Futura Bold

Futura book sans-serif

Futura demi sans-serif

Futura extra-bold sans-serif

Futura heavy sans-serif

Futura light sans-serif

Futura medium sans-serif

Gaya

I spent years romanticising my dream job until I started to hate it. And honestly, when I look back, I still don’t know at what point it all began to go wrong. I just know that ten years ago, I was desperate to become a journalist, and today, eighteen-year-old me would be disappointed to know that I quit my dream job as a journalist with BBC London, and I am currently unemployed, unsure of the next step to take.

Today, I am fed up with bawling, and I finally want to process the past three weeks since I put in my resignation. I partly hate myself for not seeking advice before doing that and sometimes regret my decision. What if I was being irrational and just reactive? Now that I have bills staring me in the face, with no plan other than to dip into my savings, I can’t find any rational explanation for terminating my job so abruptly, without following due process.

Another reason my chest was really heavy on the 19th of August, the day I quit, was because I felt like I had given my annoying co-worker—Ijeoma—the last laugh. Ijeoma has been my biggest opp since I started working in London. Partly because our manager at the time of my employment always compared her to me, and also because she is just a foolish and arrogant girl. We were the two Nigerians on our team. But rather than stick close, she always tried to set me up.

As I made my walk of shame through the general newsroom to clear out my drawer, I could hear imaginary voices whispering, “Why would she give up on her dream so easily?”

I am sure they thought that my fight with Ijeoma, which landed me my first query shortly before I put in my resignation, was the reason I quit the job. Granted, it cost me my reputation, but come on, I would be foolish to allow that sore bad-belle to cost me my dream job. If I were too embarrassed, I could have easily asked my parents to work my transfer to another department. After all, they had always “worked” things out for me all my life.

But the fact that these same parents don’t yet know that I am not resuming from my “leave”—my pathetic excuse to cover up for my query and resignation—and that I have quit on ever becoming a successful journalist further proves my point… that Ijeoma was not the reason I left work.

I have been spiralling for the past three weeks, and I haven’t stopped asking myself if I ever merited this dream. I have felt like an imposter all my life, and it is sad to admit that I never really tried to get to the roots of my emotions. Instead, I just convinced myself it was self-doubt and turned a deaf ear to the feelings.

Also, my parents didn’t help matters by always giving me the best opportunities on a golden platter. Now, I can understand why my older brother would scold my mom and say things like, “You people are spoiling Lara thoroughly.”

For the longest time, I was convinced he hated me. Especially after my grades began to drop drastically in my senior secondary school. Even my parents were disappointed about that but had hope that I would at least go ahead to become a lawyer and make them proud.

But by the time they realised I didn’t even want to study law anymore, they concluded that I was just lazy and decided—as expected from any parents—to support me regardless and still get me into the best rooms with whatever degree I chose.

My older brother, on the other hand, never bought into all my laziness. In hindsight, maybe he pushed me so hard because of how much he believed in me. But my foolish teenage mind didn’t understand it then. I just concluded he didn’t like me and withdrew from him.

At the time, he was training to be a pharmacist, just like my father. So, even when we travelled to London, and my parents took me to visit the BBC headquarters just before I resumed SS3, he wasn’t at all excited when I got back, gushing over how I had met my “favourite reporters” and dreamed of one day becoming like them.

I wish I could rewind the hands of the clock and listen to his words. He didn’t stop saying, “Lara, this is a lazy dream. Since when have you wanted to become a journalist? I have known you all your life, and this is the first time you are expressing interest in journalism. What happened to all your childhood dreams?”

Today, now that it is too late and I have wrecked my life, a wave of clarity is finally hitting me. The reason why I was never satisfied with my job was that I never actually dreamed of becoming a journalist.

As a child, I wanted to be an artist. But my typical Nigerian parents didn’t support it as a career. So my ability to write, draw, and sing never bloomed beyond hobbies. And compared to my older brother, who was a nerd, I mostly felt inferior and invalidated. I felt like my own passions were irrelevant.

So, I gave up on becoming a professional artist before I was given the opportunity to nurture the dream. My brother always encouraged me not to give up on my art but to double down in school and make our parents proud…maybe then, I could prove to them that art wasn’t a distraction.

I must confess, I was only making an effort in school to be like my brother and so that I could at least get some of my parents’ attention and approval. But when it didn’t seem to be working, I became totally resigned.&nbsp;

In this moment, I hate them for being unavailable when I needed them in my formative years. If they had taken time out of their busy schedules to understand that their two children were unique and that my own passions in the arts were not inferior to my brother’s love for academia, I wouldn’t be here today. And even if by any chance I found myself here, I’d at least have a craft to fall back on.

For the first time in a long time, I actually feel like I am a total disappointment. But in order of priority, I feel like a disappointment firstly to myself, then to my older brother, and then to my parents.

I can’t continue this pretence anymore. I have finally realised it was easy for me to resign because I never really wanted the job, and I have spent years living a lie. That is why I never derived the satisfaction I thought I would from the job in the first place.

I wipe my eyes and reach for my phone. “I’m going to tell them,” I say to myself. But instead of dialling Mum’s number, I dial Tobi's for the first time in six months.

I spent years chasing journalism as my dream job, only to quit and realise I had been living a dream that was never truly mine.


read more