Walking every day in my shoes made me become who I am, and I am not in any way planning to walk in anyone's shoes, as everyone has a story to tell, where decisions are made based on experience and struggles.
I was a man who never opted for my beginning. I was born into a family that could barely afford one meal a day at one point, and I grew up with the knowledge that if I didn't work, that meant I wouldn't eat. From childhood growing up in this reality, I carried bricks at construction sites and fetched water for labourers, and I did almost anything that brought a little money home.
Then, as I grew older, nothing changed except the weight on my shoulders, which became cumbersome. I took jobs nobody else wanted: cleaning, laundry, security guard, and loading trucks under the sun.
So many people saw me everywhere I went, and they all noticed that I was a jack of all trades, working in different corners of the city, jumping from one job to another.
But also, whispers always follow me everywhere, too.
“He is pretending to be hardworking just to win people's pity.”
“He is probably up to something and has ulterior motives he is hiding.”
“He wants to deceive the generous ones so he can take advantage of them.”
The loudest of the critics were those who had never tasted hunger and never knew what struggles were, those who had opportunity handed to them on a platter of gold. They looked at me but never looked into me. That was what I contemplated.
One evening like that, after a long day of different jobs at different times, I was cleaning a room as I do cleaning services too. I was washing the dishes and cleaning the kitchen, then I overheard the lady I was working for and her friends discussing and mocking me, saying, “Bolu acts like he suffers more than everyone else. I believe it is all an act and he is a fraud, faking to be good," one of them said, and they all laughed. I smiled faintly and sincerely I was too tired to argue, and it was then that I realized that even if you die for some people, they will say that you did not die well, so I took it up not being shamed as struggles were no longer strange to me. I had seen hunger up close, slept on cold floors, and worked a job that bent my back but never broke my spirit. Every scar, every disappointment, and every hard lesson carved me into the man I became.
Sometimes, people often tell me, “Try to walk a mile in other people’s shoes. Maybe you will understand them better.” But I would just shake my head sideways. “I don't need to wear another man's shoes,” I did reply. “ My shoes have carried me through storms that most people would not survive. These shoes taught me patience, the ability to build my strength, and also showed me that endurance can turn pain into wisdom.”
It was not pride so to speak, but of conviction and I have decided that no matter how heavy the consequences are, they were mine to own while my struggles, no matter how bitter they tasted like scrubbed bitter leaves, were mine to learn from and lastly, my experience, no matter how lonely it looked as if I was the only one in the world, was mine to carry.
I didn't refuse empathy anyway, but I believed deeply that a man’s story is written by his own footsteps.
“To walk a mile in someone else's shoes,” as I once said, “is to forget the weight of my own in which I have walked far in mine, and they have made me who I am. I cannot trade that for another path, even out of curiosity as my story is enough.”
And so while others judged and pointed fingers, compared themselves with others, and copied others too, I stayed firm as a man who honored his journey, scars and whole, without needing to borrow another's.