In the beginning of your early years there is abundant happiness, love and gleam as a child who has ever lived on earth. We all possess the innate ability to appreciate life and all that life brings to us, until one realises that, aha! life is full of dynamics. For all intents and purposes our parents try to nurture us for the betterment of our future in order for us to be ready, strong and firm against the trials and tribulations brought by life. However, it is a cliché that for many, life is termed as one’s choice but I guess the phrase is used loosely or rather too abstractedly to what it really means.

An African child is always presumed to have dealt with good and bad during their early childhood. Yes, I am one son of the soil and I had been a subscriber to the above notion until I saw the other dimension of life when I completed my tertiary studies and suddenly became a father to a daughter. That was not the end of a journey but the beginning of the voyage.

Life is blissful before facing the reality of the universe and it is filled with the greatest zeal and a plethora of imaginary successes, affluence and positive influences to other people. Aha! The reality of the matter is that we are mostly imbued by the great expectations regarding life.

Consequently to that, when I was leaving the tertiary institute as a graduate my heart was fond, filled with hopes and all I was visualising was getting to the world of bread and butter with the belief that my qualifications and the highly advanced skills I had attained would reflect me as an asset to the corporate world.

However, it became apparent that everyone always thinks bigger and positively and no one would ever elect to live with cries but for the unpredictability factor of life we meet the adverse.

The aforesaid was evident in my life and manifested itself by an unwelcoming unemployment which fell like an irksome bee onto the bonnet of my dreams. Subsequently, the former had thwarted my progress and wasted the best years of my early 20s and left me emotionally maimed and a flare of emotional scars is still evident and palpable even today.

Unemployment keeps on staring at me and putting a setback to my successes. Sometimes I do a self-introspection, and ask, ‘am I the co-author of my misfortunes?’ At times I feel cheated after spending years of hardship and toil but only to attain qualifications for the walls of my home lounge.

I have lost most of valuable things in my life as a result of unemployment, I had lost my dignity, friendships and love but lately it seems like I’m losing taste of life as a result of its unfair nature. It goes without saying that a man has to man up and devise plans for himself and his family. I did the former but whatever I get is not sustainable enough as we live in days of the misfortune of ‘hand to mouth’ with the resources.

Many believe in an adage of late-blooming, but I assure you no one would ever have inner peace with that especially as a father of two. At times you feel emasculated, pressurised, irresponsible and like not trying hard enough to change your life situation as a man due to the uninvited whammy to your life.

The experience has taught me a lot about life including how you can remain positive at all times. My biological father turned his back on us as his children, that made me more mentally strong and determined in life. It is unimportant and superfluous to cry over neglect, rejection, mistrust and disappointment though the pain will always be felt in your heart. But remember that life is for the living, so live it or you better off dead.

However, the fear of my fears is to fail to unfetter my family from these chains of life. It is high time we strongly believe in ourselves and draw the line on this suffering resulting from inequities of our forebears. Fight for your dreams and your dreams will definitely fight for you.

Tell us: Are you fighting for your dreams?