Achievement and its social constructivism

Have you ever fallen out with someone and the next thing that they spew at you is “At your age, you have not achieved anything”?
Well, I have!
This statement really got me baffled, I must say!

What is achievement and who defines it? At what age must one achieve what and when?
These were some of the questions that ran through my ‘medula oblongata’.
For many of my friends and acquaintances, they self-reflect on their birthdays and go through their lives, sometimes, sad, that compared to their peers, they have not achieved much!
So, in many of our lives, we already reflect on frequent basis, be it on our birthdays or at the end of the year.

So, back to my main earlier point of reflection, who determines that you are a failure at your age?
So, because these irrelevant people that use this rhetoric as an insult, have an idea of what an achievement should be or look like, then, that becomes universal?
Hence, in their parochial minds, achievement should be in form of popularity, money, houses, cars, show off,  for women, you ought to be a slay queen fixing the latest Brazilian and Peruvian hair with the telephone numbers of top Nigerian politicians as ‘Alobam’?
If you don’t fit into some of these, you are a loser o!
It does not matter what your own definition of success and achievement is, theirs is the ultimate!

Do these people with limited thinking not understand that achievement is not only a social construct that is subject to change, it is also subjective.
I have met people that their sole aim in life has little to do with wealth. I have met people that achievement is just being recognized and appreciated for what they do.

So, how then, can that same subjective construct be used as an insult?
These insults are usually harangued by people with low self-esteem, those who are in secret competition with you, following you everywhere, monitoring your moves just to know where you are in life. God forbid that you achieve any of the things that they believe that you would never achieve, they would have stomach ache, diarrhoea, heart palpitations and attacks!

Their next strategy would be to enfeeble who you are and your achievements. “Is it not that yeye girl when we were in university, she was a block head” or “abeg, na that one be achievement@ Person wey we know how dirty she was at uni”.
My message to the underdogs there is, never ever give up! Stay true to yourself and never try to be what others want you to be. If your definition of achievement is to be happy in what you do, go for it!

Define you and stand strong!
What counts most is you and knowing what you stand for!

This write-up was submitted by LS. Please feel free to submit any article for consideration.