KUTOKA KWA WENYE HEKIMA

Undefeatable Determination-BY UJU ONYECHERE It was Napoleon Hill who said, “In every negative event is the seed of an equal or greater benefit.” Perhaps as a solace to the unique heartbreak a boy experiences at the loss of his mother, he delighted in the long solitary walks, collecting shells to add to his collections of seals, stamps and coins. By the age of eight, the year that his mother died, his taste for natural history and for collecting specimens was already well developed. Charles Darwin, father of The Theory of Evolution, gave up a medical degree after two years in 1827 and was told by his father, “You care for nothing but shooting, dogs and rats catching and you will be a disgrace to yourself and all your family.” In his autobiography, Darwin wrote, “I was considered by all my masters and by my father, a very ordinary boy, rather below the common standard in intellect.” Darwin’s grandfather and father were both doctors, and the plan was for Charles to follow in their footsteps at Edinburgh University. But Darwin was not attracted to the way medicine was taught. He found lectures “intolerably dull”. Rejections from his father and teachers could not stop him from pursuing his dream, and eventually becoming known and successful. Darwin who popularized the phrases “struggle for existence” and, most notably, “survival of the fittest” became the world’s leading biologist through his observations made on a voyage while still in his twenties. In 1859 he gave the first convincing explanation of the mechanism by which different species evolve in The Origin of Species. His publication The Decent of Man in 1871 forced other thinkers to confront the problem of human evolution. In February 1872, he authored the first book ever with photography The Expression of Emotion in man and Animals. It was written to demonstrate graphically that animals and humans share certain facial expressions that indicate emotional states. It was a seminal work in the introduction of the concept of body language. Dear reader, was Charles Darwin a disgrace to himself and his family? I leave you to answer that question. It is important to seek the opinion of others, but that must not be the standard. You must first discover and then believe in yourself. What you choose to do may not matter, but what you make of it is important. It’s not how you start, but how you finish. Let your work speak for you. To our success!