Hello Exceptional and great Steemians, I feel privileged and humbled to share my story on this exceptional platform. This is going to be a long journey. But trust me; it will be worth it by the time we reach the destination. But before we begin, permit me to be the one to lead you through this journey.
I'm Doris, a motivational writer and speaker, plus, a spoken word poet. I’m 21 years of age. I hail from Niger state.
So This Is My Story……….
It has often been believed; kids from polygamous family or broken home, usually turn out to be less successful, nurtured, intelligent but rude, failures, dummies, and what have you. But here is a lady by the name Doris who is from a broken home not forgetting a great mentor of mine, after God and my mom, Dr. Ben Carson, who is a product of a broken home. Hence, that thesis is just an hypothesis.
At the age of 6, my parent got divorced and I had to live with my dad, step siblings and step mom. I used to be a dummy. Funny as it may seem, I admit, I used to be. My academic performance went from average to worst in fact I hated school then. I recall times without number; I would be beaten for not copying my notes by almost all my teachers, though I was bought for, all the text books. But I wouldn't feast my nose on them.
I had bad remarks when it always comes to my studies. I recall sometimes I would fake illness just to miss school. From my nursery classes to primary 6 second term, my academic performance’s remark was always: "A very weak performance. Wake up!" My second term primary 6 result is the worst result in my life. I had 6 f9, 2 pass and 1 credit which kept me in the pew of the last 5 pupils in the class. Looking at my poor performance and position, I changed it to 20th position instead of 26th, thinking my parent would not bother about the grade but to my disappointment, they did.
That holiday, I spent it with my mum.
The day I went to her place, I handed her my report sheet. I did know I would be dealt with, with words so I tried justifying my failure: telling her most of us in the class failed that term. I saw the pain in her eyes when she kept quiet for a while. She asked me to bring out my English text book which I brought along. She opened a passage and asked me to read aloud. I did recall the second word in the first paragraph was "hall" and that was what I could not pronounce for over an hour. My mum felt very disappointed. You can imagine in primary 6 I was very poor at reading. That shows how dull and numb I was.
My mom didn't give up on me. She decided to tell me the story of Dr. Ben Carson. How he was dubbed a dummy due to his academic performance and how he broke those shackles of failure. She reminded me that I was not dull. I only needed to focus more on my studies.
Mum engaged me in another extramural lesson though I was in same lesson the previous term but was not serious. That term, which was my last term in primary school, I buckled-up and gave my best to my studies. To everyone’s amazement, my result that term was the 6th best result in the class. My Head-teacher was very please with me and amaze as well.
In my NECO exam, which was called Common Entrance at then, written after primary school to further to secondary school, I emerged the 3rd in my local government.
After primary school, I started living with my mum. In my secondary school, I continue to aim at A’s, B’s and C’s instead of the usual D’s, E’s and F’s and graduated among the best in 2014. So, just incase you feel you can’t rise above failure, trust me, YOU CAN DO IT, if I could. I learnt that by first believing I could, then, I made those words profound in my actions.
After my secondary education, I felt I was ready to get into a relationship (date). Hence, I got into one. After almost a year of being in the relationship, I had to be sincere to myself. I was not getting what I had thought were the benefits of being in a relationship, which are, being there for one another; encouraging one another to always go for their dreams; supporting the intellectual and spiritual growth of one another and also being the motivation of each other, after God and ones family. It obviously felt I was in the wrong relationship. I decided to put my emotions down and call a spade a spade: I broke the relationship, though it was not easy but it was worth it.
My friends complained but then, I decided to rise above negative influence, to taking responsibilities for my actions.
After leaving that relationship, three major things happened in my life:
-- I became more passionate about bringing my dream to reality: becoming a Pediatric Neurosurgeon.
-- I became passionate about appreciating challenges, most especially the ones I had faced, which led to the motivation to begin writing my first and soon to be published book, before the year ends, titled, “ECSTASIES THROUGH CHALLENGES.”
-- I became more passionate about impacting lives. Hence I leveraged Facebook to do more of writing motivational articles than I used to. And also leveraged the internet to learn more on the “Art of Spoken Word.”
I decided to leave some circle of friends that added no value to me. I was jeered at. But I didn’t give it a chance to make me change my decision. Two of the things that helped me the most were God and the books I read.
I attribute the life I lived then, to “influence from the wrong circle of friends and my inability to be responsible for the decisions I took.” And these are two major reasons most teenagers live their Teenage years without purpose; being negatively influenced.
I met new friends, most especially online and few, offline because I’m an introvert: I spend most of the hours of my day, indoors. These people had and are having great and positive impact and influence in my life.
I resulted to studying at College of Nursing and Midwifery, Niger state, while I process my admission to the university in 2016, after writing Jamb for the third time. It was while I was there that I decided to carryout a research on “Personality.” It was on that note I got to starting chatting with Milton Tutu who has been my friend on Facebook, whose posts have been of great impact to my life. He invited me to a Master-class he convened on WhatsApp, themed: “A YOUTH WITH PURPOSE.” I learnt the importance and essence of discovering and living my God given Purpose, as an individual.
Initially, that year (2016) I convened a community on WhatsApp, named: “BEN CARSONS CLUB” where we discuss topics concerning living a responsible youth. But the community later lost it purpose due to my inability to manage it. After the series of Master-class held at “A YOUTH WITH PURPOSE” and other exceptional communities I was a resident of, I decided to rebrand my community that had lost it purpose. The name was changed to “BEN CARSON’S YOUTH HUB” with the vision of helping youths discover and fulfill their life’s purpose, plus, living the youth they will not regret they lived, later in life.
While at school of Nursing, I got admission to Federal University Birnin Kebbi. Though I was not given Medicine, I was given Geophysics (study of gravity, magnetism and seismic characteristics of the Earth) but I didn’t give in to settling for anything other than Medicine. Hence, I decided to take another JAMB.
As a motivational writer and speaker, and a spoken word poet, I learnt to manage my time so my extracurricular activities will not affect my academics. So being a student doesn’t limit you from exploring and unleashing your potentials. You just need to learn the principles of time management.
There is a philosophy I have, which is: “passion shouldn’t be an excuse for failure.” Hence, I didn’t let my not being a medical student yet, prevent me from excelling. And this philosophy has resulted to me being a first-class student even in a course I’m not passionate about. Hence, I encourage you not to let your passion be an excuse for failing in a particular field, while you work towards bringing your passion to reality.
Currently, I have a project that will commence before the end of this month, tagged, “CAMPUS YOUTH-REACH” with the purpose of “Setting off a youth to discover and actualize his\her life’s purpose.”
In conclusion, my story buttress the importance of Influence from the circle of friends we belong to; our ability to prioritize, making decisions that will bring about the realization of our dreams and being responsible and bold to stand for the decisions you’ve taken.
And here we are: THE DESTINATION. I’m really grateful for taking your time to read to the finish. God bless you. I trust you’ve learnt one or two things from my story? If you have any question, kindly bring it on.
A very special thanks to 
I once shared this story on facebook, in a closed group. Here is the link: https://m.facebook.com/groups/240901756086906?view=permalink&id=797743153736094
@doris12