The Most Important Thing I Have Learned!

Some time ago and I can’t even remember when anymore, I subscribed to a site called Quora. It is like a chat forum where people come and rub minds – mature minds. You post a question, and people from all works of life (literally) respond.


Once in while I get an email with posts, an engaging interlude I get twice month, or thereabouts. Well, this evening I decided to read one email that came in my inbox yesterday. I found under a caption, Interpersonal Interaction: What is the single most illumination question I can ask someone? There were all kinds of insightful and thought provoking responses.
One of my favorite ones was, “If you could call yourself five years ago and had 30 seconds, what would you say?”
You have to agree with me that will demand some serious soul-searching of anyone. But the one that really struck me and provoked me to write was, “What is the most unexpected thing you have ever learned along the way?”
This one is remarkable for me, because at first thought, I could think of nothing. As I am sure many others would find. But the more I wondered about what I could say for my self, the more I realized I knew exactly what to say. In fact, it is a story I have narrated to friends and family a few times in the past few months for reasons I am not sure I can explain. And it goes like this.
When I was in Elementary school I was always the one of the brightest in all my classes. Till I was about 8 and in primary four, then my grades began to slip. It didn't bother me initially, nor my parents because everyone felt I ‘played’ a bit too much. This continued into secondary school. But looking back now, I realize that by this time I had suffered some sort of damage as a result of this. I had begun to believe I was somehow ‘less’ than others around me. That intellectually I didn't match up with my peers. I guess my mother still believed in me and held the hope that one day I would snap out of it and begin to manifest the potential she was sure I had. My father on the hand was plainly disappointed and felt I let the side down. He had always been brightest and one of the best in everything he did. And he saw no other reason why I couldn't be like him except that I had a bit too much of my mother in me.
As for me, I resigned myself. I felt I fell behind my age mates and didn't have confidence to relate with most of my classmates freely. I was more at home my juniors and people who were ‘young’ at heart like me. Fortunately, there were a few boys like that so I didn't lack good friends.

For the entire duration of that stage of my education, I was rooted to the bottom of my class, with consistently poor results. At a stage my father literally stopped reading my reports – what was the point? I barely escaped repeating a class throughout my stay in secondary school, and when my WAEC results came out, they were dreadful. I had 4 credits; all Cs in Commerce, History, English and Biology and Fs in everything else apart from Book-keeping. My JAMB score was 179 I believe and my father was horrified. And he made me know he was very disappointed. I had even failed to get into the Nigerian Defence Academy. That was the one thing I believed would redeem me in my father’s eyes and I had failed to achieve that. I was consigned to a year at home attending ‘lesson’ while I prepared to take my exams again.
My mum enrolled me in one such extra-tutorial ‘lesson’ establishment in Pako Aguda area of Surulere run by a ‘Mr Sho’. There was ample opportunity for distraction, but I did get interested in the teaching. It was inspired. And on Saturday mornings, I and some neighbors of similar age and aspiration; an undergraduate (the only one) of ABU, and two young ladies taking their exams again like myself, would sit around my mother’s dinning table to ‘solve’ maths. And something began to happen, I began to understand maths. Even Further Maths that was like the preserve of those in my school years that were destined to become Astronauts and Scientist, I began to decipher. I had been enrolled as an external candidate in a government secondary school in Ikoyi and confidently returned to school to write my WAEC exams. I smashed it, and was supremely confident in my result. It would be a few months before the results were released. In that time, my mother put pressure on me to register and prepare for External GCSEs that year. I refused; I knew my results would be very good. I was certain. I wanted to party and enjoy life a bit; take a break from reading. But she insisted and I grudgingly registered for the exams. I hardly read, I just did a little brushing up and went in the write the exams. I only focused on a few subjects and did absolutely no revision for some.
WAEC was (and still is I imagine), in the practice of withholding results from schools and individuals that they felt performed abnormally well. And it was (and is) a fact that some unscrupulous school authorities and individuals did cheat in the exams and sought to manipulate their results. WAEC withheld the results for at least a year while ‘investigations’ were conducted. Once you had your results withheld, you had no option but to surrender yourself to another year of preparation and fresh exams as it was useless to wait around for them to be released. And so it happened that my result and that of the entire school I retook my exams were withheld. It turned out to be a godsend that I had a mother who put her foot down and didn’t let me count my chickens before they had hatched. And though I was nowhere near as prepared for the second set of exams as I could be, I came out with six credits (the minimum required for University entry). I had four As; in English, Commerce, History and Biology. I had Cs in Maths and Agricultural Science, and Fs in Yoruba and Book-keeping. My JAMB score was 241. My father was impressed. He hadn’t really expected me to do so well and he swore to get me into University no matter the cost.
In the end, I got admission into three Federal Universities. But by far the most far-reaching discovery for me was that I learned I was not dumb after all!
 And so I invite you to ask yourself these two questions, 'What is the most unexpected thing you have learned on your way?' and 'If you could call yourself five years ago and had 30 seconds, what would you say?'. You may be surprised what you will find.

Stay blessed
Biodun