My mistake started with my refusal to visit the counselor's office while in school, lucky said after his three failed attempts to pass English in literature in the west African examination council (waec).
Lucky a seventeen (17) years old boy who had just finished his secondary education had realised he made an error in his choice of subject combination when registering for his waec examination. Not actually an error but confusion.
Lucky had always loved to be a lawyer, but he would not want to be buried with his face downward when he dies. As rumor has it, lawyers are buried with their face facing down, and that was an implanted fact in the minds of the children at that period. Lucky was confused, whether to join the art, science or commercial class. The choice was made easy for him as Janet, a girl he was crushing on, was in commercial class. He opted to join the commercial class.
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His error became clear to him, when he decided to study law, but his subject combination in the waec examination could not gain him admission to study it since literature was lacking in his results. The longing to become a lawyer became even stronger as days went by. But how then is he going to achieve that without having literature among his subjects in waec.
The search for literature took him to another journey of frustration, pain and hurt. After two years of procrastination, he then decided to write another waec again. That seems to be the only chance for him to correct his error. By then he was already 26 years old and was looking older than other students. But he had to swallow his pride, since he knew what he was looking for. Unfortunately for him, when the results were out, he failed the literature test.
But he was so determined to study law, so giving up was not an option, so he enrolled for another waec, but this time around he accompanied it with prayer and fasting as everything is controlled by the spiritual, he said. On the very day he was to write the literature exams, he decided to hold prayer and fasting that day, the hunger was tough on him, that he forgot to read the instructions on the exam question papers, and did not answer the compulsory question that has the highest mark. And that led him to failing the literature exams for the second time.
The more he tries to forget the dream of him being a lawyer, the more he sees himself wearing a wig and gown. You become a failure only when you stop trying. He heard a motivational speaker speak on the radio one morning , those words became the grease for him to try again. The third attempt had the same result. He concluded, he was not destined to become a lawyer.
One evening, he was sitting under the Mango tree in their compound ruminating over all his failed attempt to make literature despite his hard work and effort, and he realised he was failing to do one thing, which was speaking to a school counselor. He went to the school counselor at the university and enquired if there was anything he could start without literature in pursuit of a law degree. '`Yes you can start a remedial or a diploma course in law without literature, during which you will gain knowledge that will further prepare you for direct entry into 200 level and for waec exams for the literature" the counselor said.
That advice sounded like the best advice of the century. He did exactly as he was advised, and he finally enrolled for a diploma course in law, and was eventually given direct entry to 200level to study law using his diploma result. My mistake was not using the counselor while in school he said..