The Unsures

A letter to those still finding their way.

Initium

When we listen to those who have made it, the rich and influential people in society, they are always able to tell a story. Most times when you ask, they tell you they always knew they wanted to do this or that. And then it makes you wonder if something is wrong with you.

It seems like you are unserious and wouldn’t make something good out of your life since at age 30, 35, 40, you still don’t even know what you want to do with your life. You are just living, just surviving, struggling to make ends meet, or just trying to please your bosses and get a salary raise or a promotion.

I sometimes sit among friends and peers and hear them talk about their plans for their life, stories of how they have this plan set out for their future, a vivid picture, and a clear path of what they want to achieve. Some even go the extra mile and are able to give clear goals and attach timelines to them. By the end of this year, I will have seen 30 Christmases, and I know it can be shameful to admit I do not know what I am doing or where I am going, but it is what it is.

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Ambiguitas

You have to stay consistent, put in the work, and never quit because if you persevere long enough, you will eventually see the results. Look at the successful people in life; they all faced difficult seasons, setbacks, rejection, and moments of doubt. What separated them from others was their ability to keep going when things were hard.

No pain, no gain. Dream big, start small, and act now. Hard work beats talent ~when talent refuses to work hard. Small steps every day eventually become massive progress. Work until your idols become your rivals. Believe you can, and you are already halfway there. Success rarely happens overnight. Most times, it is consistency, discipline, and perseverance repeated daily that make the difference.

I am tired of seeing these quotes, reading these messages, listening to motivational speakers, and getting all this hard work advice. The pressure is real, and the big questions for me:

“Consistent doing what?” 🤷
“Work hard on what?” 🥺
“I hear don’t quit, but what am I even doing that I shouldn’t quit?” 😒
“Hard work doing what? I don’t even know my talents.” 😮‍💨
“I am not in any significant pain, but doesn’t that mean I am on the wrong path and won’t see gain? 🤔”
“Small steps, but where am I going?” 😩
“I believe I can, but when you ask me what I can, I don’t even know.”

That shame sits there for me through conversations with my peers, social gatherings, work meetings, and the quiet hours before sleep. It feels personal. It feels real, … but is it?

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Pondus

While some people are wired in a way that makes them able to chart a path early in their lives, the pressure to have a grand vision is mostly Social Noise. Truth be told, most people are as lost as I am and still don’t have it figured out. And it’s no shame if you are one of us.

I have listened to so many stories, and I somehow know how to break things down and see through stories. Many a time, I know when someone doesn’t know jack about what they are doing or where they are going. I just listen and smile.

A lot of “I knew it” stories and narratives are constructed in hindsight. People arrive somewhere and then build a clean story backwards. Very few people genuinely had a clear vision of where they were going that mapped to where they ended up.

Now the weight sits on your chest. You see people your age with houses, businesses, families, and titles. You hear their timelines and their five-year plans. And you ask yourself: What am I even doing with my life?

At 35, Jane is not married, and every family gathering feels like an interrogation.
At 32, Paul is still trying to “figure life out” while his mates seem ten steps ahead.
At 47, Kennedy is neither married nor does his take-home pay take him home.
At 50, Andy has no tangible investments to his name, and retirement is knocking.
At 29, Amy feels like time is running faster than her plans.
At 40, Morris has the title, the suits, and the office, but no peace of mind.
At 45, Angela has spent years building everyone else, forgetting to build herself.
At 38, King is successful on social media but drowning in debt offline.
At 31, Danny feels pressured because everybody else seems to be “making it” except him.

Does this mean they are unserious? No, it doesn’t. Seriousness is more about how you engage with life and not what you’ve accumulated or achieved by a certain age. Factors such as health, family, burdens, and systemic disadvantages affect achievements.
Does this mean it’s not their fault? Not necessarily. Aside from circumstance, choices and timing, which are within their control, also contribute to determining outcomes. But fault is rarely the useful question.
Should they be worried though? Maybe pressuring themselves more would push them to make better choices. Well, I have never seen worrying solve any problem. It just compounds the weight. A useful assessment is a more productive action than worrying. On pressure, society’s pressure is already blunt enough and doesn’t care about the specifics of the situation. Adding pressure just accelerates burnout and paralysis.

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Pondus (cont’d)

Here’s the part nobody puts in the motivational quotes.

Entry-level pay vs cost of living.
Wages have grown, but inflation, housing costs, and the cost of living have outpaced them significantly. A young person entering the workforce today has less real purchasing power than their parents did at the same stage. In Nigeria, this is amplified by naira devaluation, fuel subsidy removal, and food inflation. A salary that looked reasonable in 2020 is genuinely insufficient today, doing the same job.

Hiring competent people.
The skill gap between what employers need and what the education system produces has widened. Employers (like you if you choose to go into business) increasingly cannot find people who can actually do the work, not just hold the qualification. The certificate has become easier to obtain, but competence hasn’t kept pace.

