A point in life where a Motivational quote inspired me

The place I grew up was a typical example of a ghetto, we believed life was what it was and needed no motivation to do what we ought to do. Our greatest motivation was hunger. If you're hungry, you'll definitely be creative and laziness was just another way of saying you're fine. But life was beyond just food, this I realized as maturity and responsibilities started to set in. Sometimes life feels unpleasant for no reason and other times one's hard work crumbles before their very eyes. At this point, one needs to be motivated, not just the quotes from a website but motivation from those who had gone through the same phase and came out strongly.

My background isn't near the description of a child with a silver spoon, far from that.Worse, I didn't grow up with any of my parents. We have relatives who were rich, Aunties and uncles who had wealth and connections but a lot of issues happened and I found myself at the point of responsibility early in life and this was the point where motivation was needed. When it felt as if I was the only one in the world with that peculiar challenge, I wanted someone to say "No, I've been through this and I survived and I believe you'll survive".

Sometimes challenges are best understood by the subject, no third person understands it perfectly. Buying a sachet of salt may seem easy for a second party, but the subject alone understood what he needed to sacrifice to get that sachet of salt. So talking to people always sounded like "Is that all you're going through and you consider it to be a problem?". They don't see the sacrifice, they weigh it based on their standards from what they perceive, and it becomes trivial to them. So I wanted to bottle all my thoughts and hope someone feels it like I do, and a motivation from them would feel genuine.

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Imagine someone walking up to you after a discussion and saying "" Everything you can imagine is real". At a point I felt the problem might have been in my imagination, like I was the one spending more than I should, struggling to keep the loan because I felt the family would die or something, like the sacrifice has been all that I imagined and the suffering. It didn't make sense to me but the quote remained real, the quote was actually from my brother who understood what I was going through because he had been in my position and was out of it. Confronted him about it and he made it clear and I realized my imagination had been the one playing me trick.

Prior to this time, life was unbearable, I felt like I needed to go far away where no person existed, just stay away until I had an answer to everything that bothered me. I wanted to feel free from the bondage I later realized was the product of my imagination. I came to find out the quote was said by "Pablo Picasso" and it was an answer to my Burden. I was the author of what seemed real as long as I imagined it. I had to stay up working the entire moment just because I believed something would go wrong if I didn't. Decided to try a reverse imagination, I imagined the family can still do well without me, and indeed they're doing well without me. It was indeed my imagination that tormented me to the point of giving all.

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This is in response to the Contest by @hivenaija. The contest is still ongoing for participation.