To the child in you
Happy Children’s Day
“I wanted to be a chartered accountant when I was 9.” “I thought I was going to be an aeronautical engineer, but alas, I was young and foolish.” These, and many more, are reminiscent of a Nigerian’s childhood. Allow me to tell you a short story.
When I was in primary one, my teacher, Mrs Aroloye, an incredibly wonderful and phenomenal woman, asked us what we wanted to be in the future; the highly regarded loaded question that, after years of self-discovery, even grownups will find difficult to answer. In the same assured manner that most children responded to queries of this nature, I replied that I wanted to be a computer engineer. None of my parents are engineers. All I had was a dream and an uncle who was an undergraduate studying engineering at the time.
Knowing this, my teacher said the sweetest thing to me: “The sky is your limit.” Years later, I still carry her and her kind words with me. That interaction taught me that it is not my obligation to tell people I encounter about the constraints of their aspirations; they will become apparent to them over time. And it’s easy to mistake this for being allusive. No, being candid about your concerns is the most considerate thing to do when asked for your advice.
Today, I’m an almost-engineer who switched paths to the arts after realising that the sciences were not serving my life’s undertaking. If the previous interaction had been a definitive guidance on my options at the time, who knows, it might have been a linear path from secondary school to being an art major at the university. Who knows. As I am not one to dwell on the road not taken, I dare say that the courage I garnered in transferring from my first science route to the arts will continue to avail me as I unravel and learn new aspects of myself.
Dreaming should never be lacking in children, their environment should create room and space to unfold and flourish. Like most living things, development for humans is typically the direct consequence of a favourable environment. And while we make jokes these days about children being jobless, it’s important to remember that every child’s primary job is to dream and it’s the responsibility of adults to nurture those dreams. And, as an adult, you owe it to yourself to continue nourishing that inner child.
Naturally, adulthood instills in you the consciousness to be “well-behaved” according to societal standards, it then becomes your prerogative to resist conforming to society’s expectations of “well-behaved” behaviour. To never stop exploring and discovering new things about yourself, people and the world. To give of yourself more often than you are prepared to take from other people. And to allow yourself grace when you fail, because failure comes with the territory when you attempt new things.
