By Bernard Parah

Scourge of Discipline

“Certainly, my father and I need to have a conversation. This woman cannot be my real mother.” I was sitting outside under a wooden pole that connected power into our compound. Throwback months before this beating I climbed the fence in an attempt to reconnect our power after going to the NEPA office to argue with them about how the electricity bill they gave us isn’t correct. We had just learnt about kilowatts, electricity and energy. I recall constantly pouring kerosene at the back of the house so we can come back in 30 years time for “crude oil”

There was no way I’d let these NEPA guys fleece us. Hours of argument later, a gracious woman in their office took a paper and explained the math to me. I left them, came back home, I can’t recall how I got a wire but I was already on the fence, looking for how to reconnect until Uncle Gabriel, who often comes to spend hours with me reading, stopped me. Thinking about it now, he saved my life that day, of course I got the lashes for that and when one of the NEPA staff reported my episode with them to my mum, I got served again. Now I am back under this same pole, crying after getting rescued by Uncle Okey and Hajiya.

The good thing about face-me-I-face-you compounds is that if you cry loud enough, you annoy all the neighbors who come bashing at the door to know what is going on. The thing here is when you hear the first knock on the door, you know rescue is just a few more strokes away, so you cry louder until the neighbors hit the door hard enough to annoy whoever is beating you. As usual a small crowd forms to ask what’s happening, usually they’re more interested in the gossip of what this child has done since parents are in an unspoken competition of who has the least problematic kids. If your seemingly good kids give you a problem, other parents want to know so they can know they’re not the ones doing a bad job but that kids are just too stubborn.

When the coast was clear and I later got back inside, I found my result, lying on the table. She asked me to see what my position was. I checked. 3rd! “That’s not bad I thought, still top 3”. She looked me straight in the eyes, I still remember the directness – “you’re my son, I teach you enough not to come 3rd, you didn’t do enough”. Before I could protest, she explained how I played much more and wasn’t thorough with my work. My teacher also remarked that I was less interested in a lot of things. Well, it’s not like I agreed with her then, I still considered it wicked and harsh that I would get caned for coming 3rd, other parents rewarded their kids for coming top 10 for god sake; many years later we spoke about it and now that I’m much older I totally understand her point of view and looking back I agree she had every right to be angry at me.

What happened back then?

Even though we lived in what you’d call a proper ghetto, small gangs, open gutters, open defecation, unclean water, shared toilets [once of my legs fell into a pit latrine, no don’t think further], shared bathrooms[Uncle Okey farts every single time he goes to urinate]. Everyone knows everyone’s secret. My parents tried their best to give us the best education, my mum who was mostly a stay at home mum spent after school periods reading novels with me. I didn’t have any breathing space. She made sure I participated in every competition from church quizzes to school debates. I had to win Every. Single. One of them if not I wasn’t doing enough. She made sure I watched NTA network news. I did get the occasional opportunities to play, I’m glad she provided that balance [ I still played beyond the allotted time and got caned for it].

But over time, I started getting a lot of hate in the neighborhood and in school. If adults were having a conversation I’d chip in and sometimes you have the local champions who just lie about things because they have a better education, I’d challenge them. In church, when we’re asked to memorize a verse for next sunday, I will come back and recite the whole chapter if I had my way. People found me annoying, it meant less people wanted to play with me. But I loved playing, I loved people. I had a few friends who frankly didn’t care, I mean I would always help them with their assignments or whatever. I realized I had to tone it down in order to fit in, so I started learning their slang. I joined fights, I started some, I broke someone’s window after their kid offended me just to prove myself.

In school, instead of answering all the questions, I would either deliberately fail some or not answer at all, I didn’t take school debates seriously again. If the school was going for a competition I easily qualify for, I would do anything to not get selected. I didn’t want to be that guy, I wanted everyone around me to feel ok with me, not intimidated. Instead of sitting in front of class, I started sitting at the back! I successfully made myself average in order to fit in. I came back to moving between 1st or 2nd, from constant 90+ scores to some 80+ just to balance things. I participated in competitions and debates but I didn’t bother winning, I was ok with “if I wanted to win, I’d win, I just don’t care enough to win”.

