Day 2 of 5, 25 May 2020

Frame Ambition Writing Challenge

The task: Think about something you observed, learned, picked up… away from home… Write a little about how it has changed you/become a part of you.

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“I can’t come and kill myself.”

or

“I can’t come and die”

A concept.

A culture.

A lifestyle.

Burna Boy may have taken this mainstream, but it has been a Nigerianism for generations. Urban Dictionary, the universal authority on slang (jk), says that it’s a popular Nigerian expression for “In the end, I did my best”. The phrase simply means you can’t break your back for some things. When something is more effort than it’s worth, leave it sha.

It’s usually said in jest:

“I’ve been trying to debug this code for hours, abeg I can’t come and die”

“I have been texting her all day to set a date but she is not replying. I can’t come and kill myself”

It’s great. I love it. It’s the aptest phrase I ever heard.

Now, while this is a handy phrase, one must be careful not to use it as a cop-out. To justify laziness or complacency. It’s a fine line between “killing yourself” and “challenging yourself”. It takes discernment to know the difference between the two. You can miss out on growth opportunities in the name of not killing yourself. But one must also be careful because some people will kill you in the name of pushing or challenging you.

I like to push myself as much as the next over-achiever. To do better.  Be better. Aim high. Dream big. But I also regularly remind myself that “I can’t come and kill myself”

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