“Everybody has a default 50 marks in every exam. When you read, then pray, you’ll get up to 70. Do you know where God will take the 20 marks from? From people who didn’t read and were busy praying!” – Ebuka Okafor – 2008.
When I was in Primary 6, there was this National “GiftedProgramme” exam we were to write. My school was to present two candidates to enter
for the regional testing, before the state testing. Our teacher, just to be
fair, organized a Math test to pick the 2 candidates. I think she just wanted
to find who will accompany me. I was the baddest guy in the class then ;)
So we wrote the test, about 25 questions, and exchanged scripts
to mark. I had the highest score with 96% (24/25). There were about 4 other
guys who had 92% (23/25) and some kind of test was used to pick one of them to
join me. (Told you!)
Going through my test script later, I found out that there
was a mistake, I had actually failed one other question but my marker failed to
score it down. What really happened was, during the problem solving and marking
session, my answer to that question was initially picked as the correct one,
but upon better analysis, it was found to be wrong. My marker had scored it up
for me earlier, but he forgot to effect the change after the correction. I was
lucky. I would have had to join the 4 other badt guys (including the guy that
made the mistake) and they were really tough to beat. I was really lucky.
We went for the regional round, I made it through to the
state rounds (the other guy didn’t) and made it through that into the FEDACAD programme.
Maybe I wouldn’t have, had my friend not made the mistake on my script. But how
about the other 2 rounds that I scaled past? Was that also luck?
What does luck really do? In our journey towards fulfilment,
what role does luck play? Is luck something we can count on and credit success
to, is it tangible enough to build our hopes around? Is it sustainable enough
to bank your progress on?
Luck is thin. It’s a short-lived, limited resource. Luck is like
a breast handkerchief or a bowtie on a suit: unique enough to make you stand
out, but really small. If luck was all you had going for you, it’s like you’re wearing
a nice bowtie on mechanic’s overall. Luck is like salt; just a pinch can bring
out the beauty and flavour of every other ingredient in the pot. But you have
to have other ingredients in the pot. Imagine getting salt in hot water instead
of correct egusi soup because someone expected the salt alone to perform
wonders?
There are a lot of other things involved in fulfilment and achievement
than just luck. Luck is not a feature, it is an add-on. Being so limited and short-lived,
there is not enough of it to make up for so many shortcomings and not for long
enough too. Luck is too fragile to handle that much responsibility, it
collapses under pressure.
I think luck likes to associate with progress, just like
ladies. I believe that if you have every other thing in place, luck will come.
I believe that when people win at lotteries or in gambling, luck was unlucky to
be in the wrong company.
Forget luck. Stop building your expectations on something
that fragile. Life is too valuable, too important and too delicate to be left
to luck and chance.
Take responsibility, stop waiting to be lucky, be brave, be
audacious, be committed, be persistent, be awesome and you’ll find that you are
constantly flocked by luck, just like ladies.
