Our Choices

The world is full of all types of people. There are those that will nourish us and pull us together even when all life around us has ceased being. There are those who will put us down especially when we run to them. They have the knowledge that we are vulnerable and so will have a very opportune moment to destroy us. Life can be that terrible and we end up never realizing that we are not better but have sold ourselves and our lives away at a very cheap price.


Deciding is about being ready to stand for what we believe is right. I made a decision years ago to be a teacher. It was a very wrong decision in the eyes of all that looked to me as a lawyer. Many believed I would make a very good one especially because of my grades at school. As a young child, I used to teach little kids (talk of grooming the self to what we want to be). It is very interesting that then I thought it was as simple as getting pieces of chalk abd writing on the board. It is amazing when I recall my mother asking me what the little child I was wanted to be and I replied in affirmation what she probably feared most - a teacher. She laughed was her immediate response. Now, I look back and see that child determined to be what I have become more than 15 years later. That is what I call determination and sticking to a dream.


Life's choices have had a lot to offer me. My family was never pleased with my decision to be a teacher. My grades at high school warranted that I become a lawyer. One of my guardians believed if I did not take law at University, I should at least be a journalist and so take on Mass Communication. The argument all these people had was that teachers are not well paid and that I would die in utter poverty. They believed I had taken the path of poverty and that nothing could get me out of it whether I liked it or not. At university, most friends who knoew about my grades thought I was mad to stick to Education which was not worth the bother. I hung in there and moved the ladders of good grades at University. I do not brag about this because I know only God was able to bring me where I am.


I look back at all those years and think: What was I really up to? It amazes me to think that my stubbornness will keep me in the classroom for as long as I live. It is a reminder of the many years I cherished the dream to be a teacher. It has taught me patience to realize I must be responsible for my decisions. I have learnt that I cannot be swayed by the ideas of others or even the money issue when I have to choose a career. It has taught me to sit back and evaluate the years that have gone by and what I intend to do with them.


My decision to move to the School of Education has come with its challenges. I have always preferred to look at the good side of it. Opportunities that would never have opened up have opened up for me. I have the chance to further my education and feel the power of being a teacher. Maybe it was God guiding me at the time I held on to my dream. Maybe it was just the stubbornness of the teenager in me. I may never understand this but I know my decision opened doors that I never knew would exist in my life. I have a newer meaning of what my job meand tp me. I have a better perception of the people I deal with. Most of all I now look back and appreciate my teachers for what they were to me. After all, is it not said this is a noble profession. My Administration lecturer used to say Our faults are in society and so I have to minimise on this and see a dream of better society and better learned people out there.


Talk of a dream and live it. That is what makes each decision count. Never lose track of where you are going but hang in there. You'll be amazed at what life has for you.