Honesty and loyalty.
The conditions that breed desperation (inadequate pay, job insecurity, cost-of-living pressure) correlate with higher rates of employee fraud and attrition. People aren’t inherently less honest, but financial pressure changes behavior. That’s not an excuse. It’s a reality. Nigerians would say ‘Business wen u just start, them don dey thief the small money wen no even reach anything.’

Retention.
Younger workers move more frequently, partly by necessity and partly by design. The old social contract (loyalty exchanged for security) has broken down because your business cannot offer the kind of security the employee demands, considering economic realities.

Starting a business.
Barriers are paradoxical. Some things are easier, like technology, remote work, and low-cost tools. But the fundamentals (capital access, regulatory environment, finding reliable staff, surviving early years on thin margins) remain brutally hard. Inflation makes the runway even shorter.

This is not pessimism. That’s the current structural reality.

Comparing experiences would just stress you out more than it helps. Worse still, comparing without even knowing their story and their struggles.

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Lux

Here is what I have come to realize.

The best thing you can do for yourself is to know where you are and be honest about it. I genuinely think this is one of the hardest things to do. Knowing you don’t know what you are doing or where you are going. Accepting it and then admitting it openly.

The beauty is that the ones who end up becoming more grounded and building more sustainable things are amongst us ~The Unsures. Because we are typically responding to what’s real rather than performing an ambition.

Here’s my ten percent.

Stop trying to find the destination first.
I know this one sounds crazy, and it probably doesn’t make sense. You are scared of moving without a direction, ba? Most people who look like they know where they are going are just moving confidently, sometimes in multiple directions. The clarity actually comes from moving rather than from planning the direction.

Follow what shows up.
Some things would just keep coming to you. Things that you do without being asked. Problems you naturally want to solve. Yup… Note them.

Optimize for optionality, not certainty.
I can’t say this enough. If you are moving in multiple directions, or just being pulled in multiple directions, then you are like me, or maybe for you, you are pulled in just one direction, but not sure of the path or what to do exactly. The goal isn’t to lock in the answer. It’s to make moves that keep more doors open than they close.

Let me give an example. On the surface, Frank currently works in project management. But he can easily pivot into several other fields. From his grandmother, he learned farming and agriculture. From an internship years ago, he picked up enough real estate knowledge to find his footing. His background in mechanical engineering opens doors to automobile sales and repairs. And past business experiments have left him with skills in computers, phones, solar systems, graphics design, and even drones.

These paths aren’t obviously connected. They don’t form a clean narrative. But each one is a door Frank has already unlocked. And any of them could serve him when he finally gets a clearer sense of direction.

Just do the next right thing.
Don’t look for the next ten things. Get the admission. Get the job. Get the raise. Close this deal. Travel. Attend the event. Save. The path reveals itself through action more than through thinking.

If you are way older and have seen ten to twenty more Christmases than I have.
The same still applies. For you, you have less time to spend on things that drain you. The question should now shift from “What do I want to be?” to “What kind of days do I want to have?” At your age, that’s a more useful question and would help you live better, more fulfilling days.

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Terra

I cannot advise all, and you would probably argue with some of the things in this newsletter, and that’s fine.

A universal truth, though, is that comparison is a universal trap that affects even the best of us, and we must stand guard against it.

It is measuring your insides against other people’s outsides. The people who seem sorted and coordinated and have it all figured out hardly do. The stability society sells is a statistical average dressed up as a moral requirement. It describes what is common, not what is necessary.

Consider this: Not long ago, graduating at 25 or 28 was perfectly normal. Today, you have graduates who haven’t even seen 20 Christmases. Imagine feeling lost because at 19, you still don’t know what to study.

Or take marriage. A generation ago, marrying at 25 was the norm. Today, the average age of first marriage has risen globally. In urban Nigeria, educated women marry much later than our mothers did. Marriage was once a milestone to look forward to, an achievement. Now, marriage rates have dropped significantly. More people than ever are rejecting the traditional path entirely.

The same shift has happened with financial milestones. The average age of becoming a millionaire has also moved. Not because young people are lazier, but because the structural realities have changed. Entry-level pay vs cost of living, Hiring competent people, Honesty and loyalty, and Retention. The system is producing more credentialed people into a market that can afford them less, run by businesses that struggle to find and keep good people, in an economic environment that makes honesty harder and patience rarer. Everyone is under pressure simultaneously: the job seeker, the employer, and the entrepreneur.

So when you hear someone say they became a millionaire at 30, ask what year that was. Ask what the economy looked like. Ask what family support they had. The game board has changed. The rules are different. The age of financial independence has drifted upward just like the age of marriage, because the underlying conditions have shifted.

Here is the harder truth: even if you want to get married or become wealthy, the path will likely take longer than it did for your parents' generation. And that's for the lucky ones. For a lot more people than in previous generations, marriage and financial independence might never come at all. Reduced life expectancy doesn't help matters either. So let's just drop the topic. Find a life that fits you and live it. If you still consider yourself a failure after reading this, then you are your own undoing.

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Dominic