Six Years After Crossing the Mediterranean Sea From Libya to Europe — What I’ve Learnt So Far When It Comes to Success in Life

Hint: All that you seek in life is already in you

How’s life, brother? Hmm, we’re managing. Where are you? I want to come to you for a bit of discussion over something. Are you available? Yeah. Ok. I’ll be there in an hour. Alright. I’m waiting.

Those were the words we spoke on the phone when he called. He was my stepbrother, and just as I’ve experienced life, he had the same way.

Born into poverty with our fathers, being fishermen and mothers, fishmongers, and petty traders in a fishing community where education was nothing, you couldn’t become anything other than a fisherman, drug addict, teenage mother, or drug dealer.

But, he learned to drive and worked with a taxi cab that paid him something small at the end of the month. And I had taken a course in journalism after I had had enough of the drug life and worked at a radio station. But they terminated my contract because new management had taken over and laid some of us off. After all, they were going in a different direction and wouldn’t need our services.

Although a friend has linked me to another radio station, the deal hasn’t gone through. So, I was home, unemployed, thinking about my next move to survive, and my brother called.

Who knows what he’s coming to talk about? Let’s see. He comes in the one hour as he scheduled.

What’s up, brother? I’m good. You? Not well. You know what is happening with our lives. You know how we’ve been struggling since we were born. There’s nobody to help us. Daddy, you know his condition. He has nothing. We need to figure out a way to survive. Ok. So, what do you have in mind?

You know you’ve wanted to travel abroad. You have been stowing away.

I’ve heard about a route people use via the Sarahan desert and Libya to Italy. Why don’t we use that channel and get to Europe? Yeah, I know about it. But it’s money. And since the money I have can’t help me embark on the journey, I’ve kept my cool.

You know what? Have you seen this taxi that I’m working with? The owner trusts me. I keep it with me after work instead of returning it.

I want us to sell it and use the money for the trip. And even though the money wouldn’t be enough for the two of us, I hope with the bit of money you have attached; we can make the journey and get to Europe and find a better life. You’re right. Let’s do it.

Quickly, we created a for sale poster on the taxi. He had traveled from a different part of town where he lives to my end. So, the taxi owner can’t see what’s happening. A couple of buyers got in touch. We didn’t get the amount we wanted. Another person called. We sold the car. He scheduled the evening for the payment.

Ok, brother. Since the man says he’ll make the payment this evening, I’m going to hustle with the cab. I’ll come to pick you up this evening, get the money, and move quickly.

We’d gone to see the connection man for the journey and had negotiated. So, all we were waiting for was the payment of the money, and we will embark on the trip.

Six O’clock, seven, eight, my brother hasn’t called. I tried calling him. His phone was off. I tried again and again and again. No avail. What’s happening? What could be the problem? I followed through to know what was happening by going to the house of the man who wanted to buy the car. What’s happening, Sir? Has my brother come here? Yes, he has. We’ve finished with the deal. I’ve paid him. Really? Yes.

I left to the house of the one who connects people to Libya and, for that matter, Italy. He tells me my brother is gone. My brother is what?

He’s gone. He’s on his way to Italy. He says you don’t have enough money. So, he prefers to go alone. Wow! I never anticipated it. Is this how the world could be at times? I became depressed instantly, knowing well that traveling abroad had been my dream after high school, and it’s what made me a drug addict.

Because trying to stow away is a dangerous game between life and death. And how we kept our motivation was doing drugs. And now that, finally, I could see the dream coming true after wasting ten years of my life in that venture, my brother has deceived me. Wow!

I couldn’t believe it. So, I went to a weed joint, bought some marijuana, and smoked till I couldn’t feel my face. Then, I went back to my residence, but the thought of what had happened couldn’t leave me. I couldn’t process it. So, finally, I went to my mum and informed her what about it.

What could a mother do for a son over such a matter than console him? She offered some advice and told me to stay at her place for the night because my stepdad wasn’t at home and she was going to an all-night church program and would return in the morning.

But minutes after she left, she called that she had left her keys on her door. So I should close it and let my cousin living with her bring them to her at the car station. Quickly, I took the keys without locking the door and did as she ordered. I entered the room as my cousin left, searched, and chanced on an amount of money close to eight hundred dollars.

