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Life lessons from Surulere, Lagos
Just the other day, I was looking through my photo albums and I stumbled upon a family portrait that took me down memory lane. This photo shows our nuclear family: my father, then a pilot; my mother, then a nurse; my identical twin sisters; and me: the last-born and the only boy. Laying my eyes on that photo took me right back to my early childhood, and what it was like for me growing up in my family. You see this picture was taken in our house in Surulere Lagos, which was a three-bedroom flat.
As I reflected on this picture, I recall two life lessons that have been useful and seen me through my adult life.
Plan ahead and allocate your resources to achieve your goals
Of course, every Sunday the whole family would attend church together. This meant that all five of us needed to bath and be dressed in nice clothes, and have anything else we needed to be ready done to be ready to leave at the same time. Keep in mind that despite having three bedrooms, our apartment had only one bathroom. Everyone had to plan ahead and follow the order we devised to ensure we were all ready on time. I recall there was a particular order that we followed each week: my mum and sisters would have to have their bath first and then me and then my dad. Once this order was followed, we were likely to arrive at church on time for the 8 a.m. service. If we didn’t…
