Experience Has Taught Me As Well...

_{Ingo Joseph}

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When it comes to experience, it can be a tricky business. This is because it could go either way, based on circumstances it could be good or it could be bad. But then, I believe we all can agree that experience will always be the best teacher. Because if by the time experience is done teaching you, you still find yourself doing the same thing, then the solution to your problem is beyond your reach.

You might think this is funny, but it really happens. People make mistakes over and over again, getting the same consequences and you would wonder if they never learned from the first one they did. Or are these people just addicted to suffering? But then, we can never truly know what is in the mind of a person.

So now, textbooks or experience? When I thought about this question I realized that in this country of ours, we would probably fare better if school and life were reversed. Like if instead of using textbooks in school we relied more heavily on experience, and then in real life, instead of learning from experience, we learn from textbooks. A lot of things will be so easy.

In my school presently, I would really do with some experience. My school management got the bright idea to disconnect the entire school from power holders, so for more than a year, there has not been electricity in my school. Now, you would assume that we had generators to replace but you’re wrong. While there are generators, the management refused to fuel them. So, there is no light in my school as we speak. But for some reason, they are building a new campus in Egbema. Talk about priorities.

_Pixabay

Why am I bringing this up? Because imagine an Electrical Engineering student like me, learning without power. We have to run practicals without any electricity, using a whiteboard and markers. How are we going to learn? Courses like these are good for experiences, you have to be in the moment, see it happen, and get the results. Reading from textbooks can only get you so far. But when you experience it, it will be easy for you to do it again and again on your own.

And on the flip side, I wish we all were smart enough to read about the dangers of a lot of things we do that actually harm us. As in, I don’t want to experience being poor and wretched before I learn the value of managing my money properly. I don’t want to experience the pain of an accident before knowing that I should always drive within the speed limit and never drink while at the wheel. And I sure as hell do not want to experience imprisonment before knowing the value of staying on the right side of the law.

There are times when experiences will come in handy and there are times when it is going to take a lot from you. And if we are not careful, the experience will take more than we have to give. And this is not something you can say no to.

One good experience I had was back when I was the Director of Socials for the C.Y.O.N. in my home parish, this was before I got admission. I think I’ve told this story before. I was charged with directing the Passion Play for the Good Friday of that year, this was going to be my first foray into the world of directing and I didn’t know jack. But it was my office and there were not many people willing to take up the directing. So, I had to step up.

_{Cottonbro Studio}

From organizing the actors to holding regular rehearsals, it was a massive success. As a matter of fact, members of my parish confessed that it was one of the best depictions they had ever seen. That was the experience that made me believe I could have some hope in directing, although this is something I’ve not pursued just yet. But then, this caused me to try my hand at scriptwriting, and I’ve been doing that quite well for a while now.

I try my possible best to live a life without regret, so it is rare for me to have a situation where I wish something never happened. Because I believe it is our experiences that make us who we are. Although one particular experience that was not all that good was when I was in secondary school.

It was my final year and one of those Saturdays I would tell my Mom I was going to lesson but instead, I was going to a wedding to be an usher and get money to be a “big boy”. After the wedding that day, the woman in charge told my friend and me that lived in the same area to help her take a cooler to a house. She gave us transport money, but greedy idiots like us felt we could trek.

This was in the evening, we trekked and trekked, and by the time we got to the house, it was already night. We dropped off the cooler and immediately began our return home. We had not learned anything apparently, instead, we decided to try out a shortcut. Notice I said "try out", because neither my friend nor I had ever tried that route before. It was already late, and we needed to get home as soon as possible.

_{Алексей Гвоздев}

I don’t even know the turn that we took and I immediately felt the tension in the air. As we went deeper into this street, it was as if we were the only ones in the world. We began to hurry past when we saw soldiers and their camouflage vehicles parked at the side of the road. That was when we turned and immediately returned to the route we knew. I learned later from my friend that the area had a pipeline underground that was always getting vandalized by thugs. Also, cultists were troubling the people of that neighborhood. It was basically a hotbed of violence, and two unsuspecting boys were walking majestically as if nothing happened.

That event shook me and stayed on my mind for a long time. I got home really late and had to cook up some story for why my lesson held me up till 8:30 PM. But thankfully, when you’re in SS3, you have a get-out-of-jail-free card which is the lesson.

I learned a big lesson that day. Never take unfamiliar shortcuts at night, and if my gut does not agree with my surroundings, then it is a sign that I must get the hell out of there. Nothing happened to us, but that memory lived in my head for a long time. What if we ran into cultists or vandals? What if the soldiers mistook us for threats?

But then, that experience helped with building my street smarts and I guess it is not all bad like that. But if I had the chance to do it all over again, I wouldn’t agree to trek that night at all.

_Athena

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_{Thank you for reading. Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section below, I would love to know what you’re thinking. Till we meet in the next post.}

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_{This post is inspired by the second topic of this week which is Experience Or Textbooks. Feel free to take part.}

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