MAKING GOOD USE OF YOUR TIME AND OPPORTUNITIES

We all come into the university with high hopes, dreams, ambitions. Most want a first class, some just to pave way for their future, to meet the right people. It’s funny how some people already know education isn’t going work out for them but they feel university is the right place to mix and connect with people that can pave way. In my short stay in the university, I have met some people that have the notion of “education isn’t everything” burned into their brains. I have also met quite a number that feel having a first class will catapult them to the top. Some just found themselves there.
The university is filled with different people, very different people, from literally everywhere. Some people will help you academically, spiritually, morally. Some will help build your career, some will give you the boost you need to excel, some will give you ideas on how to be the best. Of course, not all the people you meet will be good, the ones that will lead you astray will be there, give you bad advice and ruin whatever plans you have for yourself.
One thing we have to remember is that before these people can have any effect on our lives, we have to meet them first. Before we can get to that point we have all dreamed about, we must work towards it even if its failure. If you want to pass, you start with reading but not at the end of the semester or session, at the beginning. If you decide that education is not your way, that you just need the right people in your life, you don’t start searching for those people after your stay in school. You will need to build a network.
For me, I had planned that after my first year I would then start working on my ambitions, my only priority then was to focus on my academics, but then after listening to one of my professors, I realize that the people that can help with my other passions won’t wait for me until I’m ready. I’m basically saying that time waits for no one. To me, the greatest downfall of a student is procrastination. We feel pushing things to next time will help us to prepare for it but it won’t.  if we don’t start early, we will finish late or never finish at all. We need to first set our priority. Know what you are doing in the university, your goal, your aim, your ambition, where you see yourself in five or ten years. Don’t start reasoning that you are not ready for what the future holds or you are still young, basically, you are giving excuses. We need to stop building up excuses for ourselves, we need to know exactly what works for us. The moment we start having excuses for our failures we are making our way towards our destruction. I used to do that. If I didn’t pass an exam, I’d blame it on the teacher, or that we didn’t have enough time to prepare. But some people passed, did they have a special teacher or were they allocated extra time that I didn’t know about?
If you want to have a good result, work towards from the beginning. If you start well, you end well. Have a plan for yourself. Don’t be part of the people that feel that the first year is to enjoy freedom, flex, chill. There are some people that have the plans for how they are going to spend their time. They have time to have fun, time to study. You can’t judge a book by its cover. Looking at some people you feel they are going fail or pass but you don’t know their plans. They want to excel, they don’t wait for opportunities, they take them.  They don’t watch things happen, they make things happen.
I had always thought that It’s impossible to multi-task, I didn’t realize that I was saying it’s hard for ME to multi-task. Then I started seeing and hearing cases of people that were succeeding in both their academic and social life. Then I started to wonder what made those people achieve such success. I was privileged to speak to one person whose achievements I admire. She told me, even before entering the university she had started building her network, she described network to me as wide range of connections, and she had built her network waiting for admission. She knew that while in school her academics would be her utmost priority, so why wait till then and be jampacked with activities?  After getting into school, she didn’t drop one for the other. She did the jobs she could from school and during holidays she faced her work. She was a presenter, writer, blogger. And she still managed to graduate with a good result. If she dropped her job for academics, she wouldn’t have the recognition and opportunities she has today. She would probably be walking around in the sun with her CV.
Why don’t we take stories of people like these and emulate them? Why don’t we make good use of our time, opportunities, energy? Sometimes I feel some of us are waiting for God to blow a trumpet and tell us to do things that will benefit us. God is not going to do that, He will send people to us but so will the devil, it is now our choice to decide who we want to follow.  Its our choice how we use opportunities that have been presented to us. No matter how small or big, lets give it a chance. You don’t become a successful person overnight, it’s a gradual process.
We have to be wise, we have to know how to endure, persevere, multi-task and above all,  let us trust God. Without Him, time and opportunity is wasted.