On the place of ‘hard-life’ in moulding successful people

There are Nigerian philosophies that say you have to suffer before you come into wealth; that it is only an achievement that one suffered for, that will last; and that any inheritance bequeathed on one will be temporary. The philosophies have been proved to suffer “error of generalisation”. We have seen all over the world heirs apparent that improved the fortune of their parents. We have seen those born with golden spoons in their mouths and who later had two golden spoons. There is a saying in the Yoruba language which can be literally interpreted to mean that three generations can never be poor. If this is true, it means that by sheer providence, three generations can never be rich! “Ego di na ogwu” is an Ibo proverb that translates to, “money resides in the thorn”. If this is true, how come those living in the thorns do not have money?

There is also a Hausa proverb: “idan ba ku sha wahala ba, ba za ku sami nasara ba” which literally means that: “if you do not suffer, you will not get success”. Sufferness is a relative term and can be defined in different ways by different people. Even those born with golden spoons in their mouths will claim they suffered by going to school and having to sit and listen to teachers against their freedom to sleep and play with friends at the time they were in school. We have lived enough on this earth to say that the postulations that sufferness is directly related to successes and achievements are wrong. Five generations or more can be poor and five generations or more can be rich. You do not have to cut wood with cutlass, carry it on your head and sell it to food-sellers in the garages before you make it. People do not become wealthy because they suffered in the past. People all over the world are wealthy because one, they are determined to be rich and worked towards it; two, due to connection with somebody in a position of power and three, through illicit acts that were not noticed by authority.

In “Those Who Remain” written by G. Michael Hopf, the author of “The Razor’s Edge” and many other novels, he stated that, “My father was on camel, I’m in a Mercedes, my son is on Land Rover, and my grandson is going to be from Land Rover, but my great grandson will be back on a camel. Tough times create strong men, strong men create easy times. Easy times create weak men, weak men create tough times. Many won’t understand but you have to raise warriors, not parasites”. I do not know what “easy times’ means and how it can “create weak men”. The impression created by Hamzah Hussein, a Fiji-based user, when he posted this quotation on Facebook and credited it to Dubai King, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum, was that when you are strong and rich, you cannot raise strong and rich children, that strong and rich children can only be bred by weak and poor parents and that making wealth must come in circle. The post, originally posted in 2014, has been shared more than 10,000 times!

People believed the fake narratives because Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum is a horseracer, the owner of Darley Stables and a leading partner in his family’s Godolphin Stables – the biggest stable in the world! Every parent wants their children to grow up and do wonderful things with their lives including having more money than them. Parents teach their children to be successful and spend money on them to have a better life than the parents. Most rich parents spend more money to train their children than most poor parents. Gone are the days when not having a house to sleep is a feature of the poor. Now, those who do not have a house to sleep are not considered to be poor but homeless. Homelessness is a feature of ‘irresponsible’ government. In 2023, Luxemburg made public transport entirely free in the country. Austria will have one hundred percent social housing in 2030 and electricity is free in Iceland just as water is free in Scotland.

Though the dichotomy between the rich and the poor is widening daily, the total wealth of the world is increasing and there will come a time when you will be described as poor if you do not own two cars and two houses, at least. Horse-riding as a means of transport is a bygone practice and it will remain so permanently. It is wrong to think that a comfort zone is a place for indolence and a recipe for breeding weak men. When I was in the UK in 2003, I attended a conference on “Sustainable Development” and challenged the narrative that sustainable development is “development that meets the needs of the present, without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” How do we determine “the development that meets the needs of the present, without compromising the ability of the future generations to meet their own needs?

When my father did Chemistry, an atom was defined as the smallest indivisible particle of an element. When I did Chemistry, an atom was defined as a particle that can be divided into electrons, protons and neutrons. Thereafter, sustainable development has been variously defined as “an organising principle that aims to meet human development goals while also enabling natural systems to provide necessary natural resources and ecosystem services to humans” and also as “an approach to social, economic, and environmental planning that attempts to balance the social and economic needs of present and future human generations with the imperative of preserving, or preventing undue damage to the natural environment”.

It is arrogance and self-deceit that will make anybody think he can provide for the needs of future generations and to think the future generations do not have the ability to solve their problems. It is mere consolation for anybody to think he or she will be rich tomorrow because he or she is suffering today! Discipline and not sufferness is what is required to succeed!

What we should be more concerned about is “Generation Gap Theory”. According to Generation Gap Theory, future generations have natural instincts and abilities to improve the legacies of the past and present except there is war and epidemic or environmental distortion. It has been proven that our children will surpass our achievements no matter how we look at it. If our children are not doing better than us, then we should check ourselves. Our children will ride Rolls Royces, Bugatti and Ferrari. There was a time when polythene (nylon) bags were banned in the UK. It was a problem recycling them and the past government (past generation), in their myopic mind, thought nylon wastes will consume us. See what the present generations are doing with waste conversion under recycling. Norway is buying waste from the UK and the demand for wastes is huge! There is no waste that cannot be recycled. Thanks to pyrolysis and gasification. We need to think of how we can help the present humanity rather than what our children will become in future. Our children will help themselves. May God help them to be the best they want to be.

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