I sat down for drinks the other day with a new friend who has a life many people can only dream of. 

He is very smart, has multiple skills, has a great job in that jewel of Nigeria’s job market oil and gas, has a girlfriend who loves him dearly, and won’t suffer lack anytime soon, and yet he had the same complaint I have heard from so many people, every other day – “This is not where I am supposed to be in life.” 

It made me smile. I have heard the same complaint from all kinds of people, who have made all kinds of achievements, and who have all kinds of lives: rich and poor, single or hooked, highly educated or not: “This is not where I am supposed to be in life.”

When I tell younger people who are just starting their careers and who are unhappy with their jobs and afraid for the future that their fears have nothing to do their income or their status, it has to do with how they see themselves, and how they have not accepted the reality of their lives and fallen in love with themselves just as they are, however they are, they don’t believe me. They think I am just trying to ‘console’ them. They think they just need to get what they want to feel how they want to feel. 

It’s a rookie mistake. It’s not true. 

I wish I could sit all of them down, have them meet each other, so they can be convinced once for all about the evidence I see clearly: that it doesn’t matter what job you have, what school you attend, what family you were born into, or how beautiful you are. If you don’t learn to fall in love with yourself, right this minute, just as you are, you will continue to be unhappy, no matter what you get.