The Pursuit of Happyness Career Happyness

There's a Nigerian proverb that has survived generations because of how painfully true it is:

"The child who says his mother's soup is not sweet has probably never cooked before."

The older I get, the more I realise that this saying isn't just about food. It's about perspective. There are some truths you simply cannot appreciate until life forces you to live it. From the outside, careers look straightforward. Get a degree. Find a good job. Work hard. Climb the ladder. Earn more money. Build a house. Retire comfortably. It sounds almost mechanical, as though success is simply the reward for doing the right things in the right order.

Then adulthood begins, and you discover that life has no interest in following the neat plan you imagined at twenty.

One of the things Lagos has taught me is that every morning, long before the city is fully awake, thousands of people quietly begin making sacrifices that nobody will ever applaud. At five o'clock in the morning, lights come on in one-room apartments in Mushin and two-bedroom flats in Yaba. Somewhere in Ikorodu, a young graduate is ironing the same white shirt he has worn to three interviews already this month, hoping today will finally be different. In Ajah, a banker is already checking emails before leaving home because yesterday's targets somehow became today's meeting. In Surulere, a mother is trying to pack lunch for two children while calculating whether the money left after paying rent, buying fuel for the generator and settling electricity bills will stretch until month-end. Somewhere else, a software engineer has just logged into Teams from home, praying the internet stays stable because the power has gone again.

By six o'clock, Lagos has become one giant river of movement. BRT buses are full. Danfo conductors are shouting destinations as though volume alone can reduce traffic. Bolt drivers are proud in advance because the fare has changed again. Third Mainland Bridge is beginning to slow down, and everyone is looking at Google Maps hoping to find a miracle route that thousands of other people have not already discovered.

From a distance, it looks like everyone is doing exactly the same thing.

They are going to work.

But I don't think that's the full story.

I think everybody is chasing something.

The young graduate in that BRT bus is not chasing the same thing as the executive sitting comfortably in the back seat of an SUV. The doctor finishing a night shift is not chasing the same thing as the entrepreneur pitching investors. The civil servant counting the years until retirement is not chasing the same thing as the twenty-six-year-old who has already decided that the only future worth pursuing is one that involves Japa; a one-way ticket out of Nigeria.

They are all earning money.

Yet money isn't really what they're pursuing.

Money is simply the vehicle, a means to an end.

The destination is something much deeper.

Growing up, I used to believe that careers were mostly about ambition or direction even. The older I become, the less convinced I am. I think careers are really about solving whatever problem life has placed directly in front of us. At twenty-two, that problem might be unemployment. At thirty, it might be raising young children. At forty, it could be paying a mortgage or caring for ageing parents. Later in life, it may become preserving your health or creating opportunities for people coming behind you. The job itself may not change, but the reason you wake up every morning almost certainly will.

That explains something I have always found interesting. Ask a fresh graduate why they're applying for jobs and the answer is usually straightforward: "I just need money." Ask someone ten years into their career why they're considering leaving a company, and the conversation suddenly becomes more complicated. It isn't only about salary anymore. They talk about growth. Leadership. Flexibility. Work-life balance. Remote work. Equity. Purpose. They have not become more demanding; they have simply outgrown the problem they were trying to solve ten years earlier.

Perhaps that is why career advice often feels incomplete. We tell people to follow their passion, negotiate harder, network more, learn AI, build a personal brand or relocate abroad, as though one piece of advice can fit everyone. It can't. Advice only makes sense when you understand the season of life someone is in. The graduate trying to become financially independent for the first time is asking completely different questions from the executive trying to build generational wealth, even though both of them may work in the same office and sit in meetings together every day.

The more I have reflected on my own career, watched friends make difficult decisions and listened to mentors speak honestly about theirs, the more convinced I have become that almost every career can be understood through four quiet pursuits. They are rarely announced, but they shape almost every decision we make. We begin by chasing survival. Then we chase comfort. Later we chase freedom. If we are fortunate enough, we eventually begin chasing something far more meaningful than ourselves.

The mistake many of us make is assuming that everybody should be chasing the same thing at the same time. That assumption has probably caused more unnecessary anxiety than economic hardship ever could. It is why social media can make someone earning a decent living feel like a failure simply because another person announced a promotion. It is why a perfectly successful professional can suddenly feel behind after attending a university reunion. It is why we sometimes abandon careers that were taking us exactly where we wanted to go simply because someone else's journey looked faster.

Maybe the real challenge has never been working hard.

Maybe the real challenge is remembering why we started running in the first place.