Tell a story that ends with the advice. "Cut your coat according to your cloth".

Answer Details

Model Narrative: "Cut Your Coat According to Your Cloth"

When my father died at the beginning of my final year in secondary school, our family income shrank overnight. My mother, a petty trader in the market, could barely keep food on the table, yet I refused to let reality soften my expensive dreams. My eyes were fixed on a lavish graduation party that my classmate, Chuka, was planning for the whole set.

Chuka came from a wealthy home. He hired a hall, ordered a live band, and asked each of us to contribute twenty thousand naira. I did not have twenty naira to spare, but pride pushed the truth aside. That evening I stood before my mother and demanded the money as though it were my right.

She looked at me for a long moment, her hands still smelling of the smoked fish she sold. "My son," she said quietly, "a wise person spends according to what he has, not according to what he wishes he had." I heard the words but did not listen. I sulked for days, and in my desperation I did something shameful: I took the savings my mother kept in a tin behind the wardrobe, money meant for my registration fees.

The party came and went in a blur of loud music and borrowed glamour. But when the examination registration date arrived, the tin was empty. My mother wept, not because of the money alone, but because her only son had chosen vanity over sense. I could not register for that year's examination. While my mates sat for their papers, I sat at home, my expensive shoes gathering dust, my heart heavy with regret.

It took my mother a whole year of extra toil to raise the fees again. During those long months I learned to trek to school, to patch my old uniform, and to say no to pleasures I could not afford. When at last I sat for and passed my examinations, I did so as a humbler and wiser young man.

Years later, whenever I am tempted to live beyond my means, I remember that empty tin and my mother's tears. I have learned, at great cost, the timeless wisdom of the elders: cut your coat according to your cloth.