It couldn't have been my fault

I graduated as one of the best students in my secondary school and immediately got admitted to the prestigious University of Ibadan, Political Science to be precise. It was all rosy until my parents skipped my monthly allowances. I most times had to go a whole day without food, just because they wouldn't respond to my distress financial calls. Though I wasn't aware of the situations at home, I just wouldn't hear that my parents are not capable of seeing me through my tertiary level. Things fell apart for me academically, my grades started dropping and my class changed. I was unlucky to have an extra year and I just knew it wasn't my fault, whose fault could it have been if not that of my parents.

After graduation, I went for the compulsory National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) and I returned home after a year. I pestered my parents to get me a job related to my discipline, but all they could offer me was a hundred thousand naira job with a firm quite opposite to what I studied. I did worse on the job but I wasn't sacked. Why would I not fair woefully when my parents were not up and doing. They just couldn't with their influence garner me a better job of about #500,000 despite being a graduate. My parents were such a failure.

On a fateful day at work, some money got missing in the department I was heading. I called my team members and none could muster why and how the money went into the blues. How could they not know how to manage resources. It was all their fault. They can't even manage little things I put in their watch. I was called by the general manager on the missing money. I told him my part of the story and showed him the cluelessness of my team members. They were not just good at anything. It wasn't my fault. They just couldn't be up and doing in their duty.

Few years down, I got married to a beautiful damsel. After few years of marriage and no children, I tried to peruse my thought of how I always believed my wife couldn't give birth. She is just not that productive. Not even a business can she manage. The financial status is almost going into a coma. What can my wife actually do perfectly. If you can't give birth, can't you also manage finances.

After several years, my wife eventually got pregnant. Four babies at a time, my joy had no bounds. She gave birth and it was all girls. What type of nonsense is this?, I muster. Can't this woman just do things exceptionally. How could she have given birth to girls. Not even a boy among all the girls. Its not my fault at all because I am not the one to carry the babies, she needed only sperm which I donated. Probably, she isn't as good as I am.

A bad day took away my parents. Both of them died in a road accident. I wouldn't cry much because they didn't do much for me when they were alive, save for my education and the job they got for me. And probably they sponsored my wedding, that is all. I just felt a little bit bad and waved them a bye. Reality started when I remembered they send allowances to my wife every month and when it wasn't coming, it became a war in the home. My wife wouldn't just obey me again, since I don't give her money for meals before my parents died. How come she is asking me for such money now, the only explanation she had was that my parents when alive, were responsible for our feeding. I wouldn't believe my ears. 

At least, I give her #10,000 every month, is that not supposed to be enough. I decided to do a survey in the market myself, I priced things and just wouldn't understand that my #10,000 couldn't feed the six of us for two weeks. So I had been wrong all the while. To add more sorrow, I lost my wife when my kids were 3, my shortcomings became obvious to the world. So I have been a failure hiding under the shadow of my parents and wife. Not a pampers can I handle, not even water I can boil and would not burn. Now I knew I was a failure. I have been so ungrateful, that i depended solely on everybody around me. 

I started to take responsibility for myself, I started to see my mistakes as mine and not blame others. I finally discovered that I have been a failure and coward that hides under the shadow of others. I did a self-discovery on myself, though sad to lose loved ones, but that was the sacrifice necessary for self-discovery. According to a Chinese proverb,'He who blames others has a long way to go on his journey, he who blames himself is halfway there, and he who blames no one is there already'. You achieve nothing in your comfort zone, so you have to leave it.


Life doesn't give you what you desire, but what you deserve

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