My neighbor son
There was a boy named Joseph, he was the last and only male child of his parents.
In a community where boys were highly regarded, his birth came as a joy to his parents, especially his father, who needed a male child to take over from him.
Thus, his father, Mr Anthony, was prepared to sacrifice all he had so that his son Joseph would become a responsible person and manage the vast estate and other properties of the family.
However, Joseph was never serious with anything — he thought he had more time ahead and, therefore, loved to play around with a group of boys in the neighbourhood who were also hardly serious with anything at all.
Because of his association with those boys, Joseph soon picked up the habit of staying away from school. In no time, he was also introduced to cigarette smoking.
One of the highly respected adults in the neighbourhood noticed this and advised Joseph to stop but he told the elderly man that he was young and had more time ahead of him so he should be allowed to have fun.
His father’s attention was drawn to the bad habits Joseph had picked up.
Like any responsible father, he advised his son and promised to give him all that he wanted so that he would change. Surprisingly, even though Joseph promised to stop, he did not.
Instead, he left home to live with his friends who introduced him to hard drugs. At a stage, if Joseph did not smoke in a day, he behaved abnormally.
His father could hardly sleep and combed the entire neighbourhood in search of his beloved son. When he finally found him he took Joseph to a psychiatric hospital.
Mr Anthony was so worried that his health began failing.
He, therefore, could not manage his estates and properties. During that period, his daughters had completed school and were all gainfully employed. He entrusted the management of his estates to them.
A year later, Joseph returned home after successful treatment. He painfully realised that with the exception of his peers who abused drugs whose lives had ended up miserably, all the others had achieved significant success in life.
With the assistance of his sisters, he went back to school so as to catch up.
But anytime he looked back at his past, Joseph realised that he had wasted his life.
In conclusion, we always need not to focus all our attention on the present but rather think of what future holds and work inorder to visualize it