You know the sweet thing about dreams, we don't need anyone's validation before we start creating those amazing images of how our life would turn out in our heads. Ever seen or heard anyone say "I don't have dreams"? Well, since I was born, and now that I'm getting old, I've never seen or heard about anyone who doesn't have dreams.
"What is your New Year's resolution?" Cynthia asked.
"New year's what?" I replied with curiosity, trying to wrap my head around the question that was asked.
Yeah! That used to be me a few years back. Ever since my life started, I have always found it difficult to put certain things together, often when I see people my age who have their lives put together and have different goals and aspirations at every point in time. At those moments of conversing with them, I would feel left out.
"Is it that I don't have a dream?" I would mutter to myself amidst those discussions.
Maybe my dreams and goals can't be easily put together? I continued.
Those thoughts above would make me reminisce back and think of those moments when I wanted to be like everyone, "you can blame it on childhood," where someone would ask, "What do you want to be?" And I would be like "A lawyer" when someone repeats that same question a few minutes later, I would find myself saying something else, but then I'm glad no one judged me because I was a child who was still growing up, and I'm permitted to be anything I want and who I want to be.
Then I grew older and my life started to take that shape with the understanding that "I am in charge", there is no time for deciding what I want to be, it's time to work out what I want to become. Being lost in those thoughts, I came across something so incredible that I told myself, "This is it," this is what I've been waiting for my whole life, and it's time to pursue that dream of mine.
I started taking those baby steps into pursuing this dream of mine. Being a chartered accountant in my nation was the dream I had. When I told my mother about it, I think it stuck in her head that she started addressing me by that. Often I wonder if she had given me the wrong name before getting to know this particular one.
Then I took my JAMB (Joint Admission and Matriculation Exam) and to my greatest surprise, I passed and was offered admission. The good part is I get to study what I've come to love.
My university days came, like they say in the university, "the struggle is real." That phrase above manifested in my life, but then I didn't let it stop me. After seeing those incredible signs of me making it, I pursued that dream with passion, then out of the blue I received the saddest news I never planned for "Mum had passed".
I stood there like a statue, lost in my head. I didn't know how to react to the news; it felt like a dream. "Am I having another dream in my dream?" I asked myself. How do I finish this that I've started already? At this moment, I felt like all hope was lost, and indeed, the struggle is becoming more real.
With the source of my strength gone, how do I face this life and manage my studies, these thoughts kept flooding my head when I got a call from my aunt. The call that changed everything when I thought it was all over and I was gonna be a dropout, but then I was wrong, things took a different turn, "the right turn," I continued my studies and got that certificate.
My dreams provided me with the goalpost so that I can keep track of it while measuring up, but then setbacks are unpredictable, right?. I faced certain setbacks, "another affliction," that I wanted to give up on that dream of mine. Then I thought to myself maybe that goal was too high for me to reach.
The mindset of nothing is impossible stepped in and I could see the level of my determination increasing. That zeal came flooding into my head and I said to myself, "It is now or never". I looked at myself and my finances to see if my dream would actually be achieved. I weighed the options I have before me and decided that "now is the time".
Fortunately, I've taken that bold step and I've started my journey into becoming one of the chartered accountants of my dear nation, Nigeria.
Despite not being where I want to be at this moment, embarking on this journey fills me with a sense of fulfillment.
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