The Realization of How Much We’ve Been Robbed

In Kenya, people can lie — not always out of malice, but often out of survival. Broken systems force citizens to bend rules just to live a normal life. Poverty robs you of dignity until small lies feel like necessary tools for navigating daily obstacles. You grow up thinking it’s normal to “know someone,” to “add something small,” to “talk nicely” so things move. It becomes part of the culture, not because Kenyans are bad people, but because the environment forces you into habits you wouldn’t need in a functional system.

Nothing prepares you for the shock of visiting a country where the systems actually serve the people.
Where the government feels like a service provider, not a predator.
Where public transport comes on time.
Where public spaces are clean.
Where food is safe.
Where tap water is drinkable.
Where everything just… flows.

You suddenly see what life looks like for people who don’t carry the weight of broken systems on their shoulders. People who don’t wake up stressed because their survival is not a daily fight. People who breathe clean air, eat safe food, move through safe streets, and trust that things will work as intended.

And that’s when it hits you: how much you’ve been robbed.

You begin to understand the emotional tax of living in a country where the system fails you every single day. Where you exist in the cracks of a structure that doesn’t see you, doesn’t value you, and doesn’t prioritize your well-being. Where the quality of your food, your roads, your air, and even your interactions with strangers reflect the cost of poor leadership.

You start to notice things you never questioned before — the constant background stress, the survival-mode thinking, the fear that one small problem could spiral into a life disaster. You realize how deeply your environment has shaped your personality, your fears, your speed of life, and your sense of what is possible.

And then the robbery becomes clear.

The stolen potential.
The dreams that shrink before they begin.
The brilliance that never gets a chance to bloom.
The talent that settles for survival instead of innovation.

You look back home and you see it everywhere — in friends, classmates, neighbors, relatives. People who could have been extraordinary if they weren’t carrying the weight of failing institutions on their backs. People who have to work twice as hard for half the results. People who age faster because of stress, corruption, instability, and uncertainty.

It is wild — genuinely wild — how a few people in power can drag an entire nation into struggle just to fill their own stomachs. How leadership failures trickle down into every corner of daily life. How decisions made in boardrooms and parliament buildings show up in the air you breathe, the roads you drive on, the food you eat, and the citizenship you carry.

And yes, it is painful.
Painful because African countries are not poor.
Painful because Africans are not lazy.
Painful because the potential is massive — talent, creativity, natural resources, youth, ambition — everything needed to build thriving nations.

But so many of us are forced to spend our entire lives navigating systems that don’t work.

And sure, we all know the mantra:
“No one is coming to save you. Save yourself.”
Many of us believe that. Many of us live that. We talk about opting out — with Bitcoin, with remote work, with entrepreneurship, with building your own life outside the chaos.

But there’s an honest truth we often ignore:

Even when you try to opt out, you still live inside these systems.

You still drive on the roads they never fix.
You still go to the hospitals they underfund.
You still face visa denials because your passport is labeled “weak,” closing doors you should rightfully access.
You still endure power cuts, water shortages, unreliable public transport, and government offices where a simple request turns into a week-long journey.

The system follows you everywhere.
The system slows you down.
The system shapes your entire life — even when you are trying to escape it.

When systems fail, everything fails with them:

• your time

• your health

• your energy

• your opportunities

• your dreams

• even your imagination of what’s possible

And this is the heartbreaking revelation:
what feels normal in Kenya is actually trauma—collective, generational trauma.

Because you don’t even realize how heavy the weight is… until you finally spend time in a place where the weight doesn’t exist.

That’s when you see the truth.
That’s when you understand the robbery.
That’s when you realize how much more your life could be if only the systems around you were designed to support you instead of draining you.