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A person’s beginning, lowly or luxurious, does not
absolutely influence his/her future. Commonly, people claim the poverty in
their family for their inability to get (good) education or make headway in
life. Let me share with you the story of a certain Chinese man born and bred in
a farming family in Beijing, China. His name is Wu Yulu, a 49 year old man.
Yulu‘s wretched background might have caused his inability to acquire a
tertiary education, but that never deterred his success in life. He wisely
utilized his innate talent which he so ambitiously developed, leading him
eventually to the invention of robots. This robot invention, which the man has
so much developed, has become a household name in the whole of China and even
beyond, as the international community, courtesy of international media, has
now shown much interest in those robotic creations of Yulu’s. Those robotic
creations, which Yulu refers to as his ‘children’, are about to be showcased at
the World Expo.
Since Yulu could make it, why can’t you? Stop
bearing that defeatist attitude of running yourself down due to financial
constraint. Yulu never had a smooth run in his life endeavour. He had this to
say about himself, “I am a little famous
now, I have been doing this for over 20 years, but I feel that each year, more
people discover my invention.”
Wu Yulu’s robots, numbering about 47, have been of
great help to the locals in his Mawu village. The local farmers especially have
had their farm work, as well as other works, made a lot easier for them, with
the robots efficiently helping them carry out some of these works. It would
interest you to know that Yulu has invented his 47 robots from scrap materials
including wire screw. His robots can pour tea, offer smokers a lighter and
paint pictures. What a feat! You too can borrow a leaf from this great Chinese,
Wu Yulu.
Many people blame
their misfortunes on the polygamous families into which they were born and have
grown. This, as far as I am concerned, is a lame excuse, for there are
innumerable heroes and heroines that emerged from polygamous homes, most of
which were sort of hotter battle grounds. As much as I know, there is no excuse
for failure.
Away from that, I have always found it confusing
why people cut or reduce their ages. This puzzling situation always makes me
ask the question, “What is in an age?” To me, age is simply indicative of how
long something or somebody has lived or existed. They say,
“Different strokes for different folks”. While some people, particularly people
of the western world, will easily disclose their ages, many others, especially
Africans and particularly Nigerians, somewhat shy away from disclosing their
ages. As a matter of fact, they keep their ages so guarded, as though there was
some mysterious or cultural stigma attached to such disclosure. Personally, I
have observed that the very honorific nature of our cultures in Nigeria and the
excessive emphasis our traditions place on seniority and due accordance of
respect to people are largely responsible for people’s desire to hide their
ages; to prevent others from knowing how old they really are; all in a bid to
command the people’s respect.
The Psalmist says “teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom”
(Ps. 90:12). Of course, the importance of age cannot be underestimated in the
consideration or discussion of general human progress. For instance, whenever a
person records a worthwhile achievement, one question that is almost always
readily asked by people around is, “how old is he/she”? This question is
observably borne out of people’s need to know how specially to regard the
achiever and his/her achievement(s), since, to humans, recording such
worthwhile achievement at an early age is somewhat unusual. That explains why
the English culture (and language too) recognizes such words as “prodigy”,
“whiz kid”, “genius”, “precociousness”, etc. to acknowledge the uniqueness of
age in general human development.
President Barrack
Obama, the president of the United States of America; the Williams Sisters; the
phenomenal Argentine footballer, Lionel Messi; the famed Nigerian Professor of
Literature, Professor Oluwole Soyinka; etc. all have their ages known to the
world. It is not surprising therefore that the press and the general society
celebrate their birthdates for them. All these people have recorded different
degrees of achievements in their various fields of endeavour. It doesn’t really
matter at what age each of them got shone into limelight. All that matters is
that today, they are great achievers, who never let any obstacles hold them
down as they struggled along the grueling path leading them to their current
success destinations. If asked about their pasts, virtually all the great
achievers in the world today would confirm they had chequered pasts; the
journey had never been a bed of roses!
So, to you that are currently struggling to gain a foothold in life, I
strongly urge you to disregard your beginning. Stop wallowing in self-pity! Get
up and forget about the poverty that currently ravages your family. Stop
attributing your misfortune to your polygamous parentage. Stop lamenting you
are too old or too young to do something great. Discover that gift or talent that
has been naturally built in you by God, and begin to work on it. Lionel Messi
had an impoverished parentage before he discovered his footballing talent at a
very tender age. Today, he has broken many world records, one of which is that
he has become the first footballer ever to win the world footballer of the
year, four consecutive times!
Don’t let where you are coming from or where you currently are cast
blight on where you are headed for. Importantly, don’t allow people to run you
down. Nobody born of a woman can please the world. So, stop the attitude of
wanting to please the people around you, at the detriment of your personal goal
and happiness. Don’t give anybody the chance to pour scorn on you or on your
cherished dreams. There are too many cynics and killjoys in the world today,
who never see any sense in what others do. So, trying to please them is like
wanting to get blood out of stone. Always believe that, if you can think it,
you sure can do it!
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