LIKE 27

You remember those days, back in campus, when you’re in your hostel and then you just wandered in thoughts because there seems like there is no tomorrow again. Well, these were the thoughts of a campus boy who thought his world was falling apart, seeing everything in rages and despair hitting all over his mind. So he decided to pen this.

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Before I reach my 27th birth-date it would be my pleasure to be a graduate by then – maybe working somewhere as a senior employee in an organization, or maybe competing for the top most job in the company because by then; I believe a certain senior person will be preparing him/herself to retire; maybe, competing for the position in the company as the CEO, President, Vice President, or the Managing Director. I won’t be just a student struggling with books to attain a required grade point average (GPA) that would not make me repeat some modules. Maybe I will be a successful journalist if that’s the right course I have chosen for myself. I will be meeting the President of the country; interview him and the people of high profiles, write documentaries and give hand in public matters.

I will be working on activities to develop my community and beyond: taking part in community projects; maybe, as a youthful leader that will be working on projects like mobilizing youth to contribute funds to erect a primary or secondary school for those kids that their parents cannot afford to sponsor in expensive institutions in the city or major towns – teaching the local people on the importance of self-employment and not to depend on government periodic projects that doesn’t benefits everyone but few people. This will be my share of contribution in the nation-building course.

By that time, hoping I will be a graduate, go to beautiful cities of the world, tour the world, recreate as much as I can. I will be partying from city to city during my short holidays; ride in posh cars, have a beautiful house, acres of land in my village, and a promising business in the city. By then, I will be in the plan of working on writing a book with a title TALE OF MY YOUNG LIFE, and have a book shelf full with books in my house – two meters taller than me and full with books of all type.

Before that time come, God willing, I will be working for a reputable organization with creative coworkers, a very understanding boss who appreciate every hand that try to work and plays every leadership role: not a bureaucratic kind of leader, not a dictatorial boss, neither is he an autocrat who doesn’t give equality to the technocrats who are innovative and productive to the organization and ready to sacrifice their ideals for the achievement of the organizational goal.

During my annual leave, I would miss my boss, coworkers, the subordinate staffs and everyone that I have ever worked with. If I have a chance of visiting old friends during my holidays, I will drive up to their villages and have ample time to drink and eat life raw before and then bid them goodbye as I report back to work. If that is not the case, then I will book my plane, fly around the world in just one week leave, learn more about other things that would matter to me and others so that I will be an SI unit of change to my folks when we sit in our usual pork joints or during our usual drinking sprees.

Maybe at that age, I will be working on a serious relationship with a certain girl I have promised to cement my heart to; craving day at night on how am going to introduce her to my aging mother in the village and then to ask her parents for a hand in marriage. When I’m going to take her to the aisle, take vows as I tell her “yes I do,” and she also replies back and say, “yes,” she does.  This is the dream that I have wanted to initiate for years.

While these are just daydream fantasies and cannot happen even in my late 30s. Some few years from now onwards, I will hit 30 having no good papers in the field I have been dreaming to study let alone reaching 27th with such heavy dreams. I will or will not be in a position to have a big size library, unless I read and start stealing worn out covered books in the public libraries, or borrow books from the school library. I will be studying for a mastery degree in a course that will help me raise my financial status from none class person to the fourth class in the financial structure.

I won’t have time to achieve all these dreams at that age because everything is being dictate in one way or another. Life itself is at brink as it is politically punctuated by series of political activities that keeps going on every now and then.

At 30s, I will be working for a job that will only cater for a slice of bread, lives in suburb where 90% of its population feed just from hand to mouth; the entire population lives in poor housings; lack water, and of course, I don’t need to save parts of my menial job income in the bank:  all I need to do is to dig a shallow hole on the lower size of my two-by-six size mattress and keep any extra pound I get through my sweat in there – banks might not be willing to give me the chance of opening a saving account with them or keep the money in my mobile phone.

On the opposite side of the coin of my real life, I will be without a career I dreamt for, not proposing to someone’s daughter because my class will be below average, if I’m to drive a car, maybe the car belongs to the boss I will be working with.

With all this in my list of needs or wants, unattained goal of my life, how do I even need to read a birthday message on my Facebook wall that day?

Ok. This is what I’m going to do. When that day come, if I’m working in a garage, I will wake up at five o’clock before anyone in the premises, pick my stick to brush my brown teeth, take a cold bath, put on my usual overall jacket and then switch off my phone and go to work quietly without striking my door in order to avoid obstructions. Whatever it is, it’s called shattered dreams.

Happy Easter.