When I got to secondary school, it was the same thing, I did enough at the beginning to show that “hey guys, I can beat you all if I wanted to, I just don’t care enough to”. I kept not caring enough to win, being among the best was enough, I felt if everyone knows I have the ability to, then that’s enough. One day I came 6th in JS3, I realized I was gone man. What happened to me?!
I decided to take a journey of getting back to academic excellence, but then a habit had already been formed. I use the first year to prove I can come out tops, then go back to my routine of focusing on other things and not being the best academically. This meant, lost scholarship opportunities, no more prizes [I remember one term in 2008 I was getting a prize for being best in computer science and dodged! I didn’t even want to collect the prizes].

Lessons Learnt

So many lessons but two standout ones I blame myself for are:
1. I stopped being academically excellent because I let the average people around me make me conform to them.
2. That lack of excellence in one area creeped into other parts of my life where I didn’t want to stand out.

As I grew older, I kept going on a journey to fulfill whatever potential I have. I realized that in order to do that, I needed to grow the spirit of excellence. I needed to be ok –
1. Being different because what is excellence if it’s not different?
2. Aiming to be the best in the world at whatever I do, that I have to actually prove with my actions that I am.

Going forward

My journey hasn’t been an easy one, I am still grappling with the academic one, I still read a lot but I’m not bothered about topping a class. I have dreams of going back to school, but I’m not sure I can be the best in class if I tried. Can I maintain being the best for 2 years? Now I have an opportunity to be excellent in something more important than academic results, I have the chance to be excellent in activities that have a profound impact on humanity. I have never been scared of challenging the prevailing order of things, I find it mentally stimulating trying to hack existing processes or challenging conventional wisdom. One thing I am glad I didn’t lose is the courage to speak against things I do not agree with, the courage to challenge conventional wisdom, the courage to challenge people whom others are afraid to disagree with. I also didn’t lose my bias for action, when I am convinced about something, I pour all of myself into it.

I am glad I didn’t lose these 2 things. As I strive for excellence in my career, I want to be involved in things 99.9% of the world is afraid of attempting, I want to be involved in endeavors that make a positive difference in the world. I realized that by sheer willpower, I can bring things I want to see to life. In 2020, when we had just a DCA product, I explained to Tumise what we could become and he said “you want to take over the space”, I thought this guy is kidding, this is just a DCA product, let me not bother myself with the potential right now. But here we are today.

2024 in Perspective

One promise I have made to myself in 2024 is not to let average people make me lower my
standards anymore. People who hate excuses, the guy who takes a problem, looks it straight in the eyes and promises to decisively deal with it. The lady who isn’t ok giving excuses, the one who wants to be the best in the world. The person who doesn’t see their current situation as a stepping stone to other jobs but an opportunity to make a difference. The person who is willing to fail spectacularly but knows that if we win, we win big.
I want a person who is confident in their abilities and when the ability is lacking, they spend sleepless nights developing that skill because no problem can defeat them. I want to be around people who care about other people, people who will stay up on a call for an hour to make sure a customer is happy. I want to work with people who want to succeed wildly, people who want to own something. People who hate being told what to do.

Like Ernest Shackleton posted an ad for men who will sail with him on the first trans-antarctic journey in 1914, there was nothing “nice” about the ad. The only possible rewards were HONOR and RECOGNITION in case of success. I am after honor, impact and recognition for doing something that positively impacts people and I want to do it with like-minded people. I want to look at the person working next to me and be inspired. I am grateful for the opportunity to attempt changing things with Bitcoin and everything we’re building, if we succeed, we are legends. If we fail – we would have laid solid foundations for whoever will eventually succeed.

One thing we can never blame ourselves for is not being excellent in every little thing we do. In this tribe excellence reigns supreme. I wish you all the best as you get stretched, I hope to see you on the other side.

NB: If it’s not clear, this just got personal.

Bernard Parah is the Chief Intern at Bitnob, he is a wizard from Jos, Nigeria that cast spells in code, and he actually practice what he preaches, and most important he is a selfless being who helps and mentors all the people around him to reach their maximum in all thier endeavours.