When the going gets tough, the tough get going

The above quote was one of the quotes i heard while growing up. As young kids, we tried to learn new words so as to appear informed in the society and among peers.

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English language is one language everybody in this part of the world wants to learn by all means. It's a good thing since it's one of the popular languages our there.

To some people, life is about survival of the fittest. This was the story of Thomas Hobbes. Adversity is one thing that we will face at one point or the other. Everybody has their downs when life showed them its true colour. In most cases, few overcame this. Some people even gave up before starting.

I could remember those days i would pluck vegetable from our compound so that i can have something in my stomach. This vegetable grows naturally and you cannot find them in the market. That is, you can't see it not to talk of buy it in the market.

The Yoruba people of Nigeria call it efo ibile - local vegetable. I cooked this vegetable with anything at home then. I 'enjoyed' eating this vegetable with eba - cassava flour.

I could remember those days that i hawked polythene bags at Abule market in Bariga, Lagos state, Nigeria. This bag was sold at 5naira per one then but now you will get 1 for 20 naira.

Sometimes i don't even get pocket money to spend during break time in school. I usually join friends to eat from what they bought. Three square meals a day was very hard. It was through hope of a positive unknown future that i stay alive.

The quote above means when the situation of things become difficult, the strong will work harder to meet the challenge. I wouldn't say i was strong then because i didn't even understand life but i knew things were very hard for us.

The future keeps drifting from us and the reality on ground makes life unbearable. Mom could hardly take care of herself. She had to sell many of her cloths so as to feed us. All the small profits from her small provisions were spent on feeding us and paying dues.

One thing i can say is, she is very strong. Being a mother, she kept going and kept on pushing herself beyond limit so that we all can have hope of a positive and better future.

I later realized that being strong does not suggests that you are physically fit but a rear display of courage. A weak mother would have stopped and focus on herself and damned the future.

Whatever life throws at you, always pick it up and push forward. When things become tough, you need to be very strong to face it. Your ability to push forward will determine the result. Challenge your problems.

Thank you for your time.