A Letter to My Daughter: On Beauty, Integrity, and Unexploited Potential
A mother writes to her daughter from an unpaid internship, offering five hard-won lessons about finding life's beauty in struggle, holding fast to integrity despite judgment, anchoring faith in God, dreaming with clarity and persistence, and recognizing the untapped reserves of potential within oneself.
Mbianyor Melissa wrote this letter three weeks ago and sent it for us to publish on our platform. 2 days ago, she died - giving her message here a whole new meaning. What was she trying to tell us here?
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Dear daughter,
How I really wish I was writing this letter from a five-star hotel where I'm being lodged by my company or better still from that my dream house (the one I'd typed several ' AMENS ' on Facebook) drinking an early morning glass of warm milk. That way I'll just list down the steps you need to follow to have the ' good life '. But No!. I'm nowhere near that. I'm sitting in a hall full of ' old men' (mummy is really trying to be nice here) who have refused to retire but would rather have me on an unpaid internship and still threaten to fire me, for according to them " there are many out there who dream to have this internship ".
Does this make me unhappy with life? Definitely not. Here's your first lesson:
Life is beautiful. Always keep this in mind. It will not be easy, you'll encounter challenges, you'll be tossed in different directions but that's what constitutes life's beauty. In such times, choose an affirmative state of mind; for if sorrow and pain knock you down, know that joy and pleasure are bought with these coins. Laugh out loud if you have to and keep smiling. Live in the present. Your best years are now, but better years can be ahead.
Oh! But here's the thing with smiles and it'll be your second lesson:
When people notice you smile often, they'll come after you. The good ones will appreciate you but the others will call you naive, at times they'll say " tu es une fille facile". Don't worry my baby it's all about Values. There's no substitute for integrity so strive to be that shining, spotless example. My daughter if by any chance you took after me here's what you'll be saying after reading the above paragraphs: " ehhh! Mummy you've said your own, but I'm a young girl o " ' Slay queen ' things abi? I've been through that too. Times when I was ashamed to pray in public for fear of what people will say. Don't be deceived my daughter there's no ' slay queen ' without Jesus. Any thing between you and God is your god. So take this as your third lesson:
God loves you. No matter how many times you may drift apart from His will, He is always ready to welcome you back all you need do is confess your sins and turn away from them. Lift up your burdens to Jesus and remember if you truly want to ' slay ' then you must become aware of your divine purpose; know who you are, what you are and where you are headed.
Hey!!! I know what you're thinking. You want to drop this letter because it's too long. You'll rather put on your headsets and continue listening to music. Hmmm ma mère tu comptes sur quoi? Remember you are what you give your attention to ( #JDCJDR ). Anyways before I end this letter let me tell you how I see myself in the nearest future.
I'll be that Boss Lady whose impact would be felt across nations in ways untold. I'll get my ' Amen- Facebook ' dream house ( and the car too lol! ); just wait and see.
... Tsuippss and my boss just had to snap me out of the day-dreaming mode. Take this as your fourth lesson: Dream big. Someone once said: " if your dreams don't scare you, then they are not big enough ". Don't end at dreaming, be explicit about what you want and have a clear cut plan of action. You'll find that even after doing all this, you won't get exactly what you want. Be patient but be persistent. Don't let anyone say you can't! No matter what it is you desire in life you can achieve it if you focus on your objective. All things are possible.
Ok o I can virtually hear you saying " yes mummy I've heard o " but just so you know, if ever this letter gets published on PoiseSocial then that'll be your last lesson:
If I could write this letter out of boredom ( true reason is I ran out of internet data) sitting in a hall full of ' old men ' then it simply tells you how much of Unexploited Potential every individual has and scientists say we begin life with far more brain cells than we use- there is always a reserve. So use that reserve my baby to 'think' your way to greatness.
Mom.
The piece emerges from the lived experience of professional precarity and institutional indifference—a young woman navigating the gap between aspiration and circumstance in a context where unpaid internships and informal economic arrangements remain common. It speaks to a generation negotiating faith, ambition, and social expectation in an era of digital self-presentation and the pressure to curate a public image of success.
Written with unflinching honesty about struggle rather than its concealment, the letter refuses the false binary between acceptance and ambition. Its significance lies not in prescriptive advice but in modeling how to hold dignity and vision together in conditions of constraint—a posture that resonates precisely because it doesn't minimize difficulty or pretend the 'good life' is simply a matter of attitude. The tragic context in which it was published—the writer's death just two days after submission—lends it an unplanned weight: the letter becomes an artifact of a voice insisting on its own significance at the threshold of its own absence.