“No excuses for failure, and experience is the best teacher,” we always say, as most people are carved from trees and become a wood sculpture, and few are molded from hot metals and become a metal sculpture, while a little is cut from rocks and becomes a rock sculpture.
As no excuses for failure, I said repeatedly evaluating the percentage of the students who failed the last external examination, which came out a few days ago.
The questions are tough, the time is not enough and I couldn't get to the examination center earlier due to traffic hold ups and so were all the reasons they gave me chorusing it together and make other helluva excuses for their failures then I said, raising my voice to the top and saying ‘one house please, do not make my class go rowdy’ I warned and they became silent and I continued.
I will use this opportunity to tell you a little about my high institutional days, so that you know that your excuses are weak, I said.
Yes, we have excuses to give when things happen unexpectedly and failure occurs, but my question is, how prepared are you, and when failure comes, do you accept failure?
I asked as the students looked at me, knowing I was totally disappointed to confirm that more than eighty percent of them failed.
Failure starts from here and now, and this is why different excuses come in the future, like ;
"I was too busy and have no time" when you should have made time and prepared ahead of your life's challenges.
I was wandering and wasted ten good years waiting for the perfect time to start, not knowing that to start anything is the present time you are in, I noted them, my students.
Most people will say, "Others had an advantage and were privileged, as I always said, then too, " lazy up and down instead of starting with what is at hand.
Yes,, we all know that life is not fair, but growth is still possible. I stated frankly, and I continued my story as an illustration.
Many years ago, after my second school days.
I left home for the betterment, knowing I had no sponsor to further my education due to my family background.
I did different jobs,, like a fueling attendant for years at different fueling stations.
I also did security guard work, watching over houses and estates.
I even cleaned to make a living at a Point, helping people clean their homes and get paid.
It was during this time, which was years after leaving home, that I decided to go back to school and not wait for the perfect time anymore, as I am getting old and I don't want to be a servant till old age,, I reasoned then.
During my early years in the university, I did a weekend part-time program, which allowed me to attend lectures during the weekends.
I used my weekdays to do different jobs to earn money. As it is an essential commodity.
I lacked it at that time, if I must say, and due to the present need, then :
Like contributing money to rent a room around there.
I also need money for the essentials, like food to eat, handouts to buy, and payment of tuition fees.
I advanced to a laundry man, the errands and delivery man, labourer for bricklayers, electricians, and plumbers to get paid wages to meet up at the end of my second year.
I landed as a housekeepers in a hotel in a sophisticated area of my city only to take up space for my weekend classes to ease the stress I go through to earn but I had to quit the hotel job as the distance to my institution was too far and could not be improvised on, so I traveled back to the institution's vicinity and started teaching at a school and attending my program classes on weekends simultaneously.
If it is to withdraw, I have millions of reasons and excuses to give.
I explained further to the audience, my students, as they looked unbelievably.
Yes, Is it the days that I will have to go on days and weeks with an empty stomach, sleep in uncompleted building and having sleepless night due to mosquitoes bite, heat, even sleeping on the bare floor and sometimes having no where to sleep if it rained heavily or the days I will have to walk for longer hours like about three to four hours to meet up for classes and to get back home, the home which is not a home per say.
What about the days that my spirit was down due to stress and depression, or the days I have to burn late-night candles to read at night to study for every paper, as I do not have time to read during the day because of full-time teaching and tutorials all the time.
A year later, I managed to rent a room, which I stayed in till I graduated.
Now here today, years after graduating with grace.
Standing stronger, knowing that so far there is life, we have no excuses to give if we fail but to embrace failure and grow with it as growth continues till our last day on earth.
I told them to accept the past as the past makes the present, and to learn every day to become better than yesterday, should be an important concern. I pointed at them as I ended my story frantically.
But sir, one of them asked, who are now the failed or the unsuccessful?
Those people who died without achievement are the unsuccessful ones. Maybe, I said.
But do not forget, I will not take your weak excuses, so prepare your mind that there is no excuse for failure.
Exams are now easier to pass these days if you study and prepare your mind, I concluded.
The students could not say anything anymore as they watched me leave their classroom after my normal goodbye slogan, which goes thus saying ‘ let's call it a day’.
Thanks for reading and remain blessed.
