Don’t let your dreams become a burden

“Don’t be too hard on yourself, the younger generation and the future generations to come will always have it harder. So if you’re living with your parents at 30, it’s understandable because with the current economic climate, life is hard,” someone once told me. And she was serious.

A few months ago, I bumped into a friend of mine from high school who had just earned a Bachelor of Science degree in mathematics. We spent most of our “reunion” talking about how he had just landed a job at a reputable financial firm and how his life was going to change dramatically.

He tells me he had already enlisted a real estate agent to show him apartments in Bryanston (he was particular about this part of Sandton). He had also just come from a car dealer when we met, holding a sheet of quotes on luxury cars and pointing at the one where he would pay a monthly instalment equivalent to my salary at the time.

He said he had somehow managed to skip the internship stage to become a permanent staffer with a high salary. I watched him as he spoke with such excitement and entitlement. He had moved up, he was not like us any more and he had to share that fact with us.

I haven’t seen him since that day. I also never believed a single word he said, so when a mutual friend of ours told me he was still a student working part-time at a start-up company, it was an amusing but sad revelation.

He just wanted to prove that he was successful and that he had achieved so much in so little time. In doing so, he revealed something else about himself – that he carried his dream to be successful like a burden.

It would be the only way he would find happiness … but in pressuring himself to do so, he was not truly appreciating where he was in his journey (as a graduate with a job) as something to be proud of.

When we think of financial independence, we think of the freedom money can buy us. The thought of squatting in our parents’ house at 30 – and still being the baby of the house – is not appealing at all, so aspiring to be financially independent is understandable.

But we always ignore warnings from the older generations about how hard life can actually be when one finally takes a step towards independence. No one tells you how expensive it is to live alone and fend for oneself, especially if the salary is not that great.

It’s all good to dream but, in a city like Johannesburg, one of the most expensive, where it is virtually impossible to be financially independent, young people need to learn about the importance of trusting the process of growth and believing in our journeys.

It’s true that we live in the digital age where globalisation has taken over and littered the world with opportunities. But these opportunities do not grow on trees and most times, we have to create them for ourselves.

Getting to these opportunities takes time and will eventually manifest into something beautiful at a later stage if we stay consistent and patient.

For now, we need to stop putting unnecessary pressure on ourselves to succeed and surpass our peers by showing off with a lifestyle we cannot maintain.

If we work hard, we will get there.

Chisom Jenniffer Okoye.

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