They said that when you go to school, finish strong and do your service, you’ll get a good job...
“The service year has finally come to an end” a lot of my colleagues would say. Oh yeah they had been anticipating and waiting for the end.
The end of service year is literally an official launch into the already jammed and seemingly competitive job market.
The Labour statistics report of Nigeria in Q4 2017 has shown that there is 7.9 million Nigerian youth aged 15-34 that are currently unemployed.
This was last year being exclusive of the corps members that finished their service from last year till this year. Now I don’t wanna imagine the outrageous figure it would add up to be.
You know, this is scary enough as it gets.
In Nigeria today, the end of service year just translates into the start of joblessness officially.
The allawee would be missed by a lot of people.
Gone are those days where your certificate spoke for you now your connect does the speaking.
Its more like when nysc ends; life starts. It is no news that for a good number of us after service we no longer get the alerts or even handouts from our parents.
For the last month, my mind has been pretty occupied with thoughts of what's next for me. I know for a fact that I don’t wanna go home and be idle or be a liability to those at home worse to myself.
“Hustle. Start something. Don’t wait to get a job because there a no jobs” they say.
This is very good advice. Albeit it is not as good when you don't have the hustler in you. Often times I further wonder if everyone is supposed to make it in being an entrepreneur. Now don’t get me wrong I admire the “hustlers" but what if some people’s hustle is in going to work every morning? What if your passion entails that kinda office hustle?.
Today’s society in an attempt to empower the youths have become blindsided to the fact that every individual has their unique qualities. They’re even biased in their references. They be like “look at Linda Ikeji, Mark Zuckerberg, Dangote and the likes…” . They never mention the Ngozi Okonjo Iweala and those in the corporate world making it big. The interesting truth is we cannot all be an entrepreneur. If we all are who then would patronize us??! (I shall come back to this entrepreneur thingy on another post another time)
I had this notion that service year was a time where you discover your purpose if you hadn’t before so after service you make right choices.
There are important things to keep in mind amidst all these.
There would come a time when there would be pressure. It could be from society(for the ladies it’s more also with reference to marriage and how your biological clock is ticking. Smh), then even from family where you'd literally be reminded everyday of how your peers are in one thing or the other.
When the pressure comes because I know they will in due time.
*Brace yourselves.
*Know that you’re not less for not getting a job early or doing something handy.
*Think not less of yourself
*Believe that at the right time, everything will fall into pleasant places. Just trust the process
*…..and pray.
#lifeaftersercive #realitycheck

Great post, Bellanita.

The problem with Africa is that we believe the wrong things.

Motivational speakers just cherrypick a few entrepreneurship success stories and run with it.

If it were that easy, every blogger will be Linda Ikeji. Or every industrialist will be Dangote.

Like Naval Ravikant said, "people spend so much time doing, instead of thinking about what they should be doing."

I share deep ideas here... https://vincentchukwu.com