Taking Success from Nothing

By Chibuihe Chinke

This world is meaningless without life. And life is never complete without a struggle, even those that don't know what it means to struggle. Someone has to fulfill this aspect for them to have a golden spoon in their mouth.

This book seeks to show what it means to be born, struggle, and excel in a less-privileged environment as a child or a growing adult. It is categorized into subheadings to enable a clearer understanding of what the author seeks to portray, and with hope that you will be able to see a connecting dot and meaningful pieces as you read it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Dec 19, 2015
• ISBN: 9781514418505

Chibuihe Chinke

Samuel Chibuihe Ikoh is a citizen of the United States of America by naturalization. He attended Wesley Seminary School owned and managed by Wesley Methodist Church, where he obtained his GED education. He later on clinched an associate degree in database management as a computer analyst. Currently, he is working as a missionary with a nondenominational group in Baltimore, Maryland, and also in mechanical skills under self-employment.

Book preview

TAKING SUCCESS FROM NOTHING

I T HAS BEEN said, a journey of one thousand miles begins with a step and a drop of water makes a full basin. Constancy in a thing brings its mastery to view. When success gains through struggle, a person of understanding takes a dive and it takes a slippery road to apply creativity in walking. Faith is always despised when its success is delayed, but a man of courage will never accept failure as bed of comfort. Experience makes you master of your own struggles and resilience. Courage and faith are the weapons by which fear is killed. A fighter never considers to quit and a quitter never stands a fight, dream fills a heart with expectations and its manifestation makes anticipation a reality. When a person fails, it puts you into a classroom of experience but when you are met with success, it equips you with teaching skills. The success of life is not determined by how much you have but how much wisdom that you apply t o it.

With my early childhood experiences, I learnt a lot more especially with the passion, dedication and support that my parents gave to me through God’s help, without it, it wouldn’t have been easy for me to become what I am today. My parents’ lives taught me that being a parent is not just about giving birth to a child. Giving birth is one thing but being qualified to have a child is another thing because of the responsibilities that go with it. I could remember when my mom used to tell my sisters that if they want to be anything in life for themselves, that they should never mess around with boys until they are ready for the prime time. This is because if a boy whom you know too well that he is no where and you fool around with such, you will end up having a baby that you aren’t prepared for, kill your career or end up in having series of abortion upon abortion which you never intended having. And do this in order to keep up with your career which may cause you not to have any baby in life as a result of damages that you incurred to yourself and your progress will be marred because you decided to enjoy life before marriage. Remember that not every girl will be successful at all because your interest in continuing your education might be interrupted by such circumstance because you weren’t prepared to assume such responsibilities mental wise and otherwise.

If you will say that you are grown, that might be true because you had a baby, but certainly will prove you wrong when the reality kicks in. By the time that you find yourself in the stress of having a baby unprepared, sleepless nights, and you desire to be out there among your peers and cannot, then you will understand that you haven’t grown as you have thought. In the worst case scenario, you abandon the baby but the mental torture that will follow you at some point in life, if you are able to realize, you will find it difficult to overcome that. If you end up in abortion table, you may end up losing your life. If that doesn’t happen, you may find yourself doing that as a life pattern which may end up denying you any kind of fruit of the womb because of the damages that such thing may create in your body. There is nothing wrong in allowing maturity to take place if possible. Having said that, bless her soul, my mother was tried up, you can see in her eyes the love of a genuine mother, as she kept on to say, you know what, by the time you are pregnant and if you are fortunate to have that baby, the next minute that you turn your eyes, only to realize that you won’t be able to keep that baby because of your young age, someone will end up adopting that baby or you may never see that child again in your life. If you are endowed with the nature of being a real mother, the regrets become perpetual simply because any fruit that you eat before it matures, you can never have a good taste out of it and then you will understand that all that glitters is not gold. And having hanged out with a young guy who like you wasn’t ready for prime time, you will disappoint yourself and also disappoint the society. After which, she turned to me and the rest of my brothers and said, boys, remember that any successful man was once like you. She asked us a question, how many kids did your had before marrying me?, and I replied, none, the same with my other brothers, and she went on to say, your dad worked hard and had many women run around him but he never brought any child to his parents house out of wedlock. And you have seen that his parents trained him up to Cambridge which we know today as university, but if he had messed up his life in the early stage with girls, he may not have had such opportunity that he had that made him to be the first man to buy a car in the entire hamlet and the first to build a block house instead of a thatched house. She asked us, do you like the progress that he made?, and we said, yes. She went on to say, then bend down and read your books and leave playing rough either with girls or anything if you want to be successful like your father was and he will be proud of you and you will be happy with yourself because of a wise approach to life. These things inspired me a lot and had given me the courage to work hard.

