Letter To A Little Me

Dear little me,

How old are you now? 10? You are all giddy, full of life and of course full of hope. You see aunty Oreoluwa go to school and come back, so, you too want to go to school. You want to know what it is to attend a tertiary institution, leave home and live all by yourself. You also want to come back with new clothes and of course latest shoes. Above all, you want to be a graduate too, so you can wear that long gown and daddy and mummy can take a picture with you in it.

What do you know about life? Life is simple, life is fun, life is never complicated. Life is a progressive journey: you go to primary school; after primary school, you go to secondary school, and then university. You start working, get married and then become mummy and daddy yourself. What else could be more fun than that?

I know you have very high hopes about the future, but let me tell you something that’ll quite shock you. Life is full of detours and bends, but through it all, you have to know, that a bend in the road is never the end of the road. You have to press on and hard for what you believe in. Let me reveal a secret to you: at 29, you will not be married yet, but do not be alarmed and never lose hope. In due time, all things will work together for your good and the long road you’ve trod before now will be worth it in the end.

Let me shock you again. I know mummy is a lawyer and you want to be like her- you want to wear that wig and that flowing gown almost every day like her, but you will not become one. You will crave to be an actress and so follow the path. You will also study theatre arts in the university.

I know Uncle ‘Dasola told you about something called destiny. He told you in a very big and interesting way. According to him, destiny is what God has designed you to be; what you’ve been marked to be from the beginning of time. He told you no one can stop your destiny no matter what, hence that high fantasy you have about destiny. Well, listen to him, but here are some parts he failed to tell you; perhaps parts him too did not know at the time he was telling you. He was only fifteen, you know, and you are just ten:

Destiny requires a lot of work. Unlike what he said, it doesn’t just come. You’ll have to work real hard for it. Destiny is never a matter of “que sera sera, what will be will be”; destiny is you fighting with all you’ve got to get to where you believe and know you should be. Destiny is not a meal offered or served on a platter of gold, it is a sweet meal fought for and well deserved.

A whole lot of things counts in destiny. Things such as loyalty, integrity, the friends you keep and all. But let me tell you something interesting and of real value: treat people well. Handle people as gold; for in the end, you never know who a person will be and how in time and in future you would need their help.

Let nobody be small in your eyes, no matter what they are at the moment; even our current domestic help- Folasade; she will help you in a big way in the future. You remember ‘Sewa too?- The dirty girl at school who no one but you plays with? She’ll later become a big CEO, and she will be the one to make you up on your wedding day, come December.

Such is life, dear little me. Like I said earlier, it is full of detours. Beggars become princes and princes become beggars. Remember the Bewajis? That family that thinks they have it all in the street? The ones who don’t talk to anyone? Their business will later crumble. They will sell their house and move back to their village in shame. People would have helped them, but they will be too ashamed to ask for help – based on the way they treated people when they thought they had something.

You must never be proud at any stage in your life, no matter what you think you have, or the places you have been. Nothing in life is permanent, and if ever some things are permanent, it is our character and the way we handle seasons when they come that will determine if they remain permanent or not. If you have money and you do not handle it well, it will go; if you have it and handle it well, it will stay and even multiply.

In all, you need wisdom and faith in life to succeed. Wisdom gleaned from good books, and also that gleaned from the big historical book – the Bible – that book Mummy always forces you to read.

You will need to learn how to pray too; at different stages of your life, you will need prayers. And guess what? You have a friend that is ever close, a friend many years older than you but understands you perfectly. You really don’t know about Him now, but with time, the storms of life will reveal Him to you. You will later realise that He is all you have and all you will ever need. He is faithful and very loyal. That friend is God.

Hey little one, dreams do come true. It may take time, and perhaps not in the exact form you thought it would, but it will sure come true. Never lose hope, darling; hang on, even if on the thinnest of hopes. All things in the end will be well and worth it.

There is so much to say, and also many shocking stories about uncles and aunties to tell, but let me stop here for now. I love you dear little me; be strong for the woman you will become.

This article though written by the blogger, first appeared in Bella Naija, 25th August, 2017.

