Mary was born with a silver spoon. From infancy she had it all because her parents were wealthy so life was seemingly a bed of roses for her. She had the best of everything life could give as far as money was concerned. As a toddler her parents would take her on different vacations to different countries. As they were on a mission to see the world.
Getting to school age, Mary attended the best school in the area she lived. Her parents were influential and she mingled with people in her social class both in school and other areas of her life. Mary cared less about people who didn't have enough as she hardly came in contact with them.
With all that she had access to, Mary was not self motivated. She did care about her success in school and her school work suffered. Her self absorbed lifestyle did not even make her realize that something was amiss in her life. As she grew older she lacked purpose and direction as her parents never did care to inculcate life skills and values in her. They only threw money at whatever problems occured even with Mary.
As years went by Mary grew to be lackadaisical without any proper ambition or drive for growth. She had a friend Carol who despite being from an affluent background herself was focused, driven and put in the work in her school tasks.
As the terms passed, Carol encouraged Mary to take classes seriously and so she could get better grades, but Mary was too caught up in her vain lifestyle and mean girl cliques that she put in little or no time for academic tasks. She managed to finish high school and proceeded to the University to further her education with the help of her parents. Though she struggled with her grades, she finally graduated and left school.
A life changing turn of events occured which left Mary in a very critical state for months. She lost her parents in a fatal accident. This left her downtrodden for months as she depended on them greatly for almost all sustenance.
Mary had to look for ways to cater for herself. She went to the family company to assume her father's role, but she had no skills or abilities as she had never taken anything serious in her life. She had always been complacent even when her father tried to incorporate her into the family business, she never cared for such things. Her life in the University and afterwards was all about partying, wearing pretty clothes, buying gadgets to make her feel good and belong to her chosen class. She never learned anything about productivity, self accomplishments and discipline.
No one respected or had any regard for her in her father's company as they knew she would not be able to manage it. She was too arrogant and self absorbed to ask for help. All advice given by her father's associates on how to manage the company fell on deaf ears and she spent company funds at will. Shareholders in the company decided to buy out and leave her father's share with her. Of course she mismanaged it all and fired staff at will. This rocked the company a great deal till it's collapse. Mary was at a loss at what to do next.
She finally decided to get a job. Since she had no prior experience, she had to work as a preschool assistant in a nearby school. Mary had still not learned her lesson, her laziness continued as she would always sit and watch others work and wouldn't want to lift a finger except when supervised.
I happened to get a job after a few months of her working at the same school where Mary worked as an assistant. The duties of the assistants were mainly to assist children during classes with their writing materials, food, water and toilet needs. They also needed to check children's work alongside the teacher to ensure they were writing properly and exactly what was taught by the teacher.
I had an assistant that was willing to go the extra mile by doing some writing tasks to prepare for the day, mark work done and do some class displays as shwon by me. Mary on the other hand was only willing do the barest minimum. She tried to influence other assistants and ask them not to assist teachers as much. Unlike her, they wanted to grow and improve themselves and they did put in the work, improved on their skills which eventually led to some of them becoming class teachers themselves.
I adviced her to do better so as to make progress like others but she was still unwilling to do so. A few years had gone by and she was very sad because she saw that all the ladies in her level had upgraded after putting in the work but she remained stagnant.
Mary came to me one day while I was alone with a sad look. I asked "is everything okay Mary?"
"Not exactly" she replied
"Okay do you want to talk about it? I asked again
"Yes Mrs Scott I feel so empty" What could I possibly do to get ahead in life? It's like I am riding a car but getting nowhere." She sighed
I felt so sorry for her but glad she had started realizing her mistakes.
What exactly do you like to do Mary? I asked "It could be anything other than teaching if teaching is not for you. You need to pull up your socks you know" I continued
"I actually want to teach and get to a better position like you, but I find myself always drawing back." She said
I told her that she would need to overcome the complacent habit and start working intentionally on her goals. I also gave her pointers on how to get ahead like others were doing. She would need to set small goals daily and meet them.
She started one day at a time set a goal to be involved in all activities intentionally. But she found herself drawing back again and came to me for help
"Mary," I called trying to reassure her. "It's won't be automatic, you will have days of relapse but you have to pick yourself up and keep trying."
"Yes yes you get me! She said. "It's not easy sometimes" but as you have said I will not stop. Thanks a lot"
I told her to have her goals written and discuss them with me whenever she wanted to. Gradually, Mary began to have a mind shift. She set goals, reached them. She learned skills and started to discipline herself. With time she improved her life, relationship with others and became purpose driven. I was happy for this great step to improvement.
Mary had finally made an effort to bring about improvement in her life and it was great to see.I also encouraged her to discipline herself when it feels like she is having setbacks
Mary finally learned her mistakes in life, she skilled up and pulled up her socks!
