Sometimes, life puts us in tight situations and we think of life as cruel. Many of us have been in that situation several times and it's really disheartening to experience a negative change we never expected.
"Why do I have to go through this?" Many of us ask this question and not everyone gets their answers because they aren't patient enough to find the beauty of that spot where life puts them. I have grown to believe that truly, there is a reason for everything that happens in our life because I have been able to connect the dots of my struggles to the few achievements I have made in life.
"I don't deserve all of this." Yes, you don't and no one does because if life had sent an undeserving breakthrough our way, no one would utter such a statement.
I was very little though but I remembered that we were living comfortably as a family. My dad worked at one of the multinational companies while my mom sold frozen food in one of the popular Lagos markets. The idea of seeking greener pastures came into the picture and that was how things went from good to worse.
We had to move from our home to a rural settlement and it would interest you to know that there was a bomb explosion just a few weeks after we left which claimed lots of life in our former area.
Due to the greener pasture idea that didn't work out well, we relocated with just a few clothes and nothing more. We got a room which was nothing to write home about but the fact that we had a roof over our heads was a huge blessing. My resourceful mom got menial jobs to sort bills so she started growing foods like vegetables, cocoyam, and pepper and we fed on these things.
I and my sibling weren't in school so with helped her even though we caused more trouble than real help. We raised chicken, snails and even catfish in a water container. As a kid, I had never experienced all of that until that time and even though it was stressful, I was happy.
As I grew older, I learned a lot of things even though I didn't know that life was teaching me a whole lot including minimalism but I learned. I grew into a boy who had knowledge about almost everything just because of where we found ourselves as a family.
Things started getting better but not as much as it was. We started setting up our single room and we had to manage the little space we had. Whenever things got bad, I always tried repairing them first. I succeeded with some and failed at some point too which required that we invited someone to get the job done and I learned from them in the process.
I built things just to help us and as years passed, I became really good at a lot of things.
Cooking was among the things I learned and did wholeheartedly even till this very moment. It was a skill that turned into a passion and even till this very moment, I sometimes wonder what it would have looked like if I couldn't cook because I had to fall back on this skill to earn a living at a point in life.
By the time we left the neighborhood, I was loaded with lots of skills and it helped my journey after. It wasn't easy but being able to do a lot of things myself really helped me survive different phases of life and it became clear to me that I went through a tough time as a kid just to learn more about life.
At a point, I was able to dissect these lessons life taught me and found minimalism standing at the centre of all. Life, in its infinite wisdom, taught me minimalism—a philosophy that has not only enriched my own life but also inspired a hunger for knowledge and growth. Without thinking twice, I knew it was the right way for me to live.
Someone once asked if I would still choose to live with less when I have everything in abundance and my answer was yes because minimalism helped me beyond just living with less.
I have never tried making people see things from a minimalist perspective because it's best when they discover by themselves what it means to be happy with less. As a matter of fact, minimalism is one of the things that has helped me stay contended when peer pressure was the trend. I believe what I have is enough and don't need more to be happy or satisfied with life.
As an adult, many things remind me of my childhood because I was a kid who loved to help and as an adult nothing has changed. I would gladly fix pipe leakage, do minor electrical work for people and whenever they asked how I acquired the skill, I just tell them that Life taught me.
The economy in my country at the moment is really challenging but being a minimalist is paying off at the moment. Self-sufficiency is one of my goals and even though I don't have everything I need yet, I am doing things in my little way.
Wouldn't it be fair to say that life taught me minimalism? Yes, life did. I am happy my mom understood the message and taught me a lot of things that inspired me to seek knowledge further.
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