutinised or stopped. Even though I knew I wanted to have money, making money was a tertiary reason for wanting to grow up - and that's where the problem was.
In retrospect, I was not someone that was overly enthusiastic about making money. I had a best friend in secondary school who could do anything for money; this boy at that young age was so money-oriented that he participated in any promotion he could lay his hand on, try out anything that was suggested to him as a potential moneymaker and even took this behaviour to the university. The one good thing I noted at the time was that he never went overboard in his quest for money - he never tried to dupe his peers or steal (at least I hope). Older me now sees that there was a lot of merit to that character as he must have gained a lot of experience in his numerous trials, errors and schemes. I wonder where he is now.
I should have known growing up was a scam though; it would have prepared me for the future if I knew how bleak things were. Parents and adults did not do a good job letting us know how bad and hard things were - maybe they expected us to figure things out by the lives they gave us. As a child, I had very strong intuition if I may say so myself but even if I didn’t, I ask myself; how did I think it was feasible to take the bull by the horn as the adults always said about their endeavours? Have you seen a freaking bull? Those things do not pretend about their evil intent, it is even evident by the huff and puff they heave when they sight a human.
This was enough sign that things were rough and adulthood was nothing close to a bed of roses - even if you could afford roses. I think that if I had the right mentality at an earlier age, it would have shaped the man I have become in a better way. But it is no use crying over spilt milk, and as they say in Nigeria “we mauve!”