BIG
TEDDY LOST IT
when I went to pay a
visit to my brother, I ran into Big Teddy at Abuja after close to a decade. I was pleasantly
surprised to see him. My bus had just entered the park and I set down before
the driver could turn off the ignition. I was exasperated from the long journey
and the dilapidated road.
My visit to Abuja
had been scheduled numerous times and cancelled because I had very slim free
time to rest. Infact, I had cancelled the trip so many times that my brother
had almost given up on my visit. The last time I cancelled I could feel the
disappointment in his voice and with my mind’s eye I could see his countenance
fall and his expression lowered like a child who had been expectant of a birthday
present only to discover that the parents have forgotten the date.
“Really? I won’t see
you again tomorrow?” he had asked with disappointment in his voice.
The excitement
he had called me with made me feel a burning sensation on my chest, my mouth
dried up immediately and I had to swallow hard while carefully picking my next
line tobreak the ugly news to him. I had been so busy that I had forgotten to
call him earlier and cancel the trip. When he called that night, I was still
working. Immediately I saw his name on the caller ID I felt this heavy sense of
guilt because I had forgotten to cancel the trip earlier. I knew, with that
line of question with a disappointed undertone that he had gone to the market
and had prepared my favorite soup. I had to muster up the courage to apologize.
“something came up,
brother” I managed to say “ I will visit you as soon as I can” I could not say
more because I was laden with guilt.
When he dropped the
call, I knew he was would never expect my visit again so I decided I would pay
him a surprise visit when next I was free to travel.
Describing the
journey as a harrowingly terrible one would be an understatement. I had bought
the ticket on the eve of the day for the journey and had been told that the bus
would be leaving by 6am. I had been up as early as 4am to prepare for the
journey and had gotten to the terminal before the nick of time. But, the bus
was not filled and I had to wait till 10am before they could get all the
passengers they needed.
We had not travelled
for up to 30kilometres when the car broke down and we had to wait for close to
two hours under an excruciating heat from the sun before the car was fixed and
ready for departure. We all boarded again and most of the passengers were
throwing tantrums at the driver who did not have the gentility to swallow the
insults in quietness. While the verbal bullets where flying through the bus,
the driver was preoccupied with the skirmish that he did not observe his
dashboard to notice that the fuel gauge was in the red alert zone. It wasn’t long
before the engine turned off in the middle of nowhere and there was no petrol
station in sight.
The mechanic had
used a greater quantity of the fuel to fix the bus when it broke down and the
driver had forgotten to replace it. It took us more than an hour before he
could board a bus to the nearest petrol station and return with the precious
commodity.
By the time we were
setting off again, all the passengers were livid with anger. We were so angry
that we could not complain about the dilapidated state of the road. Just when
were about getting calmed after the heated emotional outbursts, we ran into a
traffic jam which was caused by a complete breakdown of a bridge so we had to
navigate our journey through a longer bush path than ran through the houses of
the villagers and we had to move at a snail’s pace. By the time we arrived our
destination, we were all exasperated from the tortuous journey.
The car had hardly
stopped when I set down and flagged down a cab. The driver looked at me
desperately while I described my destination. I asked him the cost of the fare
but he kept staring at me. He stared so hard I felt he didn’t understand the
language I spoke. So I decided to revert to creole and repeat the destination
in the language which I felt he would understand.
“oga, na after that
market for Area One I dey go” I started, in creole “ you sabi that fly over wey
dey after that Mega filling station? If you pass am small, you go reach the
market, enhe, then you go negotiate through that bank…”
“Uchenna!” He
screamed, cutting in.
Now, I was shocked. I
took a second look at him and behold it was my long lost friend who was now the
cab man.
“Big Teddy!” I screamed.
We hugged so tight
that passersby had to stop and take a second glance at us. Big Teddy had
changed so much; he was wrinkled and looked close to twenty years older than
his real age.
Big Teddy was my
childhood friend. He earned the name from his big size and his love for teddy
bears. We had grown up with very great plans for the future. We had big plans
for ourselves, we would sit outside during break time and talk about how we
would be big men, how we would be very wealthy and influential.
We had great
goals and plans and high ambitions for ourselves. He had wanted to be an
aeronautical engineer. After we were taught about Neil Armstrong and Buzz
Aldrin how they walked on the moon, Big Teddy had said he would build giant
spacecrafts and would explore the universe with his team.
We settled at a bar,
close to my brother’s house after I reached home to inform him that I had
arrived. And I asked him how he ended up as a taxi driver.
Many of us grow up
with very high hopes for the future. Even as undergraduates, many of my
colleagues aspired to work in the oil companies and most of them would brag
about their parents or uncles working in these big companies and how they have
been promised employment. Some would even note that the school was tying them
down as they wish they could graduate immediately to start pursuing their
careers. But the graduation day would arrive and they would go out to the
larger society and meet with reality.
The reality is that
people lie to themselves about three things;
i.
They view themselves in implausibly
positive ways.
ii.
They think they have far more control
over their lives than they actually do.
iii.
They believe the future will be
better than the evidence of the present can possibly justify.
The truth is that
whatsoever the human mind can conceive and can believe is possible can be
achieved, but the problem with most of us is that we find it difficult to focus
long enough on what we truly want, we are easily distracted by frivolities and
we find it difficult to plan on how to achieve our life goals and targets.
We only think
positive about ourselves and find it difficult to reason about our actions with
a rational mindset. We think we have all the control over our lives and can as
well control others, we believe the future is cutout to look so good for us
that we most times ignore the big roles we have to play towards achieving the
dreams we have about ourselves.
It is important to
note that while every aspiration we have ever desired can be achieved, we need
to learn about the power of focus. We must show that we are committed to our
cause. Whatever we aim to be, we must strive on daily basis to achieve it. Our plans
must be unambiguous and our goals must be predetermined and our focus must be
very sharp as to what we aim to achieve in the long run.
We must start now to
make plans for a year, two years, five years, a decade, twenty years, fifty
years and even up to a century. We must start projects that would outlive us
and must evolve ways in which our long term goals can be broken down to the
smallest actions which we must carry out on daily basis that will result in
achieving the big goals we have set out for ourselves. One can only say he is
successful if that person had a goal which was achieved.
The essence of
breaking down big goals into smaller goals is because when we achieve the
smaller goals, we are more encouraged to remain on the path that will lead to
the attainment of the larger goals.
Many people discover
to their chagrin that while they were distracted and started chasing the
shadows, a decade had passed.
Big Teddy told me
his story which I must confess is a very pathetic one, we should strive to
always stay on our path so that we would not lose our goals.
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