Nothing robs a person like an unnecessary air of superiority. It robs you of pretty much everything.

17 years ago, I and a few classmates attended extra classes after school. We were all in the same class; SS2. We had another boy join us, Evare Odu Tom, he was a class our junior. Insanely brilliant dude.

One day, I was struggling with a Maths problem; Polynomials. I went to our tutor, Mr Chima Friday Okata and asked for help. He pointed me to the young chap and asked I go meet him to help me with the problem.

I was upset. Why will he send me to my junior? Mind you, I was a few months older than the boy. Chima flatly refused he wouldn’t help solve the problem.

I went home, upset, struggled some more with the problem and I returned to him, the problem still unsolved. He reminded me to go back to the boy, at this point, I was pretty tired. I had spent 1 full week on one Maths problem. This wasn’t me, I wasn’t necessarily a Maths genius, but I have never spent one whole week on a problem.

I swallowed my pride and went to the young man, he spent a grand total of 3 minutes, 5 minutes max on the problem. The same problem that kept me for over a week. I went back and thanked Chima, he sat me down and told me a story about humility and knowledge. Don’t blame me, I was 14.

The following year, WAEC repeated the exact same Polynomial question word-for-word. I smiled when I saw the question. Evare’s solution saved the day. I made a C4 in that Mathematics exams.

I have seen my tech colleagues exhibit this same attitude, people who parade themselves as a senior engineer and not willing to listen to those they consider their “junior.” In doing so, they rob themselves of the opportunity to learn.

Age or length of time has no correlation with knowledge, humble yourself and learn.

Selah.

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