What is the next step - Nnamdi

Let’s pretend sex between two eastern couples happened and it begot you, thereby making you the second son and the last of three children. The family is strictly catholic, and by virtue of the catholic faith your mum dedicates her protruding belly (which is you anyway) to the care of the Blessed Virgin Mary for protection and safe delivery through the supervision of a priest. In the mix, the priest proclaims the unborn foetus a future servant of the most high in the making, telling your mum not to stop you from becoming one. What a life.
As you grow older, the story is repeated over and annoyingly over again to your hearing, making you have second thoughts about life and what to expect from it. There and then you begin to ask yourself questions ranging from why you were you were christened Emmanuel on your name day, to why you weren’t christened Evan or Wayne or Brad or Jason or Jordan or some exotic foreign name, to what life has to offer you as an average Nigerian from a middle class family, to why you are v̶̶e̶r̶y̶ ̶s̶̶h̶o̶r̶t average in height and finally to what your natural gifts are and why you’ve not discovered them.
Let’s pretend that you encountered difficulty in the process of sitting for the University Tertiary Matriculation Examination or JAMB as we still know, and like every other desperate Nigerian you seek spiritual help from your church. You really want to gain admission into school so you can be on par with your girlfriend who recently entered a private school in Ghana. You make endless promises to God in exchange for being given admission, and in that desperate moment you remember the promise of your future calling to become a priest of the most high when you were still a foetus, an innocent foetus! In your haste you include the proclamation and promise to serve God as a priest if you get admission. What a life.
God does it for you and you are overcome with joy (seeing as it is a norm in our beloved country to celebrate when you get admission into the university as if you won a visa lottery to the U.S) at the sudden good news. Jamb’s brain did not touch this time around. Neither did the school of your choice. What a life.

You resume school as a fresher and things happen fast. You fall in and out of love with so many things. You smoke weed for the very first time in your young life and experience bliss. You kiss a girl and lose your virginity in your first sexual encounter. In all that hype and buzz surrounding you, you get a tattoo after falling in love with the Harry Potter bad guy- Lord Voldemort and his dark mark (Harry Potter fans would understand this.). You start cultivating a good listening ear towards music as well as art appreciation, science, movies, girls and your love for Manchester United deepens. The greatest message you start preaching is the art of open-mindedness. The ability to embrace all aspects of life without being carried away by it. You fall deeply and helplessly in love with the concept of smoking weed that you even imagine yourself owning a weed plantation. You learn the art of “Rocking” hot chicks at parties. Profanity is not left out of the equation, as the application of swear words in real life situations become fascinating to you. All these things happen during your stay in the university that you totally obliterate the idea of becoming a priest of the most high in your plans for life after school. Into your mid-20s, life holds no meaning for you. You have no future ambition of what you want to become after graduation. You constantly console yourself with your favourite line that says “let me finish school and complete NYSC first.” Still your plans do not include becoming a priest because of the following reasons:
You have this dope collection of music on your phone and laptop that you do not want to part with anytime soon.
Your favourite music artistes include Jhené Aiko, Chris Brown and Owl city, Enya, Migos, Lady Antebellum, Travis Scott, Maleek Berry, Bryson Tiller and Jon Bellion. (The list is actually longer than this.)
You have a cross with your family’s initials tattooed on your left inner arm, and it is visible to anyone who comes in close contact with you.
You plan on getting more tattoos because you are crazy about them.
You develop an avid interest in writing.

Bearing all these in mind, the promise you made to God to become a priest still weighs heavily on your conscience and you don’t even know what to do with your life from here on; no plan, no dream, no aspiration, nothing.

The question begs for further answers: what do you do? What is the next step?

Will God totally understand if I do not become a priest? Can I eventually become a priest with tattoos? Will I part company with my awesome music collection since it will be seen as worldly, and ungodly? Will I still own a weed plantation? Will I ever smoke weed again in my life? Will I attend parties and rock chicks? No sex? No head? (Giving and receiving I mean). Suggestions will be benevolently appreciated.

Still, what a life.

Written By Nnamdi

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