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Lessons Life Has Taught Me So Far

Looking back at the life I lived as a teenager/young adult and seeing how much I held virtually everything so serious, all I can do is ‘feel sorry’ for myself, especially at the life I had unconsciously let slip past me by being that serious. I hardly could remember going for parties or functions (not that I go to parties/functions now, but then, my not going now is by choice, rather than the self-imposed rule it was in some ways at the time). I also can barely remember playing freely like every other teenager; for it was always me placing myself on one deadline or the other- books to read, things to apply for, and so on. But then, do I have a regret of living such life? Maybe no, but maybe I could have done things a little bit different by taking myself a bit less serious a couple of the times. It takes a bit of adulthood to know the difference between putting yourself in a box, and being actually disciplined and focused.

Having spent a few decades on earth, I have come to realize some things I never factored in even as I planned my life to the letter as a teenager. I have come to realize that some situations wouldn’t always be black and white as I’d imagined- some were meant to be grey, because they actually are. I have also come to realize that sometimes, especially as a passionate individual, it’s ok not to know what you are doing; it’s ok to try things out when you are not sure till eventually you find your space.

I’ve also realized that sometimes you lose control of the life you once thought you owned, and at such times when everything either seems to be happening at once, or nothing seems to be moving at all, it’s ok to surrender- to surrender to the One who made you and planned the life you would live in the first place. I have also come to realize, beyond what is being said which sometimes feels like a cliché, that really, the place of surrender is the most beautiful place, it is the very place where everything (buried) blooms.

Being a believer of God and His Words, entering into His rest as admonished in Hebrews 4, and ceasing from my own struggles (especially the struggle of how exactly I want my life to be), I have seen things unfold in ways I couldn’t have imagined if I had not let go. I have had things only God, and never myself could have given. In surrendering to God, especially in my troubled times, I have come to know who He is (on a personal note), as well as experience the things I never could have in my wildest imagination imagined.

No doubt, adulting comes with a lot of lessons, but then, letting go and gracefully choosing to live one day at a time would make sure you not only outlast your bad seasons, but that you also find courage and strength to deal with whatever you have to deal with per time, especially as an adult weaned of childhood fantasies by life, and made to face the reality of it, especially the uncontrollability of it to an extent.

Besides, reading Michelle’s book (Becoming), has taught me to take life easy; living one day at a time and giving my all to the day as it passes. It has also taught me that with the life we are living, our life’s story is being knitted together like a dough, with us going from phase to phase. It has taught me, especially through the life of her husband, as explained in the book that every single thing we have done/will do will lead to the ultimate end no matter how unimportant/insignificant it appears to be. For Barack Obama, her husband, his work the project VOTE!, which he did many years before becoming the president ended up being an advantage for him as he campaigned for his own presidency, while Michelle’s job at Public Allies (amidst other jobs) prepared her for the role destiny would later ‘throw’ at her- the First Lady role.

In ending this post, I would love to encourage us all to trust our processes, even when they appear so bleak; for in the end, with hardwork and authenticity, everything would make sense, and eventually work together for our good as promised if we faint not. The phase may seem hard and challenging now, but you never know how helpful it would be down the line, and how extremely sorry you would have been if you had not gone through it. Believe, trust the process and surrender, enjoying each moment as they come.

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What Exactly Is Love?

Love is patient, love is kind, love is this, love is that – these things are all easy to say. However, considering the negative things that happen even when we say we are in love, one cannot help but ask what love really is.

Growing up, I remember writing a very hateful letter to my dad once – the same daddy that I love as well. Sometimes, when our spouse does something we think is ‘annoying’ to us, at that moment, everything called love is thrown away, leaving us with resentment and sometimes, vengeance.

No doubt, there are many classifications of love, but asides the agape kind of love (which sometimes becomes incomprehensible), is there any other form of love that can be said to be unconditional? Is there love that does not change with feelings or deeds? Feelings in the sense of the emotions we have when they do something that goes down well with us, and deeds in the sense of their actions that are pleasing to us.

No doubt we love our parents and we love our partners as well, but, things tend to go wrong when they offend us. This can make us throw every teeny bit of love we have for them away at that instant and almost immediately, we replace these ‘feelings’ of ‘love’ with some form of coldness.

So is love a feeling, or a state of mind?

Some married couples, when asked if they love their spouse, replied that they do not know. This is shocking to me. I thought love was supposed to be the bedrock of every marriage! So if you do not know if you love your spouse or not, what then is the bedrock of your marriage? This, I usually ask myself, especially when I see couples who have lovingly been together for over 10 years, 20 years and more.

