Just in case I don't make it

I used to believe that if I wished upon a shooting star that everything I wished upon would come true. That all I need to do was close my eyes and make a wish, “I wish I wish with all my heart that I can pass all my grades and not fail one single grade”. I believed that these wishes would come true and when I passed grade 12 without having failed a grade, I believed I was invincible, as my wish had come true. It is these exact stars that I used to look at when I was grade 3 and my mum told me that if you count the stars at night you would pee in bed. I held on to this myth for the better part of my child hood, and when I walked with my mother at night, hand in hand I made sure that when I looked at the stars the number 1 2 3, were forbidden and I would not pee in bed. What is amazing is that these stars I had come to believe in at age 14, were the very things that were my worst nightmare at age 7. This is how life works, sometimes the greatest fears we have can become our very own wishing star. The areas we dare not go, dare not look, could very well hold our greatest potential.

Good Evening ladies and gentlemen, my name is Mavis Elias a third final year civil engineering student, part time radio personality at energy 100fm, engineer in training at Denchi Consulting engineers, founder of Love is Charity, Co-Founder of Ehaveco Events Management and last but most certainly not least, the greatest dreamer you will ever encounter. It gives me great pleasure to greet my First Lady Madam Geingos, Honorable guests and last but most certainly not least ladies and gentlemen.

I used to believe that playing small was the only way to ensure that I didn’t get hurt trying to reach my goals. I believed in playing small, because it ensured that just in case I do not make it, I did not give it my very best anyway. The thought of giving everything I have only to then fail, was terrifying. Because if I didn’t give everything of myself, it ensured that I was not a failure and I could walk away knowing that ‘I could have tried harder”. So in the year 2011, I walked into the gates of the Polytechnic of Namibia, with 50 points attained in grade 12 feeling smarter than Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton and Angela Merkel put in a pod. I thought that after the way I passed grade 12, no one and nothing could stop the greatness that I am. See, this is when life gives you a kick in the stomach, to get you back to your level and a punch in the face to have you fall to the ground and eat dust. I was to be studying civil engineering and I thought I had arrived, I mean what could go wrong at this point in time. Well, nothing much except this is engineering and you fail math when you get too cocky. So, I failed math in my first semester at school. Imagine the disappointment. Only, I knew that I had not given it everything I had so I was okay. But I had given it 95% of everything I had, yet I still failed. This begged the question, am I able to do engineering? What if I am too feminine? What if I just was not smart enough to pass the modules? I had a dozen questions every day I went to school. I recall that things got so bad in my first term at school that I studied every nights at the school library till 11 in the evening and when I got home, no one at home even tried say a word to me, not hallo and not good night, for so stressed was I. I was always sulking and knee deep in my school books. My parents looked at me with pity, I grew circles under my eyes, and still I did not pass math. One day a friend of mine who saw how much school was draining me, and asked, “Mavis, are you sure you are cut out to do engineering? Maybe you should do what you are good at and change to communications.” I walked around for weeks, pondering that perhaps indeed I was not smart enough. After all engineering is a male dominated field, with the countries smartest who make it. I felt inadequate, and the truth is I wondered whether my friend was right. What if my best was not good enough?

This is the question that many of us face when deciding which path to walk in our lives. What happens when your dreams are too far too reach and require more then you have?

The answer to that lies in each and every one of us. I cannot tell you anything you do not already know, because the truth is that we are all cut out to do exactly as we are destined to do. "You are perfectly created to see out all that you may put your mind to." I failed math, but I didn’t quit. Only one thing changed, my attitude. I realized that for so long, I used to give 80% of myself in my work, I would study, but not with all I had just in case I failed. I would write exams, but not with all I had just in case I failed. Just in case I failed became my worst enemy. "It started to paralyze my potential."

The first time I fully understood this was at a time that had nothing to do with engineering. I woke up one morning and decided that I was not going to say that I want an orphanage one day. I have a passion for charity and my entire life I work as hard as I do to ensure that I am one day wealthy enough to afford an orphanage. Then it occurred to me that how can I one day at say age 35 say I want and orphanage when I have no background in doing charity work. Is single handedly raised money for over 120 children and organized a fun day for 2 months. I for the first time gave everything I had to something and it was a tremendous success. After that I went to an interview to do the Namibian annual music awards, at age 21. I was way too young, and didn’t have nearly enough experience to qualify for them. The presenters were required to be 26, have experience and be skilled. I actually did not stand a chance against the people who have been in the industry for years. But I prayed before I entered the audition room and told God that however this goes, I will give it everything I have. I did, and I got the part. It near some looked impossible, and between school and the jobs I do and the constant rehearsals, it almost looked as though I was not going to make it. Such that I was writing two exams every day the week before the NAMAS. I worked tirelessly and NBC was so accommodating, I was supposed to travel to Swakop the Monday to start preparing but my lecturer changed the exam date to Wednesday. I hadn’t been on a stage since the audition and the directors were becoming edgy and wanted to replace me, but when God has placed a destiny in your life, no circumstance and no situation can take it away from you. No one. So I traveled the Wednesday and was scheduled to rehearse at 11 but I was 4 hours late. Later that night after not having rehearsed, my partners told me we are to go home and that we are not rehearsing that night. As I get to the hotel, I get a phone call and they ask “why did you leave? Do you want us to replace you Mavis?’ I was constantly being told that I am replaceable. But I knew my destiny, and so I hosted.

:Whenever the odds are against you and you feel inadequate and fearful, it is in those times that you are to push harder, to push against the odds." The men who built the world we know today had to dig deep. We speak of men like John D. Rockefeller, a man who looked at the lack of light and wondered how he could provide light at night and invented the use of lamp oil. Men like Thomas Edison who figured out how to generate electricity and invented the light bulb. Men like Cornelius Vanderbilt who built the first railways connecting the whole of America. Men like Martin Luther King who saw that the black man ought to have the right to vote. Women like Princess Diana who had a heart for charity. Women like Margaret Thatcher who showed that a women can lead and take stance. Women Angela Merkel who lead on of the world’s most powerful nations. Whatever you art is, wherever your talent may lie, you need to find your niche. What sets you apart, is it your thinking? Your passion? Your drive? Whatever it is that pushes you beyond the limits of your imagination. It’s said that the greatest people to grace this earth are those that look at life with a different perspective. Many of us have so many brilliant ideas that we put in the back pocket. We place them there because we believe a time will come when we can become great? When is that time when the time for you to be the greatest you is now? Why do we limit ourselves when there are so many resources at our disposal.

The saddest thing I have seen to date is how our youth waste away their potential. You read the papers and see that more than 50% of our children are failing grade 12? When we are supposed to be teaching them that they can be whatever they want, that a degree is but a stepping stone. That you can go on to do your masters. Get a PHD, become a professor. Why do we not mold scientists, inventors? Why do we program our kids to become wife’s and husbands and have a house and car? When life has so much to offer. Yes We cannot all be the Sam Nujoma’s of our generation, or the Monica Geingos or the Harold Harold Pukewitz of our generation. But can you imagine the revolution that would take place if our people would see out their destiny. If you are meant to be a great teacher, teach with great ambition and become the greatest teacher this generation has ever seen. If you are called to be a boiler maker, become the greatest boiler maker that this generation has ever seen. If you are called to be a house wife, become the greatest mom and wife that this generation has ever seen. Not everyone is called to be at the fore front but each and every one of us has been called to be someone? "Find your purpose and work on it, perfect it." But whatever you do, do not give half of yourself, you waste away great potential, and you waste away and asset to our community and you waste away what you and I both know you can be, a great you. A 100% of you.