I made money for the first time at the age of 11. It wasn't much, perhaps about enough to buy an iPhone 4 at the time, but I had won it in a state-wide debate competition and had the envelope of cash deposited into my hand by the wife of the governor herself. It was the most money I'd ever held that belonged to me. In that moment, as applause rang and years of this is how you make it conditioning boomed in my head, I knew I was going to be rich. 

7 years later, I was in my off-campus accommodation which I rented with a friend, a small room that flooded often (one such flooding killed my old laptop which I very fondly remember). Each half of our rent was about as much as the governor's wife had pressed into my hand that day 7 years ago. 

Anyway, I was in this room, lying on my bed, and I was in my second year of university, and I was supposed to be in class that day, but I could not—my body would not—for the life of me, move. I had been in this room for a week, unable to pull myself up to do anything. I was flat broke. Not a naira to my name. I soaked garri for breakfast, lunch and dinner (for cultural context, garri is the roughly ground flour of fermented cassava, and it can be eaten soaked in water for a cheap and easy, if not particularly nutritious, meal. Think instant noodles, but four times cheaper. Garri is cheap, or at least it used to be). I browsed the internet until my bundle ran out and I didn't have enough money to renew, and then I read web serials I'd saved for that eventuality. 

My life felt, to me, in shambles. I was poor. I'd always been poor. Born poor. And I couldn't see a way, realistically, that I'd ever be rich. Three days later, when my allowance came in and I was able to leave the house, my neighbour looked at me and said I looked fresh, that I must be living very well. He was gone before I could figure out how to tell him it was simply the lack of sun.

5 years later, today, I was sitting with a friend and working on a few projects, trying to make ends meet, when she said, "Hey, no one aims to be rich anymore." She didn't need to explain. I got it.

When I was 11, there was something in the air. You felt like you could catch it if you really wanted to. Maybe you had to finish school first so you would have the time to really try. But Dad came home smiling sometimes because he had caught up with old friends and one of them had told him something, or he had talked to a guy at the bus stop who worked somewhere and had given him his number. My dad could smell it, that thing in the air, same as I could: Opportunity. You really believed that one of these days, you’d start to make millions and your grass-to-grace story would be firmly in the grace part. Those days haven’t come, and what’s worse? The air is thinner now, and it's not just me. 

Back in the day, self-employed was the term you gave yourself when you didn’t want to say unemployed. Few people were truly and lucratively self-employed. More people aimed to work for somebody (the government, usually), and get paid a salary at the end of the month. That goalpost is not getting closer. In the third quarter of 2023, 87.3% of my country’s workforce was self-employed, up over 6% from when I was 11.

I had to chew a bitter pill when I entered university. I realised that the more broke I was, the less capable I became of doing anything. There was a problem with me, an inertia that fell upon me and rooted me to my bed, curled me into a ball and shut the world out until something changed. For someone with not many financial advantages, that’s a terrifying weakness to have. I’m broke about twice a month. I can’t be paralysed when I don’t have money. How then would I make some? I had to deal with it, and I did. A cocktail of fear and an accountability system has helped me overcome that inertia so far. What do I want? I want to no longer be broke twice a month. I want a family someday and I want to be able to provide for them and myself. I don’t want to ever be stuck in the bed.

I am not unique. (Okay, maybe the specifics of my situation are unique, but shift things around a little and a lot of us fit the bill).

The problems our generation has had to deal with have led to a certain… rationalisation of expectations. My goal today, and the goal of the friend who sparked my rambling, is to be comfortable. There is still a statistical chance of wealth in the future for 11-year-old me, but 23-year-old me knows that stability is a more important, more precious, more realistic thing. What does strike me now, makes me wonder whether to be hopeful or worried, is how almost no one I know aims to be rich anymore, just to live.