Brian just performed his fifth surgery of the day. He called it a day and took me to an eatery close by. We got talking. "I came from a polygamous family. My mother was the last of three wives. My late father asked for her hand in marriage immediately before the civil war. He was a good man and stories claimed that he treated all women fairly. The downside though is that 'fairly' does not always translate to 'equally'. In this regard, that fairness became inconsequential because he did not treat the women equally. The natural instinct to compete for attention and for assets would put my mother and my stepmothers at war- it was a cold one at the beginning. But as the children grew up into adults, and began to take sides, it birthed the declaration of a domestic civil war where combatants were charged to shoot at sight."

He would go on while sipping a glass of juice with some ice cubes. "The situation got me disoriented. Because I saw first hand, all the fights and scheming; home was like a war zone. The three wives made 27 children for my father. Unfortunately, he didn't live long to have a full dose of the house of commotion he created. Farming was our traditional profession. It became the financial barometer through which every man in the community was measured. You can see why the fight for my late father's farmlands became intense and blinded us. We all sat back to fight for our stake. Nothing else, not even education, was considered as an alternative. It was so until providence opened my eyes to the reality on ground. I sustained an injury in one particular fight. I received a heavy blow on the head that paralyzed one side of the brain. I could move my hands and legs but I couldn't coordinate them for anything meaningful like walking, running, holding, etc"

Brian beckoned on the waiter. He then continued, "I was taken to a local hospital where the doctor told my mother that I might never walk again. The constant wailing from my mother pressured the doctor into referring me to a specialist hospital in the city. That was my first visit to the city. I spent two years in the city putting up with a family friend. I later got my legs and hands back to form but the experience was an eye-opener. It unveiled my eyes to better opportunities in life. I realized that I had been in the village fighting a meaningless war- an unnecessary war that had no purpose nor substance. I refused to return to the village where I realized had no future in store for me."

He concluded, "I became fascinated by the doctors in the hospital where I was treated. I had several dreams in the night where I was one, looking after the sick. It would take me several sleepless nights and several years of hard work to become a medical doctor. I graduated as a surgeon and later owned a hospital. My elder brothers ended up in the village fighting for land. They spent their youthful age tilling the soil. My experience showed that a lot of people waste away because they never had a good perspective to help them build a better future. Serendipity exposed me to one and I took it with both hands."

REFLECTION
If it doesn't kill you, life will present you with a life-changing opportunity. The thing with adversity is that it will always show up with a weakness. That weakness, once identified can become that strength that we need to move to the next level of life. Perspective is one of the greatest gifts someone can present us with. But the issue is that we could become so much engrossed with irrelevant things that don't really matter in life that we fail to harness the inherent or the intrinsic value in what is presented to us.

There is nothing that you are going through now that life has never thrown at people. The fact that some persons conquered whatever it is, underlines the fact that if you persevere and look deeper, your pathway to freedom might just be two decisions away.

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