HomoSapiien:


Had similar issue with Dad. He was too protective and would never support you going out of his sight for long, even when one stopped being a kid.

Mad me so comfortable to the point that going away from home seem an Herculean task, even now when the need for it is more daunting.

HomoSapiien:
I’m really motivated by this thread.

Can’t blame my dad for being over protective, but his overprotection didn’t push me well enough to struggle for survival for myself in my early 20s.

He was not really educated himself, but did well for himself being a hustler during his youngest days, and so didn’t really pay much attention to my education, and neither really interested in me hustling. All he wanted was to give me a soft life so I don’t join bad gangs in his view.

I didn’t attend the best school in my secondary education, and so had to struggle to pass my Olevel after many attempts, and worse even had settle for a part time OND course, which took a huge chunk of my time.

After my OND, I tried learning trailer spare parts sales, but had to quit after about 2 years to further my education in the university. Unbeknownst to me, time was going exceedingly fast away from me and had after two trials before eventually gaining the admission to the university. Then the pandemic and ASUU happened and this culminated all the years and it all appear now that I just wasted my 20s chasing shadows, which is quite unfortunate. Now, all job applications I try applying to have age restrictions and wouldn’t accommodate anything close to 30, which is quite frustrating.

I actually have about a million naira in my account and I’m thinking of getting a business started, but I’m seriously confused as to which line to go into as there are more scammers and fraudsters looking to prey on some of us without much business acumen.

Please pansophist I will like your opinion and advice on this. Thank you.

HomoSapiien:


Mad me so comfortable to the point that going away from home seem an Herculean task, even now when the need for it is more daunting.

cayorday89:


Wow, almost same with my experience, gained admission late also, strike and everything made me finish at the tail end of my 20s, studied banking and had little or know knowledge f many other things. Told them I am not interested in getting a job but I needed funds to start a business because it's like the odd are against me but they said i had no faith, tried to get one, did teaching for two years, got another okay job was able to save massively and lost it during Corona, my savings was also a million, and another wahala to get location for a business was hard, agent no help matters, and it seems Corona made many others look to business, did couple of investments and lost part of the money, back to job search was able to save few cash before deciding to do something on my own, from there I will learn all that needs to be learnt and not do pass myself.

HomoSapiien:


We actually have a lot in common. Studied banking too, only difference is I never tried business before. Just seeking opportunity to start one, and I’m dead scared.

HomoSapiien:
I’m really motivated by this thread.

Can’t blame my dad for being over protective, but his overprotection didn’t push me well enough to struggle for survival for myself in my early 20s.

He was not really educated himself, but did well for himself being a hustler during his youngest days, and so didn’t really pay much attention to my education, and neither really interested in me hustling. All he wanted was to give me a soft life so I don’t join bad gangs in his view.

I didn’t attend the best school in my secondary education, and so had to struggle to pass my Olevel after many attempts, and worse even had settle for a part time OND course, which took a huge chunk of my time.

After my OND, I tried learning trailer spare parts sales, but had to quit after about 2 years to further my education in the university. Unbeknownst to me, time was going exceedingly fast away from me and had after two trials before eventually gaining the admission to the university. Then the pandemic and ASUU happened and this culminated all the years and it all appear now that I just wasted my 20s chasing shadows, which is quite unfortunate. Now, all job applications I try applying to have age restrictions and wouldn’t accommodate anything close to 30, which is quite frustrating.

I actually have about a million naira in my account and I’m thinking of getting a business started, but I’m seriously confused as to which line to go into as there are more scammers and fraudsters looking to prey on some of us without much business acumen.

Please pansophist I will like your opinion and advice on this. Thank you.

pansophist:
I wrote this about a year ago on this thread https://www.nairaland.com/6716367/how-does-young-teenager-figure#105104589 But I think more young people have to see this. Please don't joke with your youth.

SonOfHercules:
Pls pansophist, I have a problem.
I started living with my siblings since October and I got a job by December that pays 30k per month and ever since then, they want me to foot the whole bills.
Mind you, the three gals I'm living with don't wanna work. They are into hookup and want me to pay for everything thinking I'm hiding cash.
The first month, I got 15k for half month and I gave them 8k for food, they went and bought cosmetics for themselves. I pretended as if I was dumb. Then after dat day they didn't give me food anymore. I hard to feed myself that month with the 7k.

The next month I got 30k and I gave them 14k for food, they went and bought cosmetics and food for themselves. After that week, there was no more food for the month.


