With the end of the National Youth Service Corps year comes the opportunity to dream, till and soar. In our country completing this scheme begins your life as an educated adult citizen. But the scheme is not all you need to get your life started. Instead it is your starting block. Just like in track and field, a starting block helps hold your feet so that as you push forward to start your race of life you would not slip into the ground. The NYSC through its many opportunities, community development service groups, and skill acquisition and entrepreneurial development initiatives helps prepare you, mold you and form you into a worthwhile and reputable citizen of the country.
What you do with this formation is entirely up to you from here on.
HOP
It is true that there are more jobs than there are people and that there are more positions in companies than there are qualified hands to fill them. It is also true that the various higher institutions we graduated from may not adequately train and prepare us for these jobs and positions. Yet from among us have to come the right people to occupy these vacancies. How then can we wade through the challenges and be the right people for the jobs? How can we get chosen from the lot? What are our chances?
Well, the answers you seek to those questions are right within you. You own your life and the person you now have to answer to for the choices you make is you. You have to chart your own course and climb every mountain. This is the time for you to break-free from the torturous dictatorship of your parents choosing your life’s path for you. It’s the time to let go of what your upbringing says about your future, let go of what the society, the economy, your friends, your haters say about your life and do what you want for your own life.
STEP
It doesn’t matter what you have as you pass-out of the scheme. Not everybody would be retained at the places of primary assignment, not everyone already has an offer letter waiting for them somewhere. And not everyone was already employed before taking on the service. Opportunities may not come looking for you. Heck, it never does for the most of us! There’s not going to be a silver lining and any rainbow for the majority of graduating corps members. But that doesn’t mean that there’s no way out. That’s no reason to believe that “the system” is against you.
Nothing is against you but yourself. Only you have the ability to stop yourself from dreaming and doing. Challenge your gut! Wrestle society, provoke the norms and defeat the odds. You too can be great and successful. Think more about yourself and feed your mind with knowledge that can empower you. Train more at that vocation, improve on that skill, study harder at that course, work harder at getting that certification, redevelop that hobby into a profitable business – whatever it is that’s going on or that could be going on for you, do better at it!
Take more than a stride and leap towards your own success. Mind yourself and remember that everybody has their lane and their race. Run yours and yours alone! How well some other person is running or how high they’re jumping should not be your candy. Run yours and yours alone! Leap hard and with all the muscle within you. Jump head first into that path that leads to your success. Savor the air at the height of your stride and know that you can do all things. Push with your body, gear up with your mind and fly with your heart.
FLY
Fly with your heart. Nigeria is a place where a lot of people end up with jobs and lives they have no interests in but have no alternatives at their disposal. This is because we tell ourselves that only a small number of jobs and industries really matter. So everyone jumps on the bandwagon, merely existing from paycheck to paycheck.
You can be different. You can follow your heart and your dream and be whatever you want to be. Start where you are and move to where you want to be. Let your imagination take you to places and allow your determination soar real high. Then when you do, let your measurement of success be based on your passions not on money, on the depth of your accomplishment and not the zeros on the check. Congratulate yourself for the good you do in the world and not in your life alone.
Take control of your career, vocation, passion and life! Like a well-trained and intelligent athlete the time has come to take your strides with grace and courage. Move on from being a youth corps member to becoming a glorious citizen of this beautiful country. These words are my words. This life is yours. So hop… step… fly!
BX Photography 