LIFESTAMPS ... lifelong lessons: BE DILIGENT

It was some five (5) years back when I got this feverish feeling of going to an unknown place. It felt like a great adventure and I was one for the ride! An adventure it was, as I was on my way to Taraba state, posted by the National Youth Service Corp (NYSC) of my country Nigeria. I travelled over twelve (12) long hours through states and arrived minutes before midnight. It wasn’t a soothing ride. Paid four (4) times my motorbike fare that night to get to the camp and slept under a tree as an intruder to the active mosquito community.

Three (3) weeks in camp and I was deployed to work at a computer firm, after praying not to see a computer throughout my service year. I sought to hide in a village and teach some secondary school students and “rest” when they were on holidays.

I rather got to be in a place surrounded by computers, my room was in the same compound with my office, a café, training school, viewing centre and a business centre. I wondered who I prayed to before I left camp. Didn’t He hear me? Why didn’t He grant my wish? I was furious. My mood was not one of gratitude. I was torn between my wish and my apparent state.

One night I was in the café and

Months later I was to become network engineer manning two distinct cyber cafes, tutor taking diploma and certificate classes, hardware engineer administering all sick and ailing computers, did I forget to mention that I managed the viewing and business centres too? Everything I encountered seemed underdone and I had a better way to handle things. It came naturally and as people wondered, I wondered with them but I never stopped. I challenged every known convention I met, I tried new things and I never thought any task was too difficult to overcome. I lived through every day and I got better, way better.

I was always woken before 7:30 am daily and I never really slept back till 4:00am the next day. I barely slept three (3) hours a day because I was too busy trying to balance my personal life, my official responsibilities and my bad habits also got a huge chunk of me.

I toiled for a boss I barely saw five (5) times in my service year. I spent my money fixing things that belonged to the organization, I kept the customers that came to me, I fixed the computers that got bad, I made changes that made the organization stand out. I never went on leave or any national holidays. I worked when other corp members had enough time to do other things. I virtually slaved for my boss. Even my attendance to church meetings became rationed. I worked officially from 7:30am to 9:00pm daily and I had a pay check of just NGN3000 a month. My friends told me it wasn’t my father’s business and NYSC representatives came once to ask me if I was being forced to work and I couldn’t get myself to say I was. It was the most humble cum stupidest thing I ever did in my life and to show that It really got to me at a time, I got to my knees one day and prayed to the same God I have always known and asked him never to let me work like this in my life for anyone, not for any amount in the world. I felt used. I was used!

Like a wisp of smoke, one year passed. I couldn’t believe I had sat on a paint bucket (that was the chair for the café administrator) for a year. It was over but what did I gain? My friends had forced me to an outing towards the end of the service year, I had an official car that reeked of work whenever I sat on the driver’s seat to go seek a contract deal for the organization. I had friends that flocked around me for what I knew. Yet I couldn’t put a positive peg on anything I had really gained.

Yes, I was offered a full employment come the termination of service year and permitted to travel home for a while but to worsen matters, the night before I was to leave, the manager (not the boss) and a police man came to the compound on allegations that I could likely make away with some items. I couldn’t control my anger and it took all the virtue I had not to rewind all I had gone through in the last one year.

That night was the last straw that broke the Camel’s back. I knew it was time. My championship here was over. I kept feeling terrible and unappreciated. I left the next morning, uncelebrated and very unhappy. I never looked back. I burned the bridge behind me. My students missed me. My customers didn’t understand why I left a kingdom I ruled so well. I owed no one an explanation. I licked my wounds and nursed my hurt. I virtually spent my life there and this was how I got paid back? All the counsel of my friends flooded my mind and I tried a rethink on all they had advised but deep down I knew I had done my undeniable best.

About six (6) months later, some loyal devotees called me and the news was that the organization had closed down. Then it dawned on me that God had a message hidden in that mess. The new corp members couldnt bear the stress and couldn’t cope with all that was to be done. I didn’t know which made me sadder, the closing down or the idea of the people who couldn’t continue the work?

Its five (5) years now and I have my own computer clinic. My neighbours have left the area because they can’t stand the lack of constant income and the scarcity of customers. For me, I haven’t noticed the discouragement enough to leave rather I am expanding.

God taught me “HOW NOT TO RUN MY OWN BUSINESS” during my service year. Today I challenge challenges and I chart new courses and I am having fun.

I learnt to run my business by running someone else’s business. I spent my time for my then boss but now I know I was only sowing into my future. I was diligent without a second thought for my personal gain, I never knew that the account I was funding was owned by my bank. Here is my unalloyed counsel to every striving youth: