Fading.

I’ve always hated Mondays.

It arrives like a sentence — reaffirming that freedom was just a weekend-long illusion.

This particular Monday? I’ve dreaded it for two months.

I lost the bet to my father.

It’s been five years since I bagged my BSc, and I’ve failed spectacularly at doing anything meaningful with my life.

I open my eyes slightly as the morning sun creeps through the window. The first thing I see is the file on my table, inches from my bed. My heart sinks. It’s not just paper. It’s a life sentence. Proof of an unwilling surrender. A classic case of defeat. The final stamp at the end of a series of disappointments.

The last five years of my life floods my mind, and a single tear rolls down my cheek into my mouth. Of course. Perfect. Let me taste my sorrow, as if feeling it like a barbed wire wrapped around my chest wasn’t enough.

I put my best foot forward. I trusted the process. I listened to the motivational speakers. I meditated. I did the manifestation rituals. I prayed — maybe not like a wounded lion, but I did talk to God.

And still, I failed.

Three failed businesses in five years.

They said, “You have to be extremely delusional to succeed.”

Well, I was delusional enough to believe my lip gloss brand would make me the next Kylie Jenner. All that money spent on branding and marketing, all that dancing on TikTok to promote the brand and I couldn’t even get back my capital.

I gave out the last batch to my cousins for free.

“Believe in yourself when no one else does.”

That was my mantra when I went to my dad with another business plan and he said, “I hope this won’t end like the wet-lip thing.” He gave me the capital — but not before making me swear that if it failed, I’d do things his way.

The hair business failed.

It didn’t even start. I got scammed by fake suppliers. The goods never came.

I couldn’t tell my dad. So I lied. Made excuses. But I needed a backup plan.

So I became a realtor. I figured I had the gift of the gab — I could sell ice to an Eskimo. This should be easy, right? “Trust your guts,” I told myself every morning. One big sale and I’d have enough to quietly kickstart the hair business. My father would never find out.

But he did.

In the worst way.

I got kidnapped by a client I was supposed to sell a house to.

My father paid ransom to keep me alive.

So… I lost the bet.

And that’s why today, I start law school. While working as an intern in my father’s firm.

And honestly, I don’t know what’s worse:

That I’ll be stuck studying a course I have zero interest in…

Or that I’ll be working in the same office as my father’s best friend son who is smart and really good at the job but is also my annoying, Egotistic, narcissistic, Ex.

Or maybe it’s that I was given a chance to try — and I failed.

Thank you for reading ❤️

To anybody who relates to this, know that it’s okay to fail a thousand times as long as you try a thousand and one times. ❤️ keep going ❤️