If I Could Do It All Over Again

Many of us get trapped in this saying, “if I could do it all over again, I would do so many things differently.” Usually, what follows has negative connotations that accompany those things we would love to change for the betterment.

Unfortunately, TIME cannot be redeemed once spent. Time is synonymous with any country’s currency and once we spend it to purchase something, we cannot get it back.

It took me over 40 years of regret to realize that what I wanted to do all over again is a blessing and a foundation being laid for my future calling in life.

I was born into a family of ten and I am the oldest of eight children. My parents were very poor, and they raised their children with extreme measures of discipline and hard work. That spirit of industry translated into every aspect of our lives. As the oldest child in my family, I felt that my parents were very hard on me as compared to other siblings in the home; and my mother always said to me along these lines: if you choose the wrong path, your siblings will walk in your footsteps. Therefore, I grew up with the mentality that I was the captain of my family’s ship and I held myself to very high standards because I had seven siblings to raise. In addition, I assumed the role of a leader in literally everything in my home. Each time that I faltered, my parents wouldn’t allow me to get away with anything.

As a teenage leader in our subsistence farming, I would not be tired working under the sun and my parents would have to interrupt my planting of crops so that I could eat. My eyes were always set on the finish line of tasks because “the night comes when no man can work” as the Holy Bible says.

As a helper with our family petty trading of any food and fruits in each season, I had the same mentality to completely sell everything that my mother put on my head to sell on the streets of Benin City, Edo State, Nigeria. I was a very good accountant and I saved all the money that was gathered from petty trading businesses. These were the monies that dad would use to pay our school fees and related expenses.

I regretted always for being so unfortunate to be born into a poor family, especially when I met children from affluent family. It was so difficult to see these rich men’s children eating the most expensive food of our time (rice) daily, while my opportunities to eat rice were only limited to special holidays such as Christmas, New Years, and Easter celebrations. Their abundance made me feel inferior and good for nothing. What an irony about our perception regarding the things of life….In the 7o’s, I wanted to eat rice so bad because we couldn’t afford it as it was regarded as the rich man’s food. Now, fast forward to four decades later, the  same rice is too high in carbohydrates and would make me gain weight. This is tears-provoking for me.

In hindsight, “If I have to do it all over again,………I want to be the oldest child in my family. That position in my home taught me never to take opportunities for granted. In addition, the “first born syndrome” taught me to become a very strong and resilient young teenager with good leadership skills….the skills that I would need 30-40 years into my future.

Growing up as a teenager, I had to work very hard to contribute to my sibling’s education. While my friends in the school of nursing utilize their stipends for their personal upkeep, mine were sent home to pay for my sibling’s school fees at the expense of my feeding and I became the sacrificial lamb of my family. It was very painful then and it didn’t make sense at all. However, the virtues in the motor that consistently drove me around were genuine love, sympathy, and compassion. These virtues were important for my future calling. I needed to have firsthand training and experience to be able to rescue those in abject poverty. That was the foundational training of being a sacrificial lamb that my family had laid for me while growing up in a family of abject poverty.

“If I could do it all over again …..” I will choose my parents all over again because they infused into me all the values to becoming a good leader who can lead an international organization. The vivid remembrance of my mother holding to my two earlobes and standing me off the ground formed and sharpened my hearing acuity to listen INTENTLY to the cries of those in need. In addition to the flip side of that moral lesson, they taught me to have SELECTIVE HEARING to incessant complaining of SUBTLE vision killers who will become parasitic in their relationship with me in my calling in life.

“If I could do it all over again …..” I want to keep looking into the eyes of my mother 24/7. All my life when I was directly under the tutelage of my mother, she communicated with me five times more with her eyes than with her mouth, especially when visitors were around us. Over the years of being raised by

my mother, I became a professional in discerning exactly the things that she was communicating in her nonverbal cues through her eyes. Now, fast forward to living in this generation of vipers, I can work easily with anyone, in any establishments, and with total strangers ….. that’s what my mother calls: “know your friends and smile at your enemies.” Through this value to decipher deeper meanings through the eyes of a loving mother, she gave me the gift of “insight and penetration.” This indispensable gift becomes very useful even during my few minutes of interacting with anyone. I treasure this special gift as a leader of a nonprofit organization because without this special gift, I couldn’t operate to my fullest potential. Thank you so much mom and I love you. “If I could do it all over again ??? You will be my poor mother and a disciplinarian; and I will be your little girl. I am so blessed to have learned your core values with all humility and you have groomed me to becoming a global leader that is very sensitive to the needs of those in abject poverty. What a great mother that you are; you are a living testimony of the adage: MOTHER IS SUPREME.