BUILDING RESILIENCE: THRIVING IN THE FACE OF CHALLENGES AND ADVERSITY.

Life as we know it has never been bed of roses. We are always faced with one challenge or the other and only the strongest ones survives.

This contest hosted by @goodybest, is giving us the opportunity to write on the topic- BUILDING RESILIENCE: THRIVING IN THE FACE OF CHALLENGES AND ADVERSITY.

I will be writing on it exhaustively but before I go ahead, I’ll love to invite @emmy01, @ridwant and @newekemini5 to also be a pertaker of this contest.

Let’s go to the business of the day

When I hear the word “resilience”, the words of Queen Esther in the Bible comes to my mind; when she said:

if I perish, I perish.
(Esther 4:16).

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There is one man we can all relate with, that describes this words for me:

He’s the famous scientists, Thomas Edison that failed 1000 times before he finally invented the light bulb that we use today. If this man is not the definition of “resilience”, then I don’t know what to call it. His spirit was never broken.

I can’t imagine failing a particular thing for so long and still continue and since his invention had to do with electricity, only God knows how many times he was electrocuted in the process. His case was like “if i perish, i perish”, but i will never stop until I get this. In Nigeria slogan, we’ll say “we die here”.

So, from this short example, I’ll say resilience means having that “never say never” spirit. No matter the challenge, whether favorable or not, you are willing to achieve that purpose you are set out to do. You’re not shaken by anything. The mindset of every resilient person is “me against the world”, not even the devil can stop you.

This quality is so important in our everyday lives because life as we know it is never fair to anyone. Like Thomas Edison, life will give you a thousand reasons to give up on your dreams but it takes a resilient spirit to tell yourself, if i perish, I perish but I will never give up on my dreams.

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Life will beat you to the ground and for some people, they might want to remain there because they have given up but a person that has the quality of a resilient spirit still believes he/she still has that little fighting chance to get back up. A million and one things will be going through his head at that moment to remain down but it takes courage and resilience to stay up and keep persevering till you achieve your goals.

I’ve had lots of challenging times but there is one that stood out for me and it was during my masters degree. When I did my first degree, when I was writing my project, there was nothing like “plagiarism test”. Hearing it for the first during my masters program was sounding strange in my ears.

I was done writing my project but the worse mistake I made was choosing my project topic from an old project work that was in the school system already. I didn’t want to go through the stress of doing so much research because I was working, I didn’t have that time because I was already battling on how to raise my school fees. I just wanted a topic that I had the materials available already.

Unknown to me that this shortcut I followed was my own undoing. My project supervisor had seen my work and had given it the go ahead to go for my plagiarism test. Before then, I was already hearing how people failed their plagiarism test and they had to pay sum of 15k for each test they failed. I wasn’t cut out for that stress, I gave someone to help me do it since he claimed to be perfect. When the score came out, it was higher than 15%.

(That’s the soft copy of one of my failed plagiarism test)

I had to do it myself this time around thinking it was the fault of the guy. Someone introduced me to “word spin”, I tried it out, I couldn’t believe that was my project work. The type of big grammars they used for simple terms was enough to give me headaches. I had to read my work this time and tried to change it to my own words and make references were necessary. Submitted the work and I still failed again. I scored above 15%.

The pressure this period became worse because as at then I was looking for a way to pay my school fees. so, I won’t be dropped out from school and I was hear dashing out 15,000 to school account each time I failed their crazy plagiarism test. I couldn’t afford to loose more money, I called myself to other, I started reading my work, word for word, putting everything in my own words and it was taking so much time because the defense was fast approaching. I did it till the last page, I was confident that “3rd time is a charm”, I’ll definitely get it this time.

I waited for almost 2 weeks before my result came out. Only to go there and see “not successful”. I almost cried. I had to go to the ICT office to ask them what is it that I’m doing that is making me fail. I was just frustrated. One of the staff now told me, is because the project I chose is from the school system and my project topic “ethical practices and organizational sustainability” keeps appearing so many places inside my work. So as long as it keeps reoccurring, whether as a single unit or together or I lift my work from the net, as long as the school system keeps updating it’s software every time, I’ll keep facing the challenge.

I explained to my supervisor and he said the only option I’ve is to find a fresh topic and that will require me spending more money. That wasn’t an option I wanted to take. I had suffered too much to start all over again. This time, I started adjusting my work to fit in since I know were the issue was coming from. I even had to buy a plagiarism software to be installed on my laptop, so I could be checking my score. When I did my test on my system, I scored 0%, I was now certain that I’ll past it this time around. After a week, plagiarism test came out, “not successful”.

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I was wondering how will something I passed and scored 0% on my own system, only for their own to tell me I scored above 15%, I had to beg them to show me my score and i scored 19%. I was miserable. That was the last straw. The last set of defense was coming up in a week time and I’ve not paid fees and I’m still here battling with plagiarism test.

I was finally able to raise money from family members to pay my fees. After paying the fees, fear came in. I was asking myself, what if I fail this plagiarism test again because this was my very last chance I had to defend my project with my set or else I’ll have to carry it over to defend with the set behind us. But thank God for my family, they were their for me, every step of the way. My kid sister that stays in overseas told me to do my work this time and send it to her. I did all I could do and send it to her. This time she used the plagiarism tool over there and I scored 10%.

I asked her, I hope her version is the most updated, she gave me that confidence to go ahead that i won’t fail it this time. I submitted my work and yet a day to the defense, my result wasn’t out yet. I kept disturbing my course rep to go and check what is causing the delay of our results as if my life depended on it. Throughout that day , the results didn’t come out. Trust Nigerians and prayers. That day, my family and I prayed our life because of this crazy plagiarism drama. Me, I fasted.

On the day of my defense, in the morning, my course rep just gave hints that there are still testing results of other people. That is what is causing delay. For those of us that are defending today, if we want our result to come out this morning before defense will start, we have to tip the ICT guys to run our own for us immediately. I was so afraid that I may fail this thing again. There was no single guarantee that if I tip them, I will even pass the plagiarism test. I took a leap of faith and I paid the money.

It didn’t take few hours, those of us who had to defend today along with some other names came out. My heart was beating when I went to check the list to see if i failed or passed. Lo and behold, I passed this time. My joy knew know bound.

When I told my family that I finally passed the plagiarism test, they couldn’t contain their joy. I had to go borrow someone’s suit and tie to go do my defense because I was afraid I might not make it, that’s the reason I didn’t bring my own. Defending my project was quite easy because the intense reading I had done before now all in the name of “plagiarism test”, it was just a walk in the park.

(My certificate)

• Having realistic dreams and it’s achievable.
• Having a positive mindset matters and also surrounding yourself with people that will support you positively when you’re almost giving up.
• Believing in yourself.
• Seeing challenges as a stepping stone because as long as you’re alive, you’ll always face challenges, how you embrace it determines how well you will grow in life.
• Mustering strength in difficult situations especially when you have given up.
• Reading life stories of people that succeeded against all odds

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My message for people facing one challenges or the other is that they shouldn’t give up. God has made us to understand that he will never give us a challenge too big for us to carry and as long as he’s God, He will always provide a way out.

If you think the weight of the world is upon you, trust me, you have not heard the challenge your neighbor is going through. If you know Half of what some people are going through, you will appreciate the life you are living.

Now is not the time to give up, you just need to be courageous and be resilient in that your dreams and see those challenges that you are facing as a stepping stone to your success. Keep pushing because there is light at the end of the tunnel.