It seemed as if they were using my head.. Then the third month, I got the 30k again and I bought foodstuffs worth 8k for the house and some clothes cos they didn't want me touching their stuffs and they got angry and went to tell my neighbors that I don't wanna give them money. After they have fed themselves and their cousins with the foodstuffs they still want me to be bringing 2k every time before they cook at home and house rent is expiring next month which we will pay same quota

PS: I'm a housekeeper for one hospital.
Pls I need advice cos this stuff is driving me crazy

seanwilliam:


I know this is not directed to me , but if you don’t mind, I can advise you .



1. Rule no.1 Learn how to survive alone
2. Think out of the box on how to multiply your source of income. Nobody is going to sit you down and feed you with what to do .
3. If you’re a man, please go and rent apartment of your own even if it’s a single room. If you have to borrow, please do, if you have to sell your belongings to raise money , please do it , trust me , you’ll survive .

Sit down and think deeply, trust me, you’ll come up with something.

pansophist:
Furthermore, start seeing life as a race that everyone must cover. So as an analogy, all of us must run a 100km distance marathon, and those that started running earlier enough will go further even if they walk.

Now imagine that you and I have three weeks to run to Abuja from Lagos. I started running from day one while you started two weeks late. Even if I walk the whole three weeks, I'll reach Abuja before you simply because I have started earlier, and even if I miss the road, I can still correct myself. Time, not just health, is also wealth.

Your years on this earth is the time you have to reach the finish line, the earlier you start to run, the better for you. So you must understand wealth not as a tangible thing only (e.g. money), but also as an intangible thing such as time (being young), health, freedom (not in jail), autonomy (not a slave to anyone or a debtor), hope (time to achieve what you set for yourself).

I asked my dad a few years ago how it feels to be old, and his answer shocked me. He said, "you'll know that you're old when you have more regrets than hope". At seventy, no matter how motivated, disciplined and consistent you are, it doesn't matter because you have no time on earth. If you have a child then, you'll have less time to watch them grow and be a granddad.

When you're seventy, you can't do most things you'll want to do, no matter how wealthy you are. You can't be an athlete, go back to school, or train hard for something that takes time (e.g. competitive sports). It's hard to build your business then, and you just watch as people you know in your age range die one after the other.

It saddens me to see that the university which should be a place where youth sharpens their resolve to be formidable and competent as they navigate the world, has been a breeding ground for prostitution, cultism, play, and fun at the expense of their future and the society at large. School now is a place that produces the opposite of what it stands for.

I'm writing this to point out to you how important your youth is, and not to waste it, or not count your blessings because you think you're not materially rich. Don't ignore the blessings you have for one you don't have. It's how you lose. So my guy, I'm writing from a place of love. I wish you well.

Blake755:

Please I did sent you a mail since yesterday or so am eagerly waiting for your reply

pansophist:


I just saw it now, and honestly I'm speechless. I don't know what to say or help. It's beyond me. I mean, I don't have superpowers. I'm sorry life is pain to you, but if you know exactly how I can help, let me know.

pansophist:


Quite the opposite. I'm very patriotic, what I meant to write was "let the nationalistic ones save Nigeria". I've redacted it to reflect this point.

Leaving a country you are patriotic towards doesn't mean you don't like or want the best for it, but a well known strategy of "surviving first, then fight later". You can't be hungry and hopeless in Nigeria while refusing to leave because you're patriotic. That's stupidity.

This reminds me of the 18th century invasion of Russia by France. The French military led by Napoleon were undefeatable then, and the French envied the vast landmass of Russia, longing for the defeat of the Russian empire and to occupy their land with all the resources buried underneath.

The Russians being very patriotic devised an ingenious method, which is, they allowed the French army to advance deep into the interior of Russia which took them months, even into their capital Moscow. The Russians even burnt their capital and looted it, and when the French arrived, they were shocked. Like what is happening?

Then the Russians attacked. If you know anything about Russia, you'll see that they are known for two things. Landmass and winter, which the Russians used to their advantage.

For example if Ghanian army wanted to attack Nigeria through the Lagos seme border, it's easier to defeat them when you allow them march deep into the interior of Nigeria, then fight them maybe in North, in state like Maiduguri, the opposite end of Lagos.

This strategy is deadly because supplies and food become difficult and longer for the invading army to access, their morale weakened, and of course it's difficult to go back home for the invading army, and in the case of Russia, the dead freezing cold of the arctic was an advantage.

In a nutshell, the Russians defeated the French army, and with for roughly every five soldiers that made it to Russia, only one returned alive. Over a century later, Hitler attempted the same thing snd met the same fate of defeat.

