To Dream is a Hard Thing

A short story by Chidinma Okere

Sanda lili

sanda lili

sanda lili

sanda lili

sanda lili

sanda lili

sanda lili

sanda question.

I am a lawyer in my country, everybody knows me well, if you look me up and down, you will know that it’s true.

The first time I said pilot instead of my usual lawyer, Uncle Abu, my class teacher, looked at me funny. You know, that look that says, “this is a mistake, but I won’t say it yet.” My classmates were surprised too. Everyone knew that I wanted to be a lawyer. In fact, I was destined to be a lawyer, they all agreed.

Sometime in primary school, we moved from our single-room house to a 2-bedroom apartment. It was a big deal. From his civil servant salary, Papa was able to get himself and his wife a new bed and mattress while we children used the worn-out one on which we were all conceived. To give extra padding, our mattress had layers of random stuff underneath, including old school bags, tarpaulin, mosquito nets, and piles of old magazines. There were old editions of Tell, Ovation, Hints, and others whose names I did not know. It was from those pages that I first learnt what lawyers did. They wore wigs, shouted “court,” spoke big ‘grammar’ and discharged accused persons. Now, that was a grand thing to do — command so much respect just for wearing a wig. Thus, I decided Law it was going to be.

Secondary school started exceptionally boring till JSS3 when I liked a boy, then SS1 when another boy happened. There were good friends and great teachers. There were good grades and shocking ones, yet one thing was constant, a lawyer I would be.

Two JAMB exams later, it was time to choose something else or risk spending another year at home. I had yet to hear that half the entire secondary school population was also trying to be lawyers, nor had anyone told me Nigeria did not have enough tertiary institutions for its teeming post-middle school population.

One more year at home was not a good prospect, so I picked something else; Mass Communication. It was close enough. Even though it did not require all my brilliance, at least my English would shine. Thus, I became a Communicator, and my only focus now was finishing school. That happened, and NYSC followed. One day I was in camp, and the next day, everyone around me was working out their resume and trying to get a job because our one year was at an end.

It dawned on me; I had exhausted my dream. I had used up my dream. I had achieved everything I wanted, which was to graduate from university. My future — ambitions and aspirations — was blank. But my life was only just beginning. I had not dreamed enough because dreaming is a hard thing.

Often, we get told to dream big but big, my dear, is relative. Growing up in an environment where many barely finished secondary school and the most common job was salesgirl or salesboy, graduating from university was a big dream. It was done and I was dusted.

One thing we do not talk about often is that although we all make individual choices, society provides options. This is especially true for children whose entire tools for making their lives depend on the adults around them. Their training, behaviour, trauma and ambitions are picked up from the folks around them. Hardly does anyone grow beyond the company they keep, and what company do children have more than the adults they exist around?

Anyway, my entire life had been organized around graduating school as a lawyer, wearing wigs, and speaking ‘grammar.’ I had spent sixteen years creating that life, and it was not to be. After organizing my CV, what company was I supposed to apply to? What was my dream job? What was I working to achieve? What was my long-term goal?

Like the child of a typical Nigerian parent, I had been raised to finish school, get a job, and get married. It was a straightforward path. No preparation had been made for life’s twists and turns. I realized that I did not have a dream job. It was only a dream degree.

At the adult age of twenty-two, I learnt that it was not enough to go to school and hope to get a job right after. TV and radio stations were barely employing, and I was stranded at what exactly my life was supposed to be since I was not a lawyer, nor did journalism seem to have space for me.

It was time to redream.

A child can blame their environment for their helplessness but as an adult, nah. It was time to pick my materials and decide what my life there on would be. And here is the hard part: new options pop up every other day. Do I want to write or do product design? Do I want to curate or be an online content creator? Should I go back to journalism or just go and marry and be a housewife full-time? The options keep multiplying but pick, I must. There’s no alternative.

Many years later, I am learning that dreaming is a hard continuous process. One is just as important as hard work and determination. To attain success, one must envision things and desire them. In the words of some late Aspire to Perspire Prophet: you cannot feature in the picture of the future you cannot capture. You must have an idea of the direction you want your life to go. The more specific, the better, but even a hazy one would do for a start. The good thing is that dreams are editable. You can dream and redream. As an adult piecing their life together, you can undo and redo.

Like many five-year-olds, you can have a dream so long and detailed that it can be made into a series. You can also dream in skits, short imaginations, and desires you would like to achieve. It is ok not to have 10-year projections. Start with six months first. Keep adding little details as the days go by.

Here is a tip that helps: you may not know what you want to do, but you probably have an idea of how you want to end up. Curate a list of people living life as you wish and imitate them. For instance, do you want to be Chimamanda, rich and famous, or Mercy Johnson, rich and famous? Do you want to be Elon Musk rich or Warren Buffet rich? By curating people with the lives and vibes you admire and want, you can give yourself a sense of direction.

See, to dream is a hard thing, but to dream without enabling tools and environment is harder. Feed your mind, and the dreams will come. Take it one step at a time.