THE CHILD IN US ALL

It came as rude shock to the world of Football, one could even dare say the Sporting world on 10th October, 2019, when the retired 37 year old legendary Czech Goalkeeper and Technical and performance advisor for Chelsea Football Club, Petr Cech announced that he had joined Guildford Phoenix, an Ice hockey team, as their goaltender for yet another professional playing career. Many were perplexed about this man’s seemingly “unexpected” decision to foray into another sport totally dissimilar from which he was popular at his age. 

What was going on in this man’s head? 

Nobody had a clue. 

But the man himself was unabashed. And after about 24hours of making the decision, he showed the world a sneak peek into his deep mind through his tweets, making all to understand that it has always been his childhood dream to play as an ice-hockey player professionally, but he had to stick with football till this moment. He continued that since he had gotten the best out of football as a career, he feels it is time to fulfil his long awaiting childhood dream. This may look like a fairy tale to many of us, because not many are so fortunate to have been able to pull that off. But some were able and did; a matter meant for intelligent plodders. 

That Cech’s decision reminded me of Oprah Winfrey’s words on stones, “Do what you have to do until you can do what you want to do.” Now that the man has secured his financial future, he can follow his childhood passion unafraid of what tomorrow might bring. And for me as a person, that is the kind of life I am planning to have too.

 

Over the years, I have come to understand that we all have childhood dreams that allure us to turn them into our main careers. But I have also realized that in these climes, not every passion can be followed to make wealth. So what do we do as we have found ourselves in this position? What do we do to secure our own financial future first just to be able to later come back to our passions that had always beckoned on us? I believe the best option for us in these things is to focus on what we have at hand which is sustainable; getting other works to do, learning new skills, developing ourselves, and understanding how to build slowly. Then later, we will definitely return to the dreams fully. 

After my NYSC, I started an aviary in my father’s compound. My sojourn in Bacita Village, a north eastern Nupe community in Kwara State, Nigeria made me fell in love with Agriculture yet again! After leaving the mandatory one year National service, I wanted to make rearing of birds my career; chickens, turkeys, guinea fowls, geese, et al. I really loved watching them at sunsets roam then in the compound...so beautiful. But my wise big brothers saw a young man drifting away from living to his full potential into following childhood “passions”. 

One of them called, spoke with me and asked me to get a secular job first; to learn how businesses are being run. 

You didn’t go to a Federal University of Technology to get an Engineering degree for this Dapo, you can do more!" he said. 

And I grudgingly listened and left all. I sold all my fine grown turkeys, guinea fowls and declared bankruptcy in the first farm I had started. I picked up my Engineering certificate, started hunting for jobs. And for straight one year, I got nothing! 

After exactly a year and some months, I finally got an unpaid job as a freelancer with a Real Estate Firm for 6 months. During those period, I worked as an Assistant Branch Facility Manager of one of the Real Estate's Firm’s properties on Lagos Islands, and also actively participated in renting and selling of Real Estates worth millions! I saw lots of Naira exchange hands from Clients to the Firm and the Landlords, with zero of it accruing to me as bonus for being part of the negotiating team. But I was there to learn, not to earn. Though it was a psychologically hard period for me, it was necessary for my mental progress and toughness, “I had to do what I had to do to be able to do what I want to do.” 

Now, I currently work as a Sales Support Engineer in a Nigerian-German Company that is barely 10 years old but really growing. And as Soren Kierkegaard has said that, “Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.” I now really understood my big brother’s advice in hindsight, as I am seeing and learning firsthand how deals are made, how business relationships are developed, product framing, solution finding, networking, tracking of the enterprise’s progress and all. 

But what about my childhood Agricultural dream of owning a farm and all? You may be wondering. I can tell you it is still there, alive! And by the time I have secured my financial future and have obtained enough know-how on running those businesses which my childhood dreams encompasses on a big scale, I will definitely be back to them. I’ll do it at the appointed time. But for now, I am doing what I have to do to be able to do what I want to do. For that is the rule of thumb of life for the majority of us. 

However, it is important for us to note that some people were so fortunate that they followed their childhood dreams since their cradle without going to do other works or learning other skills, and have achieved wealth with it. They walk among us. It is very possible; for there are many ways to hacking this thing called Life. But for those of us working in other fields and not what we loved as to do as kids, if possible, we should try as much as possible to engage in what we love in our spare time. 

Don’t let that child in you die just because you are chasing money in other things too much. Your own childhood dream just like Cech may be painting, fishing, writing, singing, traveling, graphic design, cycling, carpentry, could be anything else! You can as well try as much as possible to keep them alive by doing them whenever you have the spare time.
There is a child in us all waiting to be released. There is a child inside the dreamer, reaching for the skies. Some of us will be wise to let the child come alive, and some won’t allow the child to escape from the rubble of cares of life under which they buried the dream. The child in you calls today, and the choice is yours to heed, my friend.