Both on the side of the road and on the walls of buildings, there were so many banners and so many adverts.

I took a minute to observe, and every single one of them was either selling something or offering something.

Some were election campaigns, some were advertising different products, some were strictly informative, and so on.

I don’t know why, but it was in that moment that I first consciously realised that, every time we go out, we’re constantly being bombarded with adverts.

It’s not like it’s a bad thing, since our exposure to them is often non-invasive and only for a short while, but…

Yesterday was the first time I felt like I was living in a simulation.

I mean, we complain about ads on the internet all the time.

They are on YouTube and Instagram and on every other site, and you’ll always see them regardless of whatever you’re doing.

It can be frustrating, and nobody likes it, but the same thing low-key happens in real life too.

Now, what’s interesting to me the most is that everybody trying to sell us something has their reasons for doing so.

When you see products or services being advertised, the companies behind them have their underlying reasons for selling to you.

The same goes for people who sell beliefs, ideologies, mindsets, and other intangible things.

Why do I “sell” articles like this one to you 2-3 times every week? I have my reasons.

Every seller has a reason.

Those reasons might be beneficial to you and beneficial to them, or detrimental to you and beneficial to them; either way, the seller always benefits.

But, of course, they will paint whatever it is that they are offering as a must-have, like the product will help you greatly or the service will change your life.

Many times they might be right, many times they might be wrong, and many times their claims might be exaggerated.

However, the constant, like I said, is that whether the advert is online or offline, whoever is selling to you has their underlying reasons for selling.

The person showing you how to “make money from your bed“ might just want to sell a course, or they might be genuinely interested in helping you change your financial situation.

The pastor advertising his upcoming crusade might just want to fill up seats so he can get massive offerings and seeds, or he might be genuinely interested in the transformation of your soul.

The person advertising “lose belly fat quick” cream might be well aware she’s scamming you, or she might actually have a product that will work.

The point is that we never really know.

And that’s why we have to be very careful what we buy and buy into, both literally and figuratively.

On the surface level, yes, be careful what you buy and be careful of the services you use.

But on a much deeper level, we have to be careful what we consume – mentally, physically, spiritually, psychologically – and who we consume it from, because everybody that’s selling you something has a motive.

A motive that could very well be harmful or dangerous to you.

Distribute your trust sparingly because the heart of man is very wicked and not everything that glitters is gold.

Everywhere you go, everywhere you turn, every corner of the internet, every corner of the streets – the adverts are literally after our souls.

So, we have to be careful. We have to guard our hearts and guard our minds so that our souls don’t get robbed.

It might sound too dramatic, but it’s actually that deep.

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Also, I can’t be the only one who finds ChatGPT generated posters to be tacky.

I understand using it online, but printing this generic banner template for real life usage? Yikes.

Bad branding practice, if you ask me.

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What is the value of a life, like a human life?

What exactly does it cost?

A human life that comes into the world through a woman, a life that is relatively “easy” to give but once is lost, can never be recovered… What is the value of that life?

Death is one of the strangest concepts known to humankind.

Even now, after all these centuries, and after so many scientific breakthroughs and studies, we humans have still not fully understood or grasped the concept of death.

Talk less of coming to terms with the experience of its reality and the pain of grief, of losing a loved one to death.

That coin that humanity flips every day – one side holding the beauty of life and the other side holding the pain of death – is forever going to remain a paradox.

But, again, what is the value of a life?

What exactly is the cost?

What is the worth of a life?

What is the price that can be put on it?

What is that one thing that carries an equivalent worth to the life of a person?

On a daily basis, there’s so much death around us.

On the news, we hear about people dying in wars, people kidnapped and killed, people committing suicide, people having accidents, people dying from sickness... every day there’s so much death, both the ones that are natural and the ones that are man-made.

Social media and its sensationalist nature have not helped the case any further, and all it’s done is fry our emotional receptors to the point where it’s like we’re now numb to it.

Today you hear this report: 500 dead here. Tomorrow you hear: 20 killed in an accident here. Then: 40 killed in a war attack there.

Over and over and over… it’s almost now… normal, we don’t even flinch at it anymore.

There’s so much death around us, and so much news of death around us, that we no longer understand the weight of the priceless value of a human life.

It seems like until the loss of life is personal or in close proximity to us, we don’t fully grasp the abnormality of this thing called death.

I’ve observed, and it seems to me like everything around us since we were young has been subtly conditioning us to see human life that is not directly connected to us as something that is abstract and expendable.

So, when you are watching an action movie and, let’s say, Jason Statham, is running and shooting the “bad guys”, you’re hooked into the scene.

Before you know it, he has killed like 10 or 20 of them, and they’re all dead on the floor, and you’re there watching and cheering and rooting for him to keep going.

And yes, it’s a movie, it’s fiction, and not everything is to be taken so deep… I know. Just put that aside for a moment.

When you look at all those dead bodies on the floor, does it cross your mind, even in the tiniest bit, that those are human lives that cannot be got back?

They might have been doing something evil, so you might not have any pity for them, but if you really think about it or view it through the lens of realism (as you should do all fictional materials), those were men with dreams, aspirations, and maybe even families.