This is the day I’ve waited for. My cousin returned. I told him I was going out and I’d be back. So, with the money I had in my bank account, I went to see the connection man that night and paid to go to Italy.

Wait the weekend, the man said. Wait, what? I want to leave the country tomorrow morning before my mum finds out I’ve taken her money and starts searching for me. The morning arrived, and I embarked on the journey.

Long story short. I made it to Libya. I’m not talking about the experience of traveling across the Saharan desert, the experience in the then war-torn Libya because if I have to, we won’t get to what I’ve discovered about success in life. So, watch your space. I’ll release a book on it someday.

Now, I made it to Italy, God being good to me while many had died on the sea. I landed in Sicily. Officials from the U.N.H.C.R. who were coordinating immigrants’ affairs came onboard the rescue ship that had brought us. They take us through a process of identification and to a refugee shelter. I spent one week at the place. They put me on a bus with others, and I was left in the hands of some white folks in Taranto, a city in the Puglia region. Days have gone. I get demotivated. What type of life do you have here? I asked. I came to Europe. There’s nothing like it over here. This isn’t the Europe I see on T.V. and hear about. No. I can’t live here. This place is terrible.

Knowing that my dream was to get to the U.K. and continue my education, I couldn’t take it with the immigrants’ kind of life.

I contacted the one I know in the U.K. to help me get out of the place to England. But unfortunately, he couldn’t do it because he wasn’t in the position. So I called another person in Spain, and he gave me the green light to come.

So, I escaped the refugee camp to Naples because I knew how you could get out of Italy to anywhere in Europe. I met the people involved and paid them to facilitate my trip. I had informed one of my cousins about life in Italy and what I intended to do. So, he had sent me money for it.

One week, sleeping at the transport station in Naples, everything was set for me to leave for Spain. So I embarked on the journey, and I arrived safely. My host picked me home, helped me with every process I was supposed to go through to become a legal resident, and just after one year, I received a document because I had gotten a job contract to work as a waiter at a restaurant.

Time to start the real journey to understanding life

“Life is a circle. The end of one journey is the beginning of the next.” — Joseph M. Marshall III

I did everything I was supposed to go through to secure my life. I was good. I had to focus on getting myself to the next level. Africa is out of the picture. I’m in Europe. Life will be good no matter what. The Europe that when you go to, you succeed, I’m here. I’ll succeed.

After one month to three of working as a waiter, things changed. My bosses start to behave differently. They wouldn’t pay me when the month ends.

The reason? They offered me the job contract to facilitate the document, allowing me to be in the country. They knew I’d lose my document if I didn’t comply with whatever they were doing and lived the job. No. I’ve toiled to be where I am so far. I can’t let the actions of someone destroy my chance. No matter what’s happening, I’d persist for at least one year to ensure my safety with documents because, after that period, I could be free even if I stopped the work. I would have fulfilled the requirement to renew the paper when it expires.

So, I persisted, but the situation got out of hand. I was doing extra work and not getting paid for it. I became fed up and wanted to stop, but I had people motivate me to keep on, and after the one-year duration, I started fighting for my right with money because I had gotten to a space where even terminating my contract won’t make me lose it. And not being able to contain me, they terminated my contract.

But in those moments I was being abused, I asked some questions; Is this my reality? Was I born to suffer and die and go just like that?

And the answer I had was no. So, I had to look for a solution. And the solution was personal development. I started buying self-help books and started studying about life, success, and everything to help me change my life. Then, I enrolled in a coaching program that helped me discover myself and gave me the idea of setting goals.

The best part — where all the lessons came from

After the experience from the job, I became frustrated, although I had entered the self-improvement world and was doing the work to put me in the space where I wanted to be life.

My idea was to go to school, but I never wanted to do that in Spain because I found the Spanish environment to be an everyday one. The people weren’t ambitious, unlike in my home country where the youth were going after their dreams whenever the day was here. The Spanish people were different. Everything was about having a job, something to eat whenever the day was here, and that’s it.

I didn’t like it. I wanted to be in an environment where I could be inspired to push harder with life. So, without knowing anyone and with no idea how things work over there, I left for Germany because I had done a little research about the economic nature of countries in Europe and Germany was the best place.

