Life's Battle Are Not Forever

Life has taught me many great lessons. And those lessons have shaped me to become the person I am now. One of those lessons that I cannot forget in a jiffy was the one that occurred when I was leaving home for the very first time. I was just about nineteen years old when I got admission into a higher institution. At this time, my mom could not bear seeing me leave home to a faraway land where there was no blood relative and whatnot.

During that period, my father, who was on a low income, withdrew all his savings from the bank so that I could pay school fees and other necessary dues and also rent an apartment. So, when I was leaving home, my parents gave me all the money that they had. It was a bitter but sweet-experience. I was glad on one hand that I was finally going to the university and on the other hand, sad that there was nothing that my parents and siblings would be feeding on. Yet, I left home to a faraway state. My school was about four states away from Lagos.

Vojtech Okenka

When I arrived, I did all that was necessary. After paying my school fees and accommodation and all other charges, I still had enough money with me. From the leftover change, I bought a pair of trousers and a shirt and one flat leather slippers. Then, it occurred to me how I left home without a thing. In those days, there were no telephones and if I wrote a letter, it could take eternity to reach its destination. So, I boarded a bus and came home to drop the remaining money with my father. He was surprised that I could do such a thing.

Till today, my mother still refers to that singular act as rare. One Christmas season when we came home with my wife and children, my mother called them to the living room and narrated how I returned the excess money my dad gave me.

Afterward, every month, I got only two thousand naira from my father as an undergraduate. It was a tough time. Two thousand naira cannot feed me for a week let alone a month. But I appreciated it and moved on with life on campus. Many students were in school with their Motorola, Samsung Blue Face, Alcatel, Sony Ericsson, and Sagem GSMs. Some even came with their private cars to school. I loved to have those things too but they were not available to me. All I did was to face my studies.

How Did I Survive?

My first three years at the university were trying times for me. Battle for survival. I employed several methods to ensure that I didn't lack anything. Here are some of the things I did.

Students Assignment
Before I gained admission, I had started going for night browsing in a cyber cafe. So, it was easy to handle my assignments. My coursemates, having seen that I am good at using the computer/internet in attending to the assignments, started contracting assignments to me. The tokens that I received sustained me during the period that I was broke. This appeared to be my saving grace when the chips were down.

Home Abroad
One of my coursemates lives in the town with his parents and they have a very big building materials shop. Every Friday, we would go there to help out in sales. Whatever extra pay we made from helping customers load their vehicles was shared among the boys. This became my weekend routine.
My friend's parents became very familiar with me and I can go there without the presence of my friend. Their home became my second home. At one point, I stopped going home to collect the meagre pocket money that was waiting for me at home. My parents were worried but I told them not to bother and was afraid, reassuring them I wasn't involved in any criminal act, knowing the family I came from.

Honestly
Despite my predicament, I was honest. I didn't rob anybody. I ensured that tasks that people paid me to do were done and delivered at the appropriate time. This further made me famous in the school and enlarged my customer base.

Rodolfo Quirós

All these happened in my first three years at school. Those three years were the hardest time of my life. There were times I had no food to eat, times when I had garri but not soup, and times when I had raw beans but no condiments to prepare it. I remember those times when I had to soak garri inside water and ho for lectures so that it would rise like a floor with yeast on arrival. Those times were very hard, to say the least.

However, the tide turned for the better at the beginning of my final year in school. My dad got a very lucrative job. Without asking, he conveniently gave me a lot of money. I had to save some in the bank and bought as much as possible clothes and shoes that I never had the opportunity to wear in the first three years of my university days. That final year, I had fun. My friends knew that my level had changed. Sometimes, I would take all of them out to the cafeteria and buy them food and drinks.

Lessons Learned

You might have heard this popular saying:

Tough times don't last but tough people do.

Giving Up Was Not An Option: There was a time I almost gave up school when I saw that I could no longer meet up. The financial demands from my department were choking me. We went on field trips and bought costly textbooks. The truth was that the funds were not available. But one way or the other, I found my way through. I had faith and positive results came forth. It's never say never.

Remember Your Dreams
If you can dream it, you can do it. In this life, everyone has a dream. Some dreams came big while some were small. One thing we should never forget is our dream. Every other time that I had an issue, I remember my purpose for coming to school. When I gained admission, there was not yet a graduate in my entire family. So, it was a mission to break barriers. Being the first person to go to a higher institution in my entire family, you can imagine what I would face. Yet, I held on to the end. Remembering your dreams can be a morale booster.

Read More Autobiographies
The library was my first friend those days. I ensured to read about one person every week at the library. I found out that the journey to the top is filled with thorns and to scale through, one had to tolerate the path and be watchful not to hit his/her legs on a stone. The hurdles to attaining greatness are no joke. This made me realise that I wasn't the only one who was passing this phase. There are folks out there that are passing much tougher challenges.