Is love based on the emotions of what one’s spouse does for one, or on the deep reality that this person is a good person and always means good for us? Is love actually a feeling that goes and comes, or one that stays and goes nowhere? Or perhaps an accumulation of all the good deeds only, leaving no space for the seemingly bad days?

For Temi, when asked if she loved her spouse, her reply was yes. When asked why and how she knows, a reply was not forthcoming. This made me wonder how love truly is between couples. A school of thought says that when you love your spouse, you love him or her for no reason (this may be why it was hard for Temi to explain why she loved her husband. For her, it was a feeling with a particular kind of depth and awareness that she could not explain).

Another school of thought says one way to know if you love your spouse is to examine the reasons why you are with him in the first place. In other words, the reasons why you are with him would show you if you love him or not. The question now is: if you are with him for reasons that can be classified as selfish in some ways, would you still say you love him? Let’s say you are solely with him for the comfort he gives, his soft-spoken nature, and the fact that he meets all your needs and beyond, would you still call that love? Considering that love has been said to involve some forms of service and not just what we can get or solely what suits us?

Because I have no firm answer to these questions – especially ‘categorical’ opinions about the various schools of thought involved in love and loving a person – I’ll push this to you: What really is love? Do you think true love is when we love with reason, or without reason?

I’ll be looking forward to reading your answers in the comment session.

This article though written by the blogger, first appeared in Bella Naija on the 10th of November 2019.

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What Is The One Thing That Should Remain When Your Dream Fails?

Now in my 30s, I realize that as a younger individual, it is much more easier to dream and have all the faith in the world. But then, as one progresses in life and experiences myriad of failures and disappointments, the zeal in some ways begin to go down, and we begin to tell ourselves “I’m taking it easy on life”, when in actual fact, we are actually giving up and taking life as it comes- good or bad. 

In as much as taking life as it comes to an extent might not be a bad idea (as for real, all our dreams would not come true verbatim i.e as we wrote/dreamt them); we must know when to allow life take its course, and also when to stand our ground, disallowing it to dictate everything that happens to us. For majority of the time, if we allow life to always have its way, we’ll never amount to anything. Imagine an Isaac Newton never striving to become anything significant asides the occupation of a farmer it appeared life had thrown at him? Especially such his mother thought was best for him? Or someone like Abraham Lincoln, saying,- ‘ok, I’ve tried being elected into the post of a president a couple of times, now I’ll try no more. I’ll just keep being the lawyer life has made me to be.’?

No doubt, we must sometimes prepare ourselves to live a little space for life to happen in its own way, we must not withstanding not let go of one paramount thing through it all- our zeal.

Zeal is one thing we tend to lose as we grow older, because life in some ways has a way of ‘sucking’ our primal zeal till we are left with the choice to keep refilling per time, or simply give up. But then, majority of the time, we choose the later because refilling our zeal/passion takes everything in us. It takes a lot of determination and pursuit never to give on the things we desire and know deep down we should become. This brings me to one question- what do you do when your dream fails? And not just when it fails, but when it fails over and over again? Just what do you do?

Having been through the phase and still passing through it, one thing I would say (which is the bedrock if you ask me) is- Never give up on hope. You may lose everything, but never give up on hope. Because hope, is like a single burning coal that can ignite fire when brought close to dry and cold coals. Hope is that thing that should never leave us no matter how little we have left per time. With hope, we can always find the courage to try again, think our situations through and search in deep within us to know if to try again with the past method, add some more or things, or totally let go of the idea to give something else a trial. Hope, is that thread that hangs us on even when all things around us are falling.

Times we need to change our ways to make our dreams happen, hope is that thing that would nudge us and give us the courage to start all over again knowing with faith that all things would be fine in the end. It is that that makes us enlarge/change our networks/relationships if need be, makes us attend conferences that’ll help us in our pursuit, as well as give room for others to assist us (as no one tree makes up a forest), and also makes us assist other people either as an act of kindness or learning.

In some ways, things will always go wrong as it were, but one thing that would keep us going and steady, is hope. Hope is the bedrock of all we ever want to be. It is that coal, that fire that must never die. For when hope is gone, everything is gone and all we’ll become would be walking zombies, doing things to pass out time while we await death, which my friends- is a scary way to live. As a result, never give your hope a chance to die, whatever it would take. Keep it alive always, no matter the efforts required. Do not acquiesce with life. Keep going. Keep moving. And take hope along. Endeavour to make it your best friend, as close to you as your own shadow.

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