Writing Fulfills Me And Impacts People But Doesn’t Pay Me

“I am going to work”

This statement was often my parents’ parting words to me as they left the house each morning on weekdays. Work was where adults went during the week while school was where kids went. Work was what you did as an adult that paid your bills, and gave you perks like our apartment in a Government Residential Area thanks to my dad’s job as a civil servant, and our membership at Apapa club and our use of an elite hospital thanks to my mum’s job as a banker. Work determined the quality of your lifestyle, the cars you drove, the schools your children attended, where or if at all you went for summer vacation — down to the food you ate was determined by the job you had. My parents are both university graduates who had decent jobs that afforded us a middle-class lifestyle which gave us the necessities but never the excesses. Work was why you attended school as a child until adulthood. Adults in my life would often encourage my siblings and me to get good grades in school so we could get good jobs after graduating from the university. Work and “a job” meant the same thing back then and were used interchangeably. We aspired to get good jobs so we could make a decent living not necessarily to make an impact or use our gifts to serve humanity. As such, children in my country were encouraged to pursue upwardly mobile careers and I ended up…