So if the Russians can destroy a global capital city such as Moscow, so they can strategize and return with a more deadly ambush, then on an individual level, patriotism would be to leave and support the nation either through cash (eg when you send money to your loved ones, build your house, open a business etc), you're good to go.

The opposite will be nationalism, which in my book is toxic and stupid. Like those northerners than blow up their countrymen for some stupid ideology, or that no matter how bad the country degenerates into, they see leaving as betrayal and unpatriotic. That's stupidity, not patriotism.

So my dear comrade, japa first, save yourself, remove the speck in your eyes, see clearly and thrive, then determine how you want to support or help the country. That's true patriotism.

MichAm:

Hello,
Please I sent you a DM.

pansophist:


Donate 20k to a charity and I will handle your pm. Otherwise, please write it here.

pansophist:


Donate 20k to a charity and I will handle your pm. Otherwise, please write it here.

pansophist:


Remember that friend that will tell you shit about someone, then later you find out that it was all a lie and a ploy to cover their own fault, especially when they've gravely offended you (eg saying shit about you), and that person they talk shit about will expose them?

Refuse to let yourself be used. Did you arrive at your opinion about these leaders by yourself or by western sources? If you know China before Mao won the civil war, you'll see that Nigeria of today was far better than China when Mao took over. Mao and the CCP saved China, it's an historically uncontested fact.

Go to Zhihu.com (Chinese version of Quora or ask.com), then use Google translate and interact with the Chinese yourself. I made lots of Chinese friends this way. Let them tell you about Mao, hear from the horse's mouth, and not western sources.

Do you expect the west to praise Mao after he chased them out of China, recovered Hong Kong from the British that was stolen for a hundred years, Macau from the Portuguese, recovered Manchuria from the Japanese and now Taiwan is on the line to be reunified?

In the 70's, China couldn't even afford to build a expressway without sewing millions of clothes for western countries, but fast forward to 2022, they put a man in space and is the world largest economy, building infrastructures all over Africa. Mao, a man that saved China you have a negative view of? Lol.

I wished such a leader existed in Nigeria, you probably would be living far better than now. I'll tell you a secret that every leader knows. It's simple. They are above the law. Just as religious books are written for Christians to follow, civil law is for civilians, and leaders will break it if needed to advance the interest of their society. Mao did exactly that.

Mao alongside Stalin may have done lots of wrong, but the Chinese and those well vast in Chinese history knows it was not intentional, but a necessary mistake, e.g. the about 20 millions Chinese that died in the farming due to western blockade, a price that made China self-sufficient in food today. China paid the price for their freedom, hence they are free and thriving.

About Stalin, he paid the price of destroying nazism from Europe by losing twenty million soldiers, and if you love freedom, you owe these men a debt that can never be paid. If not because China and Russia got their act together to be a stumbling block to the west, the slavery your ancestors went through would be nothing compare to the sorrows that awaits you. You think the west are your friend? I weep.

So my guy, learn to think for yourself. What I've written is not to teach you anything, but to make you think and be conscious of structures that exist in the background that make you think a certain way. Also known as metacognition, to understand why you think the way you think.

True freedom comes from the mind first or as Bob Marley puts it, "emancipate yourself from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our mind".

pansophist:


There is no panacea unless the international order (global leadership) changes. We are in a very complex, extremely hopeless, and almost impossible situation. I talked about compound wealth all the time, and it's a best friend or your worse enemy. The formula of compound wealth is that it would reward your work, either good or bad.

So since Africans have been under captivity for over 400 years (judging from when the first slave ship arrived in Africa in 1619), our complacency and inability to defeat the west have compounded favorably to them, and negatively to us. Compound wealth is exponential, it's like how you get a huge tree even if you plant a single seed.

So imagine all that we could have become for hundreds of years, and instead, we went backward. It is almost impossible. We have been chained and locked. Let me give a scenario of how worse it is. Imagine we are a one-week-old orange plant, and the west is a farmer, they will never water it, or expose it to sunlight and photosynthesis, instead, they will uproot it. It is exactly what they did when they killed Gadaffi, Sankara, Lumumba and co. When they were silent during the killings at lekki toll gate, and many more.

But there is a tiny way out, but we won't reach there with cesspit democracy, democracy is a scam, it's too flawed. For example, a sheep might not be able to protect itself from a hyena, but if the sheep are protected by humans, then the hyena will have to defeat the human first before it can kill the sheep. The sheep is Africa or the third world, the hyena is the west, and the human is the new challenging superpower, which is China.

