Everything a man needs
to be wealthy is in his passion. What he needs to move from point zero to point
hero is all within his reach. But man seems oblivious of his precious
possessions that are before his eyes, while he is busy with a search for what
is not lost.
Usually, several
factors are responsible for the search for what is not lost. The factors range
from societal conventions, peer influence to fix-it-quick mentality, among
others. For instance, societal conventions have placed some professions such as
medicine, law, engineering, etc. above others. So many people tend to believe
that their licence to wealth is to study any of these courses. As good as the
courses may be in terms of lucrativeness, they
are not sufficient to make one wealthy. After all, there are poor
doctors, lawyers and engineers in the society. Professions do not make people
rich or wealthy. It is what one makes out of a profession that determines where
one will stand in the society, not necessarily because one is into a particular
profession.
Others have equally
missed it in life because of peer influence. The expression that association can make or mar one is very
true when viewed against how many people join the bandwagon to choose what they
do in life. Many that would have made it effortlessly in some professions are
into other ones where they remain strugglers, not achievers. But for a chance
encounter with one Samuel James Akpomiemie, the Assistant Head Boy of my alma
mater, Fatima College, Ikire, between 1990 and 1991, I could have ended up in a
profession I am not cut out for.
It will interest you to
note that I was a vibrant member of the Press Club and the Literary and
Debating Society of my secondary school. My gift of the garb made me a
cult-hero of sorts in my school and its environs. I represented the school at
so many competitions and won several laurels. But when we were to choose
subjects, the school counsellor put me in science class, not because I wanted
it but based on brilliance in science-related subjects. What I had passion for
took the back seat. Like it happened to me so it did to my classmates. I
struggled all through. Although the school still considered me to be one of its
best students, the reality became apparent when the West African Examination
Council released our results. I bungled Physics! This devastated me. It was
while I was brooding over what had happened that I ran into my Guardian Angel
whose advice put me back on the right track. Today, I do what I do effortlessly
and people still pay me for it.
Let me say here that
despite the fact that I do what I do effortlessly a lot of preparations still
go into it. People with “fix-it-quick” mentality will end up as imitators
rather than originators. Even when one knows what to do one needs to still work
at it until it becomes a second nature..
Societal conventions,
peer influence and fix-it-quick mentality will not bring you wealth and
happiness, but struggle and sorrow. What will bring one joy lies in what one
has, not in what one does not have. So what do you have? What is your gift?
What do you have passion for? This is where your wealth is, not in any societal
convention, not in blindly copying what your peers are doing and above all, not in trying to fix it
quickly. Enduring wealth comes from what you have passion for, and it requires
patience and perseverance.
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