Your heroes in their 20s- Bill Cosby.

Photo Credit

I wrote this a while ago, but with renewed buzz about Bill Cosby's alleged sexual abuse, I wondered if this was inappropriate to share. I have however decided to share anyway, as part of the "Your Heroes in Their Twenties" segment of this blog, (Achebe was the focus for last week and this segment is one of our attempts at celebrating the process rather than the end product. See this post to understand more about that) so here it goes.

I found some interesting facts about Bill Cosby that I want to share with you. His name is synonymous with success, laughter and Hollywood, but I found some details about his younger years that you might never have guessed.

Not only did Bill Cosby start shining shoes at the age of 9, he worked in a supermarket to support his family. Bill brought so much joy to his struggling family when he was selected to enroll in a high school for brilliant students because of his high IQ, however, Bill turned that joy into sadness when he had to drop out of the school because he was not performing up to standard. To make matters worse, Bill transferred to another school where he was told to repeat a class, and out of frustration, he dropped out of school altogether (that abominable thing you do except you turn out to be Bill Gates).

Bill then left to join the army at the age of 19. After leaving the army, he went to university but dropped out again to pursue a career in stand-up comedy and only made his first appearance on the Tonight Show at the age of 26. He had a couple of great shows and television appearances, but his most successful and memorable was the Cosby show and that debuted when Bill was 47 years old!

Now the point of this epistle is simply this, how lost did Bill Cosby feel in between the ages of 19 and 26? I would say that he probably felt like a failure whose only skill was being a serial drop out (although I forgot to mention that he was always good at sport and making people laugh, and he eventually earned that degree). 

Young Bill Cosby, playing football. Photo Credit

Bill was not doing well by the average conventional standard, but when he dared to follow his dream, he became successful, brought laughter to so many lives and defined many childhoods.

The message of this (as there must always be a message) is simply that you should and must not allow your present circumstances or conditions to dampen your outlook. Don’t let the almost usual unpredictability of your 20s deter you from being who you have the potential to be. Take a cue from Bill Cosby and put a smile on your face as you navigate your way through.

Cheers guys! Watch out for "Your Heroes in their 20s" next week!