by Femi Oyewole-Damilola

     …wakeup calls in life do toughen us up and stretches our tolerance and long-suffering capacity. The scriptures says that ‘’the trying of your faith worketh patience”

If I had my child to raise over again

I would do less correcting and more connecting

I would do more hugging and less tugging

I would model less about the love of power and more about the power of love

These were words of the Poet Dianne Loomans. At some point in our lives we have experienced moments where we have had to pause and take stock of our lives. As youths, we silently question ourselves   on whether we are indeed in the pathway of our so called dreams. For some these wake up calls might be a severe illness that kept them bedridden for months ,or being  sentenced to prison for a few years as a young man or the death of a mentor. While some of these experiences were borne out of negative events, we also experience these defining moments in the positive events of our lives; from the joy of graduating from the university, to the birth of a new baby. My personal wakeup call came in my first year in university when I met my mentor.

In our day-to-day activities, as youths we are faced with the continuous battle of overcoming difficulties and challenges, we fight to overcome the temptation of being involved in social vices, we face the battle of making the best use of our time and energy, some of us battle with the stress of and drudgery of work and the list goes on. But if there’s one truth we have learnt in this 21^st century, it is the fact that our journey towards freedom was borne out the sweat  and toils of past heroes, who fought to overcome the challenges of life. From the fight to eradicate slavery to the fight against apartheid,  from the French revolution to the industrial revolution. Our story as a race has been one full of overcoming challenges despite the odds.

Having said that, it would therefore mean that one of the most vital truth we all as youths must learn is that in moments of challenges, we can only come out victorious if only we believe we can and that believe is only made strong by our understanding of the beauty of defining moments or negative experiences. In the words of Freidrich Nietzsche “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger’’. The beauty of defining moments is borne out of the need to recognise that for every problem there lies equally the seed of its solution, therefore a good understanding would help free ourselves from the defensive approach to challenges to embracing the proactive positive ways to respond to them. Our focus would shift from just avoiding the sting of pain to overcoming moments of our vulnerabilities. The Scriptures says ‘’if you fail in the day of trouble your strength is small’’.

It’s an obvious truth that as youths we try to shield ourselves from facing the daunting challenges head on. Some find solace in drugs, sex and alcohol; some retrieve into their shells of self-pity never appreciating the company of friends, some others look for shortcuts to escape from the misery of these defining moments. While this is true, what is also true is the fact that after all said and done the realities of their battles still haunts them after all their attempts at escaping from it, as their methods are all temporary fixes. At this point let’s take a look   at a few points as to why there’s beauty in negatives and also why these wakeup calls might be the best part of our lives.

The first point to note is the fact that defining moments most often than not inspire individuals to give their best efforts in achieving success. In such moments, we seem to realize that we have only been using half of the effort required to achieve our dreams and goals. That moment of disappointment we feel when our hope in the ability of an uncle to get a job for us is dashed, that moment when our trust in our ability to pass examinations just because we think we are smart is dashed. We realize that we can do more than we are currently doing, we realize that there’s the need to look up to God for help. Therefore we summon all the vibrant energy and vigour we possess as youths to achieve success.

Secondly, defining moments also help to explore those hidden, non-dominant areas of our life that we haven’t discovered. I remember a personal experience I had when I worked as an intern at a multinational oil company. I had always thought to myself that I was never good with software especially when it had to do with petroleum engineering related software. It therefore happened that on this cool, breezy afternoon right after the lunch break, my supervisor called me to his office and handed to me a leaflet which was to be my project description. There it was, it was a software related project my first reaction was to smile for I knew inside it was definitely beyond my ability. But right after working under pressure for a few weeks, I developed the project virtually with little or no assistance. That simple experience was a defining moment for me, for I discovered that not only could I work with softwares excellently but I could also work efficiently under pressure and great expectations. I realized that sometimes working under someone with great expectations or a demanding boss is not borne out of their need for you to do brainless unrealistic tasks but it’s actually a show of faith. It was simply a crucible moment for me.

Thirdly, one of the beauties of defining moments is its ability to test our adaptive and creative capacities. I’m sure we all have moments when our adrenaline rush made us do things in a way we won’t have imagined. In our defining moments, our ability to weed out problems until we find something that works is tested. I believe that’s what makes Thomas Edison and Abraham Lincoln stand out amongst the crowd, their ability to continually find new paths in the face of daring challenges. It’s often said that the difference between a problem and an opportunity is perspective. I would like to posit here that defining moments present us the best opportunities to see new ways, methods and pathways to pursue and achieve our individual and collective dreams. In understanding this new form of beauty, we realize that errors and mistakes are part of the mix of life but we can always take advantage of them.

Lastly, wakeup calls in life do toughen us up and stretches our tolerance and long-suffering capacity. The scriptures says that ‘’the trying of your faith worketh patience’’. In defining moments, we recognize that as youths life is not all about ostentatious living ,for there’s still a place for those who the scriptures says’’ through faith and patience obtained the promise’. In defining moments, we learn the most elusive truth of the 21^st century summed up in Zig Ziglar words ‘’The elevator of success is out of service but the stairs are always open’’

In conclusion, I must say here that crucibles, wakeup calls, defining moments are simply times for us to pause, learn and re-evaluate our thoughts and actions in order to pursue our dreams for meaningful living.

————————–