20/03/2024
From My Inbox...
"Baba, our parents only respect the same yahoo boys you condemn more than us who do legit but don't bring big money home. Baba, you don't know what we are suffering. I go soon enter street at least make my parents respect me too."
Me: (sobs). Dear young blood, my name is Charles Awuzie. I tell you my truth without packaging. I have been where you are. When I came to South Africa, I connected with some varsity mates who also relocated here. In 2 years, those friends picked big money from the streets - ego mbute. I mean millions of Rands. They bought the latest cars and came to Nigeria to flex their money. They painted Nigeria red, built houses for their family, f**ked people's girlfriends/wives and came back to South Africa. Their names were mentioned in several highlife songs and they reigned for a while.
My people back home heard of some of them and started thinking I was 'bewitched'. They called me and told me how "my mates" came home and painted the city red while nobody was seeing my "brake lights". I laughed. I warned them to stop telling me such stories because I was busy studying. And as a student, I need focus and not competition. At that point, I was training on Linux-From-Scratch - LFS. My dream was to build my own Linux OS from scratch. So while they wanted me to come build mansions, I just wanted to build Systems. And upto this point, despite building systems which currently serve hundreds of thousands of users, I still have no passion to build any mansion in my village. It doesn't matter the pressure anyone puts on me, I am a very FOCUSED PERSON.
Those guys who picked big money in those days are mostly broke today. The house they built in Nigeria are dilapidated. Some of them can't afford rent in SA today while others are in jail or dead. But I'm still here, building one day at a time.
Listen, every human being has peer pressure. As long as you have Peers, you will experience peer pressure. Your parents are also under peer pressure hence they always compare you to "your Age mates" or siblings. Please don't let their desperation become a distraction. Focus on your purpose. A person's life does not consist only of how much money they have but how they live out their unique purpose on earth.
Focus on your purpose. The only reason why I make money is to fund PURPOSE - not to show off or please parents and society.
Dear young blood, I know you have pressures. We all do. But don't allow external pressures to distort your convictions. Stick to your unique journey and build one day at a time.
My name is Charles Awuzie and I encourage parents to stop being a source of pressure to their children. Stop expecting your children to achieve in one year what you couldn't achieve in your lifetime.
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