Beyond Books and Grades: Unveiling Life's Realities

This year has been quite a year for me. I graduated from the university, and, ever since, it has been a series of congratulations, parties and celebrations, ceremonies, and "the way forward" things. I feel elated to have come this far. It had been quite the journey of going to classrooms for lectures, taking examinations, and paying exorbitant fees just to get by and graduate someday. But now that I am here and seeing life from a whole different perspective, there are a couple of things that I realise now and wish I had learned earlier.

I was never a guy interested in his academics for a long time. I was nonchalant about my books, classes, and exams. I just felt I had to do what everyone else was doing and attend school. Either that or I ended up on the streets. The time came, however, when I had to contemplate myself and the imminent failure before me as I continued that road, and I made the decision to make a sharp turn in my life for the better. That's how the scholar in me was birthed. "Scholar," as some of my friends and colleagues in school saw me, because I was apparently having good grades in the university.

I struggled to cross that bridge between the two worlds of the academically concerned and the unserious, but it got easier after crossing. I then became the individual who was so focused on his academics that he never gave much thought to some other parts of life. Life was more than just studying and getting good grades, and I slowly started to realise that as I navigated through my university journey.

"Get good grades, then you'll be able to land good jobs, and you'll be just fine." That's what I have heard for a long time in my life—variations of it, at least. For whatever reason, I held on to that subconsciously, and then I hoped that it would be true and I wouldn't have to "hustle" to be fine. I couldn't have been any wronger.

In the many years I spent at the university, opportunities presented themselves for me to exploit. There are countless skills in which I could have invested time, effort, and money that would be yielding massive benefits for me right now, not just in monetary terms but also in terms of creating more opportunities and building things that matter.

Guess what has been trending for almost a year now? Artificial Intelligence. Care to guess where I would be and what I'd be doing by now if I had taken the programming courses I left many years ago? Well, I'd be making projects that are ground-breaking by now, that's for sure.

I did very well for myself in the end, graduating from the university with good grades, but I could have done better if I had heeded the advice I had been given a couple of times back then.

Am I now living with regrets and unable to find the path forward? Absolutely not! This is only an acknowledgement that there are way more dynamics to life than what meets the eye in the university and academics. Moreso, I am only a young chap, and I have a whole life ahead of me. I am weaving the tapestry of my life in alignment with the will of my maker, thread by thread, regardless of what may seem "missed."

Also, I do not imply in any way that "academics is a scam." In my books, academics are a gift, but they are not the only gift out there—and that is what I wish I had learned earlier in life. Meanwhile, however, the mantra is to "Forge ahead!"