ORIGIN

By Toluwalope Adesina

I went to a horticultural research institute and saw various beautiful flowers and so when I was leaving, I decided to buy some flower seeds to plant in my house. On getting to my house, after telling my grandfather of my plan of planting flowers in the garden, he said: “my dear, why don’t you plant these flower seeds in different places?” I was puzzled and asked my grandfather: “why?” and he answered smiling “my dear I want to teach you an important lesson”. Although, I wasn’t satisfied I just did it to satisfy him. He instructed me to plant some in the garden, another in the dunghill and another outside the house. And I DID. He also instructed me to give each of them equal attention and I agreed to do that, but trust me, that was not the case.

Each time I woke up, I will water the seeds in the garden and forget the rest. Although, sometimes I manage to water the one outside the gate but the last at the dunghill was abandoned.

On this day, my grandfather called me and asked me “how are your flowers facing?” I answered gladly: oh, grandpa, they are doing well, will like to see them” and he answered “yes, my dear”. Enthusiastically, I helped him to his feet to check out my flowers. I hurriedly took him to the one in the garden, I was proud of what I had done and showed how beautiful my flowers were. Then he asked, “What about the others?” and I answered, “Grandpa, this is everything”. My grandfather said, “I told you to plant your flower seeds in different areas, one here, one outside and one in the dunghill”. Then it clicked I neglected the rest. Then at that moment, I became ashamed of myself and I said to him, “Grandpa, I am sorry I forgot about the rest, I also watered the one outside twice and I know they will be dead”. Grandpa said, “Follow, my dear”.

We went outside  and we saw the flower outside and we saw the flower outside had grown bigger than the one inside the garden, the only thing was that it lacked pruning, I was so surprised when I saw it, and this pushed me to ask a question “Grandpa, did you water it?”. He answered, “No dear”. He said, “I didn’t water it, the rain watered it and this soil had enough nutrients to make the plants grow”. So, I nodded in understanding.

We moved to the last one, and I said out loud, “I am sure one did not grow at all because I just threw on the dirt not on the soil and never attended to it”. We got there and saw the most magnificent flower had ever seen. I was stunned, when I saw it, I left my mouth ajar. Then Grandpa said, “This the lesson I wanted to teach you, you thought the flower was not going to grow because you didn’t pay attention to it, right?” Then he said, “Shockingly, it did, because the flower had all the nutrients it needs and the rain, so it grew in the midst of the dungs and dirt because these dirt was actually what decomposed into soil to make it very rich so that the plant could grow well”. Then he also said, “it is so for human beings, your origin does not dictate what you want to be, you dictate what you what to be by taking full advantage of what you have. , the place you come from, your parents, your social background could either mar you or make you, you just have that decision to make. 

Either you want to come looking great or you want to be mediocre. It all depends on you”.

Toluwalope Adesina is 17 years and 200 level law student (Lead City University)