Before leaving for the place, I had been informed about how I couldn’t get the stay there because I didn’t possess an E.U. document. But, with faith in God, I went. You never know what awaits you ahead if you don’t take the step.

The first place I went to was a catholic mission because I had heard that when you travel to a new place and don’t know anyone, the church is where you can get help. So, that was what I did.

They had a service, and I had to wait till they closed. I asked for the priest right away and told him about my story and why I’d come to the place. He asked if I was crazy and why I could take such a risk to move to a place without knowing anyone there? I said no. He said he couldn’t offer me a place to stay but spoke to one of his subordinates to direct me to a social facility where I could get help.

I went to the social facility. They gave me a place to stay for the night. When the morning arrived, they asked why I had come to the place, and I told them my story. They directed me to a new place because they couldn’t help me either. I went to the new place, and they told me the lawyers would be around the next day. So, they directed me to a homeless shelter to spend the night. I got back the following day. I met with the lawyers, and they told me the only way to stay in Germany was to have a job, which with the contract, I could get a permit.

One week, two, three gone and closer to a month deep in the winter in Germany. I was spending the night at a homeless shelter, and the people there were mostly drug addicts. I had stopped doing drugs, so the situation was unpleasant. Every morning at six o’clock, they will send everyone out. So I’ll go and sit at the train station till 9 am before the library opens, and I’ll lay my head on a desk to sleep a bit more because I couldn’t get enough sleep at the shelter due to noise.

Now, pushing hard and doing as the lawyers had told me and getting a job, my document, as they said to me in Spain, couldn’t allow me to stay and work and fulfill my dream because it wasn’t the E.U. type. Knowing that my dream couldn’t come true and I had to come back to Spain, I started crying at the train station. At that moment, it dawned on me;

• The grass is not greener on the other side — When I was in Africa, all my dreams and aspirations were to get to Europe because I had heard that life is good there. But the reality was different when I got here. Just like in Africa, people are struggling everywhere. So, you’re lying to yourself, thinking that life will be sweet when you move to a foreign country. Everything you want out of life, you have to create it. Success in life isn’t tied to a place. Although Malcolm Gladwell, in his book, the outliers, talked about how location plays matters, it’s not entirely accurate. Success in life is about working hard for what you want.
• The answers to all that you seek are in you — I moved from Italy to Spain because I was not too fond of the place. After getting to Spain, I left for Germany, thinking that I’ll get it better. But, it proved otherwise. I realized that the answer to all that I seek in life is me, and if I’ll get things as I want, it’s depended on me to create it.
• Wherever you find yourself, you can make something out of yourself — Irrespective of your location, you’ll make it in life if you’re determined. Although you might not get things evenly if your location is terrible, you’ll achieve something.
• Everyone is dealing with something — I thought Europeans were ok with life, and everything would be fine when I got here, but I realized they don’t have it all figured out with life. They have their struggles, and there’re people in Africa whose lives are far better than some Europeans.
• You are your own savior as far as this life is concerned — What my brother did to me before I embarked on the journey is a sign that nobody can rescue us in this life apart from ourselves. You’re the only one who can help you. If there’s anyone who has given you a helping hand in something, they did it for a reason. They didn’t do it because they wanted to save you. And that’s the reality.

Now, fully depressed because I couldn’t achieve my aim in Germany, what happened?

I returned to Spain. I took a job working at a warehouse. But I kept working on self-improvement, discovered so many about myself, and began writing.

Now because of writing, I don’t work at laboring jobs anymore unless I’m in dire need of money to do something.

It’s been three years since the incident. I’m nowhere I want to be in life, but I’m getting there steadily every day because I’m still working on myself, and writing is paving the way for me financially.

So if you are in a similar position in life as I used to be, these are the truth about success. It’ll help you if you listen, change your mind, and do as I’ve shown you.

• Forget about what you see on T, V thinking it’s the reality, and traveling will make you succeed. It’s not entirely true.
• Search for who you are and your purpose in the world, and do it by monetizing it. You’ll succeed from it.
• Do away with the idea that someone is responsible for your life and they’ll rescue you. No one is responsible for you, and no one will save you in this life. You’re your rescue.
• Come to terms that hard work is what pays and work your ass off for what you want.

Success in life is dependent on you to create it.

It’s not tied to anyone or anywhere.

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