So we must understand power politics, and play accordingly, to ally with powers capable of defeating the west such as Russia/China duo (this is what Assad did hence he is still alive and Syria getting back to normal), Sadly, we don't have good leaders and our political system makes it easy to infiltrate. Democracy is so useless that if for example, Buhari is doing what the west doesn't want, they will sponsor and fund an idiot that will do everything they want will billions and return it to the status quo, a good example is Ukraine and Zelensky, or when they sponsor Blaise Compaore and killed Sankara, which Compaore then undo every progress Sankara did in Burkina faso.

A one-party political system such as the one practiced in Singapore and China is the way. Just like a CEO of a company takes a company from zero to a billion USD, leadership is not something you change every four years. No leader can achieve anything within four years. Even if Peter Obi is elected, he cant not undo all the mistakes of Nigeria for over four hundred years in eight years. Democracy is flawed. Only in democracy will ancestors like Tinubu win because he has money. Democracy is a system for the rich and famous to rule.

Democracy also equalizes the vote of intelligent scholars like Soyinka and a northern almajiri that will sell his vote and future for a plate of tuwo and tea and will vote for useless reasons such as he is a Muslim or he is from my village. And in a country where over 80 percent are undereducated, it is easy to get their vote. Democracy is a new political system that was enforced on all colonized country and lots of respectable philosophers criticized it in the past, and they were killed for that, I think Socrates was killed due to his criticism of democracy.

Africa needs a leadership league from the ground up, that will carry the affairs of the country like a CEO without cutting their time in office like how democracies do and disrupting progress by electing an idiot after four years. But for that to happen, expect the west to come to bomb us and return us to the status quo, they won't let that happen, so we must ally ourselves with other powers, like how a sheep seek protection from human, because the only thing a monster fears, is another monster. Either we become a dangerous monster (eg have ICBMs like North Korea that can reach any part of the globe), or ally with those that have it. This was what China did in 1949 with the soviet union before they could stand on themselves.

pansophist:


I wrote this last year. It was a perfect prediction.

And a year later, the international order has changed, and in the beginning of destroying old colonial world order.

The question that remain is, will Nigeria drop corruption, tribalism nepotism, political Wickedness, ethnic disenfranchisement and onboard with the new world formation?

Maxxim:

Recent happenings amongst the world powers gives Nigeria the opportunity to be on the winning side where the country history will be rewritten for good, but the last time we attended their summit we only choose to be a spectator, Nigeria cannot get better anytime soon

pansophist:


If Inec is effective, I expect new political party to become popular with the masses, win the vote and change things for good.

What do you think?

CaveAdullam:


1. To be sincere, Nigerian graduates are paper tigers. We all want to earn 1million+ income but we've not asked ourselves what skills we have? What value are we bringing to a company that will make them scratch their tooth and nails just to pay that sum of money as a salary?

2. Though the academic system now operating in the world is skewing to the left, and the wrong side, not tending to make students and individuals become familiar with skills and knowledge necessary for real-world application and survival. The system just paints something that looks good but lacks vitality and can neither improve the individual nor society.

3. Why do many graduates fall head over heels for this vacuous academic system? In yesteryear the few people who pursued academics were successful, and they were successful because the system was capable of accommodating their intellectual ability and curiosity. That's why it was rewarding.

4. But the people stampeding the gates of universities and colleges around the world today lack curiosity and the intelligence necessary to illuminate the paths they seek. What they are all pursuing is the final result - high income, forgetting that high income is the resultant effect of skills, knowledge, intelligence, and deep curiosity.

5. The people that succeed in academics, not those with first-class degrees are those who had that intelligence and curiosity before alleviating it with academics. That's why it's only a few professionals of many "professionals" that can make waves in their various fields. It is these sets of professionals that give value to an academic degree and results that equal their fame and high income; and which stimulates the masses to pursue academics while they are being oblivious to the necessary work involved in achieving a good result.

6. Tunde is ashamed of his handwork because his friend, Yusuf has a university degree. He abandons his handwork he is well equipped with the right knowledge for a university that he is incapable of performing up to average. At the end of the day, he struggles with his academics till he graduates, and when he enters the labor market he becomes frustrated and hopeless.

7. Many do see academics as an escape route from the harsh reality of life, and an easy way to a good income and that's why they become more frustrated when they don't have a job or when they face the harsh reality of office politics.

8. Where do most of them land when they don't get their aspired dream job? They land on the apprenticeship they refuse to follow from the beginning which they were more built and suited for.

9. Since everyone is in rush for money, it is better to start chasing it from the beginning rather than look for an easy escape mode through academics that they are not built for, coupled with the fact that academics has been eroded with many of its values. And this is only possible by engaging in profitable skills and scalable trades.

Thanks.

Kipaji:


Number 4 caught my attention the most.