Every human has one particular thing they dislike about themselves and for some, it is more than one.
I have a few things I wish I can quit and it makes me sad to see myself in it after promising myself not to do it again. Procrastination, non-challant attitude towards things, and many others are the things I am still struggling with at the moment. I didn't develop these habits as an adult, many of them stared at childhood.
As terrible as I was at doing away with addictions, I was able to quit one when I was young. I might be young but something forced me to quit one of those things I have been longing to stop. I was a scared kid, I don't know any other way to describe it.
I fear a lot, things my mates aren't scared of would make me tremble. I avoided school quizzes, inter-school debates, I wasn't into clubs in school because I was scared to face people. The fear of making mistakes, been rejected or laughed at made me do away with things that involved a lot of people.
I remembered been chosen to represent my school in a drama, we were to act the drama at the children's day celebration which students from different schools would be attending. I panicked a lot and it took a few teachers and my mom's intervention to make me do it, it wasn't like I couldn't do it but I was scared whenever I imagined the crowd that would be at the event.
It wasn't just in school, I did that at church as well. I sang a lot then but I was always scared to do it and playing against my senior on the field was something else, I leave the football field whenever I am been threatened by anyone.
I wouldn't stand for myself for any reason, I took insults and even got bullied by my mate. I got the nickname baby in JSS1 because everyone trampled on me so easily.
People knew that thing about me and took advantage of it.
I remembered doing daily contributions at school with a senior then and at the end of it, she refused to give me my money. She was so harsh and I just had to let go because I was unnecessarily scared of her.
It went on like that for me until I got to JSS3 when I changed school. The new school was a whole new world to me, the students were very much older than me and they were really scary than my former school. I became a target for bullies immediately, it was as if they saw through me and decided to take advantage of being scared.
I made a few friends who always stood by my side but that wasn't enough to eradicate the fear in me. These bullies did a lot and one day, I decided to fight back because I have been pushed to the extreme.
It was a funny day, I was crying while fighting. I didn't know where the strength came from but I made sure I punched one of those guys in the face while the others punched me as well. We were caught fighting and I didn't tell my part of the story in the staff room because I didn't want to be seen as a weakling. These guys will laugh at every action I took just to piss me off so I put up a stubborn act even when the teachers were involved.
That day I decided to stand up for myself and not let anyone cheat me again. I fought with one of the guys again because he teased me and somehow, I started gaining confidence.
Things changed a lot for me and becoming the assistant head prefect after taking the prefect exams helped me a lot. I slowly let my fears disappear, I started addressing students without fear, I represented the school at competitions and it felt great.
When I was working with some expatriates in Ikeja, we had a meeting for the monthly sales briefing. The state manager, an Indian man made a mistake with the calculation which gave false results that earned my team lots of insults in the meeting.
While looking at the big screen he was calculating on, I started running through the calculation and I discovered his mistake. I said, "you are wrong sir" and the hall went quiet for a few seconds. Who dares challenge the state sales managers? He was someone even my bosses couldn't stand.
The man laughed and told me to come out, he said your job is at stake if you don't prove me wrong.
The old me wouldn't have even stood up from the onset and even if I did, hearing that my job was at stake would have made me run back to my seat.
I took the marker from him and started the calculation again. In the end, I proved him wrong and people advised me to go and apologized to him for correcting him in public. My response was, "if he didn't see any reason to apologize for insulting us even when we are not wrong, I don't have to apologize for doing the right thing".
This man recognized me after that day and would always call me forward to explain sales summary at the meeting.
Doing away with fear really helped me in achieving things I never thought I would. I tried things I was scared of and learned lessons in the process.
I have always stood up not just for myself but for the people who are as well weak to talk for themselves. I still have boundaries though especially with speaking for people around me, I really don't have a duplicate life.
