Good morning staff and students of JMC. I am ONYEBU Chinonso in SS1D and I kindly request that you listen attentively as I present the virtue of the week, 
“Consistency“. Bruce Lee once said, “Long-term consistency trumps short-term intensity.” Let’s be real, at the beginning of every academic session or new year, everyone sets goals for themselves, be it academic goals, social goals, spiritual goals or even sports goals. The ability to keep to set goals is consistency. Therefore, consistency is defined as staying focused and dedicating oneself to achieving a goal. It is also the ability to remain committed to a task or habit without deviating from it. Consistent comes from the Latin word consistentia meaning “standing firm”.
Consistency is needed in different aspects of our lives. It is said that consistency is one of the greatest keys to success. As students of JMC, the most important form of consistency for us is academic consistency. It is true that after setting an academic goal for yourself, underperforming can lead to a kind of pain that cannot be explained. The best thing to do in such a situation is to change your strategy and keep being committed. Therefore, when a student maintains a set goal no matter how difficult the going gets, then we say the student is academically consistent. Secondly, in a school with so much workload and academic pressure it is easy to forget we are also social beings and need to be consistent with our friends and peers; that is, we need to make time to talk to people. Social consistency comes in the form of taking time to relax during a movie or having regular chats with friends during free time. Spending time with friends and loved ones has a way of helping to keep our emotions in check. Spiritual consistency is very important because everything in life revolves around God. Hebrews 13:8 says, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever”. We serve a consistent God and as disciples, we should be consistent in everything we do. As students of JMC, we can be spiritually consistent by constantly attending and participating in all liturgical activities. Lastly, how many times have you told yourself that you will go out for sports and you ended up not going or you said you will start exercising and never did? It is very rewarding to engage in sports and be consistent in it because as students, physical fitness is essential in our day-to-day activities. Being consistent in sports helps to keep you active and agile.
Consistency brings about lasting results if one remains faithful to achieving goals. It does not necessarily mean all the work needs to be done at once; it just means that there is progress everyday. In our college community, if the maintenance staff are not consistent with setting up chairs for College Mass, we would all be standing; if the nurses were not consistent with attending to us as urgently as they do, we would not continue to recover as quickly as we do; and if our administrators and teachers just decided to stop running the school because it is too hard a task to be consistent with, there would be anarchy everywhere and no learning would take place.
Let me conclude with a short story about a student of JMC. He started practicing to play an instrument when he was in JS2 and although he did not make much progress at first, his efforts were consistent. Over time people, began to notice his skills and ability, and started to commend him. He still remained consistent in his efforts to get better at playing the musical instrument despite the praises he got from people. He learnt new tricks on his instruments and became very good. Today, he is recognised as one of the best instrumentalists JMC has ever produced.
In conclusion, I urge everyone here today to be consistent in their efforts to achieve their goals notwithstanding the number of failures and setbacks that may have been recorded. After all, if something is worth doing, it is worth doing well. Thank you and have a lovely week.
ONYEBU Chinonso
Class of 2027