I wouldn't want to be too judgy here because when it comes to living your life either as an employee or self employed, as long as you are earning fine and not begging....you are good to go. Choosing a career path is one of the toughest process one ever has to go through. I mean I personally have been confused more than one million times on this particular road. I have learnt to set aside some of the blames to my parents and teachers not excluding me though.
These days, parents are like....just go to school and learn like your friends. Your friends are choosing doctors, lawyers as profession and you can't be something lesser....Now at that young age you will find yourself competing and struggling futily. You grow up believing you will turn things around for better in your home by being a doctor but your science grades are bearish. Meanwhile, at home you practically like to spend most of your time in the garage, oiling your bicycle, fixing the brakes, getting your clothes messed up...Still Dad wants to see you all the time with your books.
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At school everyone is only paying attention to your grades but no one is paying attention to your hand skills. When it's time for mathematics, they find you drifting off in sleep and call you unserious. They take your bad grades straight to your dad and your dad deals with you so bad. But they don't know how great you are on the piano, how you interprete the solfa notes and play the classical and that if they invested you in a nice fitting music school, you could be another Handel Messiah. They have no idea how quickly and skillful you fix your dads tyres, oil the brakes and save him money.....
I wish a lot that I had learned two to three skills before going to school so I wouldn't just have to depend on my salary job. Its not bad at all being learned and skillful at the same time. When the society fails in job recruitment, your skills would come in handy. For instance, around 2020 when the deadly corona virus hit the world so bad that companies folded, a lot of employees were retrenched, some were unconditionally relieved of their positions. There was a total lock down that lasted for several months. Since no one was going to work due to forceful lockdown by the government to curb the spread of the air borne virus, how would surviving become possible? Okay were able to live off the rest of their savings until it was exhausted, some government-concern countries were able to help their citizens by giving out sufficient monthly paliatives to ease their struggle, some lived off begging from their related and unrelated families....but for how long would these have lasted.
My company closed down and paid her staffs off until further notice so I stayed at home and started getting hungry. I had a friend of mine who was a graphic designer, he had clients online that needed his work even though he wasn't quite good but from home, he made some money to take care of his feeding while I sometimes begged him which was tiring. So when the effect of the lockdown was somehow reduced, I went straight to learn haircut. Though I am a keyboardist and I made few bucks on that from some hidden churches who stubbornly refused to comply to the effect of lockdown during worship days but it wasn't enough for me and so I learned haircutting all through the period of the lockdown and saved myself.
I am butressing the point that there can never be a guaranteed job safety especially in Africa. We do not know when another pandemic might come again but God forbid anyways. Many are ready to die on a job or jobs because they give you pension and HMOs...Well that's nice but you could add some skills to it. You may get an opportunity to travel and live overseas. Would you start going job hunting again or get a small space and set up a kiosk, pay the agreed rent and begin to barbecue fishes....or get a good clipper and introduce yourself house to house and give your best cut and become a renowned well earned hair barber. There are many skills to learn which can take you anywhere and make you earn well with just little of your time.
As a college teacher, I tell my students to get their desired skills even if it includes cooking because everyone can cook I know. When you learn how to cook so well and tasty, you can start cooking to the public either by setting up a restaurant or selling your food by dispatch. Either ways, you will need funds to begin. You can't get a loan for this since its a business that is yet to start so the best option is to get a job and save diligently. It might take years to raise your capital but you're not dying on the job. When you've gotten more than enough, you start up your business and invest in that skills you have learnt over the years. Now no one is gonna pay you peanut anymore, your time is yours fully, the business and the job is yours fully.
Parents do not need to invest only in books but in the skillful part of your children as well so they can earn in both ways. Teachers should do more of practicals and not theory so there can be more skillful hands which will also enable financial boost in the economy. Africa today is in financial mess because they turned blind eye to skillful hands and encouraged importation whilst incurring more debt and debts. May God help us and our children.
