THE FAULTY ATM MACHINE

Few weeks ago when the banks were closed due to the lockdown occasioned by the Coronavirus pandemic, I went to an ATM gallery to withdraw some little cash. On getting there, what I saw did not only surprised me, it scared me. The number of people standing in lines to withdraw from the ATM machines was simply too numerous. Not only did people crowded the entire premises, they spilled into the adjacent street under a scorching May sun!

“Okay.” I told myself, “I am simply not going to do this. No sir, not under this blazing sun. I am so going back to my house. No be me cause Coronavirus now, so why would I be punished like this?” As I turned to start going back home, I noticed something out of place.

There were four ATM machines on the gallery, but people were only using three of them. I turned to the nearest person to me and asked her why the fourth one was not been used and she said, “It is not working.” But you know that feeling when somebody told you something and your spirit instantly rejected what the person was telling you? I felt like that immediately she had spoken. My spirit disagreed with her for no reason at all that the fourth machine was not working. So I squeezed through the crowd amidst hard stares on me, daring me silently to jump the queue. But I had no intention of jumping the queue. My aim was to withdraw from the fourth machine that was “not working’. I made it to the front of the line and went to that machine. I inserted my card and followed the prompts to withdraw money. “Whrrrrrrrrrrr…..” I heard that sound that ATM machines make when your money is on the way! I touched the machine and I felt the jerking vibration that money was coming out! Amazing! Then the message “Please take your cash.” And my cash indeed came out. Immediately this happened, there was a lot of commotion behind me as people jostled to form a new line on the “new” machine. As I left the gallery to return home, I noticed that people still stared at me. There was no way for me to know what was going on inside their minds but I could guess. Anger, envy, hatred, admiration among others.

You see, life is most often like this FAULTY ATM MACHINE. Just last week, I was chatting with a friend of mine who has just started the business of making leather shoes. When I asked him how the business was going, he said “To be truthful bro, things haven’t been easy. Going hungry and staking clothes for an ambition while your contemporaries fly around in colours.” I told him his contemporaries may be flying around in colours now while he is working in his old clothes, but then his contemporaries may not enjoy the greatness that awaits him in future.

Many times, we tend to abandon successful paths because many people are not following those paths. We do not bother to see if the crowd is wrong or right before we decide to follow them. Just last night, a sister and a small mummy of mine posted on her Whatsapp status that, “The road to success is not crowded.” No ma, it is not. If anything at all, the road to success is deserted because many people cannot endure walking on it. It is long, tiring and exhausting, so the crowd easily leave it for other roads.
But you! Yes you! You can do better to for once take your eyes off the crowd and look at the situation critically yourself. Is there sense in what the crowd is doing? Can you do anything unique but better than what the crowd is doing? Do you have a bright plan but you have not executed it because people are not doing it? Listen, nobody did Microsoft before Bill Gates. Nobody sold sugar and building cement together before Dangote. You too can start a new path today and clear it for others to follow. Yes it is good to follow the crowd sometimes when they are getting it right, but THE CROWD DOES NOT ALWAYS GET IT RIGHT.

What is that faulty ATM machine in your life that other people are abandoning because they think it is not working? Try and see if it will work for you.

BE A PATHFINDER.

Success is yours.