A tale of hard work and luck

Hard work and luck are two factors that often play a significant role in determining success. People usually argue which one of them is more important or has more impact but I believe they are both valuable, but their importance varies depending on the individual and the situation involved. What I mean by this is that some people are extremely lucky and may not necessarily need to work hard but for some others who aren't so lucky in life, the major thing they can rely on is hard work.

Hard work is something that is within our control and we can consistently apply it to achieve our goals. Many successful individuals attribute their achievements to relentless hard work and one example of that is Cristiano Ronaldo. On the other hand, luck is a more unpredictable element. It involves chance and circumstances that are often beyond our control. Sometimes, luck can provide unexpected opportunities and open doors that hard work alone may not.

But I believe that relying only on luck is a recipe for disaster because it's unpredictable and not something you can actively influence. A typical example of this can be seen in those who play sports betting. No matter how good you think you're at predicting the outcome of a match, everything is still dependent on luck and nothing you do can alter the course of a match.

Hard work tales

I have been in several situations where I ended up saying "Hard work pays" and one of them was during an examination a couple of years back. That year was the first time we took a computer science course and I never attended any lectures because I was confident that I could pass the exam without any hassle, after all, I'm a computer guru. But the thing is, I know a lot about the practical use of computers but you see the theoretical aspect? Not so much.

I got to find out I knew nothing on the day before the exam after I went through some past questions and in most of them, I couldn't even answer up to 5 questions out of 100. Luckily for me, my friend had the textbook and I borrowed it from him to read. He kept telling me that there was no way I could cover the whole book before the next day but I was determined and besides, I wanted to prove him wrong.

I started reading from 6 pm and took only an hour break later to have dinner, then continued like that until 3 am. I read for over 8 hours and at last, I was able to finish reading the over 300-page book. I kept wondering if I could remember everything I read in the exam hall but I just had to be confident. After the exam, we were allowed to go home with the question paper and I took time to cross-check all the answers I gave during the exam. I found out that out of 100 questions, I failed only 2.

This was the same exam that many people were complaining was very difficult and were praying they should at least get a C. I could have been one of the people who were complaining about the difficulty of the exam if I hadn't studied hard the previous day. Before the result even came out, I already knew I would get an A and that was eventually how it turned out.

Tales of being lucky

For those of you in Nigeria, how many of you are familiar with MTN's gift-sharing campaign during festive periods? For those of you not in Nigeria, MTN is the biggest mobile network provider in Nigeria (maybe even in Africa?) and during festive periods such as Christmas and even Valentine's Day, they embark on gift-sharing campaigns where their customers stand a chance of winning a limited number of gifts.

The first time I found out about this was back in 2021 during Christmas. They sent everyone a message that they should redeem their gift on a certain date and time from the MTN app. The available gifts were a food hamper, 1gb data, and 10 minutes of free call time. When it got to the time, I and my siblings started trying to redeem gifts on the app but millions of Nigerians were also trying at that time, so there was heavy traffic on the app and it was refusing to cooperate.

But we kept trying and after some minutes, I got the food hamper. My siblings tried and they all ended up with 1gb data, I was the only one that got the food hamper. What that food hamper contained was a 1kg semovita, 2 packs of spaghetti, a pack of Maggi seasoning cubes, a row of Maggi signature seasoning, a bottle of vegetable oil, 4 packs of indomie noodles (different flavors), a cup of golden penny spread, a row of milo chocolate beverage, and 2 bottles of Fanta. I received the food hamper after a week of redeeming it from jumia and it was just in time for the resumption of a new school semester.

Since then, I have been winning great gifts in all their gift sharing campaign including a 5000 naira shopping voucher during last year's Valentine's Day but the notable one happened this year. It was during the Valentine's Day celebration and again, MTN announced that they would be giving out gifts to their customers and this time, the available gifts were Jumia and Suregifts shopping vouchers. I took note of the time and also told my friends to get ready.

I was walking to school that day when I suddenly checked the time and it was 5 minutes past 1 (the promo was supposed to start by 1 p.m.). I quickly rushed to the app while fearing that the limited gifts must have been exhausted but I tried just once and won a 10000 naira Jumia voucher. I decided to try with my other mtn sim and it took about 3 trials but eventually, I won a 10000 naira Suregifts voucher. To tell you how extremely lucky I was, my friends kept trying right from 2 p.m. but the app just kept loading and they couldn't redeem any gift

The event was to last from 1 pm to 5 pm but around 3 pm, there was a total network blackout that lasted till a few minutes to 5. None of my friends were able to redeem any of the gifts but there I was with 2 shopping vouchers worth 20000 naira. I used the first voucher to buy a power bank as a birthday gift for someone while the other voucher was used to buy a Bluetooth speaker for myself. I'm definitely looking forward to the next gift-sharing promo which should be this coming Christmas (they didn't do any last Christmas). Let's see if I can be lucky again 😁

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