Omo… I know for a fact that the school I went to had a huge role to play in the way I turned out and the people that I got to meet. And if things had gone differently, is seriously have no idea where I would be today. I’d probably be better off or worse off, I don’t know.
But no matter how I look at it, FPNO played a huge role in turning me into the hustler that I am, it also helped shape my mindset a lot, turning me into this go-getter. And now, it has helped me to be able to mark opportunities and see them for what it is, so I can make decisions that will help improve my standard of living. That’s how it’s been for me.
Right from my first year in school, I realized pretty quickly that if I wanted to enjoy my time there, I needed money! Like, being a student was expensive as hell! Books were expensive, and handouts cost an arm and a leg. We paid for the practicals and the tools we used to conduct said practicals. It was crazy! But did that stop there? Hell no! We also paid bills in our hostels. Bills for power, water, and sanitation… these are bills that, if not paid, will make your school life really miserable.
And then, what about food? Food was so expensive, it felt like a war just to eat. I had to be really smart and strategic on how I ate, because any careless spending would go on to affect me later on. I was getting monthly allowances from my parents, but that was only going so far. I had so many bills to pay, and I was always doing plus and minus, trying to adjust the scale of preference to decide what needed to be cleared first.
And that’s the reason I found the need early on to start earning! Thankfully, I surrounded myself with like-minded people who were also interested in making money the clean way. We could have chosen to go the fraudulent path, but we chose not to. We simply chose to do what we knew best, and for me, that was my writing skills. I was still in ND1 when I first learned about Hive, but I didn’t take it seriously then.
During my ND2, I started ghostwriting for clients, and although I got mostly stupid jobs that gave stupid pay at the time, it was really handy, and that period taught me a lot about myself and helped me to grow as a writer. During that period, desperation moved me to write a lot of things I would never even write for myself. But then, it paid the bills, so…
Later that year, I joined the Hive blockchain, courtesy of one of my close friends and coursemates. And thus began my journey. Five years (-ish) later, I’m still writing, and I’m still active on the blockchain. So, if I had gone to a different school, would I still be here? I really don’t know about that. I would not have met the coursemate who introduced Hive to me, and those early days in Inkwell that helped me hone my flash fiction skills would never have come to changed my life. Who knows, maybe even if I did find my way to the blockchain, I wouldn’t have stayed this long.
But then, there are just so many possibilities. Things could have ended so much better for me in a different school, but they could also have been worse. There’s no way to know for sure. And honestly, I’m not really bothered about that. I’m happy with how things turned out, and I’m not looking to change anything. I know for sure that FPNO helped shape me into the man I am today, and the experiences I got there are what keep me going every day.
So yeah, there’s still a lot to look forward to. I know for a fact that everything I’m destined for will always come to me, no matter what. So, I’m not scared that I didn’t go to the right school or meet the right people. I move with faith, and I know for a fact that eventually, all the boxes will fall neatly into their place.
I’ll settle for nothing less.
