This Friday on Cupid…

Hi David, I am a teacher in a secondary school and I am 29. I have a business of making shoes and I run it myself. When I get back from work, I open my shop and start working. Little by little I have been able to get a place of my own and cannot beg for food at least. I have a girlfriend who is so beautiful and loving. I am planning on getting married to her, nothing in this world can stop it, well so I thought. We have only one problem, my profession. See, I have passion for teaching and that is the only thing I believe I can do so well. I love young children and grooming them. But my girlfriend keeps saying she can never marry a teacher. I got an offer from my uncle to come work in a bank, but I turned him down. When I told my girlfriend about it, she ran crazy, she went berserk. She couldn’t understand why I would turn down a lucrative job so we would marry as poor people. There is nothing my girlfriend has asked me for that I have never provided, why would she call me a poor person, probably because I don’t have a car. I told her that bit by bit we would get rich and I cannot leave a job I love doing to go for something that would only make me sad. She said I am only considering how I feel and not how she feels. Now she is pressing the break up button and it’s scaring me. I can’t lose this girl David, she’s my life, and right now I am just weak. I can’t stop my job and I can’t lose her, please help my life.

                                                                                                                    From Delta, Warri precisely.

David’s thoughts…

When I read your story, I laughed actually😃. I am a teacher in a secondary school and I work with the state government and you know what, I don’t think there is any other job I can ever do better. So I may not have had a girlfriend who is ready to dump me because of my profession, but I know what it means to be passionate about a teaching job. There is a particular drive that comes with grooming young people and it only takes one who is called into it naturally to understand it. So I laughed because I thought of all the blunt comments I could give this lady but I can’t write here😊. Let me start by telling you that I can’t tell you what to do, but I would lay out all your options for you and you get to decide what you want for yourself.

Being a teacher is not a profession that gets you rich quickly in Nigeria, it’s always a slow and steady process and it comes with the business creativity of the teacher to create wealth for himself. If you’re not smart enough and ready to gain more certificates to push your career, then you may find yourself stuck below the food chain. For instance, personally I wish to have a school of my own, and that’s my long term plan, but now I have a tutorial center which I started 2 years ago and I am building from there. Added to that I am pushing for masters and other certificates, so I am building gradually. But the truth is, when you decided to go with this line of work, don’t ever attach a lady who does not see this same vision with you. Within the frame of your girlfriend’s mind, she has never seen a rich teacher, but on the contrary, there are plenty, but all their success stories was bound around patience and so much hard work. Probably she has seen, but she doesn’t think she can have that kind of patience. Try to ask her the kind of wedding she wants, how she intends to live with you and grow children, within these petty talks, you could find out how much of her stress she hopes to solve with money, this would also tell you how rich she wants you to be. Brother, if the stakes are too high for you, don’t pressure yourself, let her be when you can. A man is only a man when he can achieve what he can in one day, come back to a peace of mind and go back to what he can achieve tomorrow. Don’t blame her for her choice, everybody wants a kind of life for him/herself. She wants a rich man, it’s her choice, let her have that or she would take it by force and it will hurt you more.

If you think you must be with her, then you have to take that bank job I guess. Maybe you would become rich. Yes I said maybe because I know many bankers that are not rich, I know many also who started the job and in 5 years they got sacked and till today could not recover from it. I know many who are in prison for one fraudulent act that they knew nothing about. My point is, every job has its hazards, so it’s up to you to choose the job you can better survive its hazard because of the passion that drives you in the job. It must not be a bank job, you can find another one which can pay you bigger and at least you can be her kind of man.

I will only stand by this, a life without passion is frustrated. Passion is the only reason you wake up with a determined mind in the morning and a happy attitude towards a stressful day. I have once told a guy who came to me and told me he is always too stressed in his job, the only reason a stress eats you up is because you don’t have passion for what you’re doing. Teaching is stressful, but it’s a stress I’d rather wake up to every morning, it can’t get me sick, I love it! So if you leave your passion for people’s reactions, then one day your actions will have no passion because you lost it a long time ago. You’ll be frustrated and angry about things and people around you for no reason.

A word for the ladies, as much as you seek to be wealthy in a marriage, be ready to pay the price of working for it. I didn’t say it’s wrong to find a buoyant man and marry, but when he has vision, be with him. It’s a pity what the world is turning into with the heavy technology advancement, fashion development and people, especially women’s crave to follow or level up on a particular trend. But I would always say, if you love something, but then you have to buy another thing to replace it even in its existence, then I think you’re just a dog and people are laying bones for you. I don’t think you would want someone who loves you to throw you away for someone else, no one loves the feeling. Love is real when you can hold on to it for the rest of your life and seek the deepest comfort and solace in it. So love for materials are never real, don’t hold on to it over a person who can grant you forever and always in joy and happiness. When they say money is not everything, people now have erroneous reply for it, but it doesn’t change the fact that it’s true. I don’t really blame people’s reactions, I only see the sort of life they have been through and they won’t want to go back there, or the life they look up to, and their minds are enslaved to it, forgetting it’s not always what it seems. Money is sweet, money is good, money is beautiful, and in fact I don’t wish to be poor. But I only wish to have the kind of money that would give me three things; my true friends still with me, my loved ones by my side and a complete peace of mind. If your money doesn’t come with these three things all complete, trust me when I say this, you can never be happy, you can only pretend, and the worst part is, none of these can be bought with all the money in the entire world given to you.

Now you get to sit down like a man, get yourself a drink in a quiet place and make a decision. If it gets to be letting her go, then you’ll need more glasses😏. Cry it all out, dry your tears and take it like a man. If not, then start preparing a CV, your interview awaits! I hope you know how to pray, He surprisingly knows how to choose a wife too😊.

Thank you choosing Cupid with David, God bless you.👊

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