This will realy Sounds strange, isn't it? To ask if you've ever felt like a fool before.
Have you ever felt so disheartening with your heart splitting into pieces or shred into fragments over a situation you can't explain how it came about? You see others do all the wrong things but have amazing results to show for it yet with all your goodness and apparels of integrity, there is no evidence to show you have the backing of providence.
In sheer dubious belligerence, people tussle to succeed and do all within their jurisdiction to make a mark and engrave their names indelibly on the tablets of history while you, in sheer sincere benevolence coupled with altruistic kindness cannot boost of any renowned success.
You invested the same time, you had the same sleepless nights, the same level of struggle, invested the very best you can but ALAS! they got evidence, a favourable outcome, but you had nothing, nothing at all. You soliloquize and lament. "Where did I get it wrong? Where did I miss the mark? Are my mates better than I ? Why couldn't I achieve more even with all my efforts, integrity and eagled- vision? Why on earth would I fail and not succeed? Why must it be me?....these and more are some rhetorical questions we often ask hoping to get rhetorical answers to sooth and calm our aching nerves of curiosity.
Everyone, even the least imagined begins to question your level of intellect ,comprehensibility and go further to demand an accountability of your life responsibilities. Oh, how pity i feel for them for measuring your destiny with that of others whom you didn't come into this world with.
In all the vicissitudes we face, we seem to forget a simple fact..."WE ALL HAVE A PARTICULAR PATH TO FOLLOW AND GET TO OUR DESTINY". The path Wale Soyinka followed was quite different from that of Achebe's and Late Prof. Dora Akunyili's. Whatever God has assigned for you has a particular path you need to follow to achieve it....the path could be wide or narrow, it could be rosy or filled with pain, it could be famous or outright shameful, it could be stricken with poverty or bound with affluence.... no one has the right to chose his / her path.
I don't have the right to choose mine, neither do you.
Don't speak ill of anyone passing through a particular challenging situation. Don't measure someone's level of success with that of their mate. The level of drilling, breaking, shrinking, mending and softening God gives one is directly proportional to the Mandate ( life purpose ) he wants one to venture into and achieve. Sometimes, He breaks every form of pride in a person and processes such individual just for him/her to acknowledge his supremacy
I still reiterate my question....."Have you ever felt like a fool before?". Especially when you know you always stand for what is right, invest your very best in pursuing a particular endeavour but the outcome totally beat below your imagination. If you haven't yet, I bless God for you. As for me, I'm feeling like one as I write this....Am like one whose healing wound is injured afresh But my solace rests on the fact that in due time, "THE END DEFINITELY WILL JUSTIFY THE MEANS"