MY JOURNEY BEGINS

I WAS BORN in the Eastern Mechados, in Ikwuano, Abia State to late chief and Mrs Herbert E. Chinke. The seventh from nine children that Grace Orienma Chinke bore to chief Herbert Chinke. This couple struggled to raise all nine children following the fact that the civil war brought a lot of hardship, but by God’s grace, they were up to the task.

LIFE IN THE LIGHT OF EDUCATION

S TARTED MY EDUCATIONAL career at Ahuwa Community School in Ikwuano Local Government of Abia State of Mechados. My beginning was really poor. I always came last in the class, 44 th position out of 44. If my parents bought books for me, it would be half torn, if not all before the term was over, before results were announced, everybody knew who would come last in the class, that was me. This continued till primary two, I never stayed in the classroom, my parents kept on buying books and school uniform. Until when my eldest brother, Prince will came home on work leave and got a hold of my report cards, there were nothing in them than failures, he took a cane and taught me a lesson of my life. After the beating, I promised him that I would not fail a gain.

My greatest problem was absenteeism in the classroom and too much play. After the encounter with my eldest brother, I started staying in the classroom. The level of discipline being given to one will make him know how to conduct yourself next time, because you know that if you were caught in bad behavioral attitude, the last thing you don’t want to happen to you is your teacher to report you to your parents or your parents to report you to the teacher, either way, you will be taught a lesson, they will show you tough love.

After my elder brother disciplined me hard because of my poor performances in the school, then I discovered an adage which says spare the rod and spoil the child In my case, the rod was used and I sat up. No chastisement is sweet, but sometimes it does deliver from foolishness. In the third term of my primary two, or promotional examination, I took the 8th position in the class, from 44th to 8th position. My teacher, Mrs Oti couldn’t believe her eyes. I was called out in the class as if I took the 1st position with an applause. My teacher bought me a 40 leaves notebook as a way of encouragement. With that, I developed the hunger to be staying in the classroom, reading my books, and all my feelings of being hated immediately disappeared. I became serious with my studies. I learn t a lesson that any good teacher or parent won’t be happy when his/her child or student is not doing well. With this little progress, my mother killed a fowl for me in order to show her happiness. In my first term of primary three, I took the 3rd position. From this point, whenever I came back from school, I was willing to do some homework from what I studied in the school. At this juncture, I no longer like playing either in the school or at home. I now became enthusiastic in my school and learning, and in the second term in primary three, I came 2nd in the class. At this point, whenever a question was asked in the class, I was always ready to raise my hands to answer it. In the final term of my primary three, I also took the 2nd position. From there, I continued to take the 2nd position and never went back. And in the first term of primary five, I came to the 1st position all the way to primary six till I took my final examination and the common entrance examination that saw me through to the secondary school.

MY EARLY DAYS

W HEN I WAS fourteen, my mother had traveled to Lag where my father was working as a police officer, because of ill health, I alone was living in our compound in the village at Ahuwa. I had to struggle to take care of myself pending my mother’s return. I had to stay at home because I was schooling, and at the same time, to keep the compound warm and clean. Though my mother instructed me to go and stay with her friend till her return. Instead of staying in her friend’s house, I decided to stay all by myself in our own house so as to watch it. As there was no food for me to eat in the house since my mother’s absence, I took my machete and went into the bush to pick some palm kernels, I broke the shells of these kernels which could be one or two buckets by measurement, I also plucked oranges that belonged to my father, and I would give these items to my mother’s friends to sell for me and use the money to buy food for me. When the food items went down, I also took some melons known as egwusi from my mother’s kitchen,