Now, take this same understanding out of the movie context and bring it into real life.

Human lives that are irreplaceable and irrecoverable.

Those were people with dreams and people with aspirations. Those were people who ate food, who laughed, who had memories. Those were people — human lives — that cannot be recovered, ever again.

What exactly is the value of a life?

How has the world and the human race gotten to this point where we don’t know the value of a human life anymore?

These are human beings that God created, and these are human beings that God loves deeply.

When I write articles like this on topics like this, as the objective person that I try to be, I try not to slide into or reference my personal religious beliefs.

But it’s hard not to because I believe these things are the foundations of the world that we live on.

How has the human race got to this point where we don’t put any value on lives anymore?

That we are now so numb that when we hear reports about death, we don’t take a moment to grieve?

For a long time, I guess I was also unconsciously that way.

But lately, anytime I hear reports on death, I’ve been taking a moment to ponder the exact reality of what it means.

Even if it’s one person.

The number doesn’t have to be outrageous for you to be shocked or for you to be upset or for you to even be devastated.

A single human life being lost to violence, brutality, wickedness, evil — being lost due to the selfish actions of another person — is enough to grieve about.

It’s enough to grieve a human heart.

That was someone’s child. That was someone’s hope for the future. That was someone’s dad. That was someone’s mom. That was someone’s best friend.

That was a person like you… killed just like that.

And for what?

What exactly is the value of human life?

Oh, and don’t be mistaken, too; it’s worldwide. People are dying unnecessary deaths everywhere, every day.

Governments are killing citizens in cover-ups and in protest grounds. Pharmaceutical companies are carrying out dangerous medical operations on people. Religious cults are killing people as sacrifices. Paramilitary bodies are committing genocides in resource-rich villages deep in the heart of Africa. Powerful, twisted men are trafficking children, molesting them, and eating their flesh.

All around, human beings are being wicked to human beings, up to the point of taking the lives of others, and I just wonder…

What exactly is the value of human life?

Why don’t we place sanctity on human life anymore?

That a man can enter into a school, a nursery school, and open gunfire on children aged four and five and six…

What exactly is the value of human life?

How have we got to this point?

It is something that should break our hearts because it is not normal; there’s nothing normal about it, and there’s nothing good about it.

When I just hear stories of people dying, in my mind, I’m just like… that is another human life that is lost… gone… just like that…

Why doesn’t man place value on the life of man anymore?

What is this arrogance that has made man believe he has the right to take the life of another man?

When does it end?

It’s so sad.

And before you think, “Well, I’ve not killed anybody,” before you think you’re not at fault, you have to look at your actions.

What have your actions done?

Do your actions towards people reflect the fact that you value the life that they have, the soul that God has given to them?

Death is not always the termination of life…

When you sexually assault a person, you have killed them.

When you use your words to drag a person down or crush their dignity, you have killed them.

When you break the heart of someone who trusted you, when you cheat on a partner in a relationship, when you steal from another person, when you betray a friend, when you betray an organisation, or when you look down on people — you have killed them.

What exactly is the value of a human life to you?

You don’t have to take a knife and stab someone in the heart before you have committed murder.

Your words. Your actions. The way you treat people. These things speak even greater volumes.

Are you considerate? Are you kind? How do you treat people that are “below” you? How do you react to beggars on the streets? How do you treat people that do menial jobs around you? How do you treat the world on a bad day?

What exactly is the value of a human life to you?

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And since I’ve also had a draft on a similar premise that’s refused to come together for months, I decided to kill two birds with one stone.

Luckily for me, I know the things I don’t like and the things that I do like and the few negotiable variables in-between the two.

So, these are some of the things that I notice in a woman that make me pause to pay attention, trigger my interest in getting to know her, or fuel whatever attraction was already brewing beneath or above the surface.

By the way, I believe that “attraction” in this context doesn’t only refer to a romantic or amorous manner, and that’s why I decided to use my friends as examples.

Locs.

There’s this running social media narrative in my side of the world that encourages women to avoid dating men who say things like “I don’t really fancy wigs” or “You look better in your natural hair”.

Why?

Well, it’s mostly because they believe that men who say such things are only doing so because they want to avoid buying wigs for their women.

Is that true? Maybe, maybe not.

Is it reasonable? Maybe, maybe not.

I have absolutely nothing against wigs; in fact, I appreciate a good-looking one when I see it.

Braids and even Afro hairdos can also look good, depending on the style and the person carrying it, but… there’s just something about locs, man.

I don’t quite know how to explain it.

The way they frame the face of the carrier, the different ways they can be styled — butterfly locs, barrel twists, two-strand twists, updos, buns, half-up styles — the endless amount of colours they can be made in, and the range of expression in how they’re worn — neat and tightly maintained locs give one vibe and more freeform or slightly unravelled locs give another.

Regardless of how the woman decides to wear them, locs are always striking.

Even if they’re not long or thick or the particular colour used isn’t bright, locs are almost impossible to ignore because they tend to feel unapologetic.

When I see locs on a woman, I assume that she’s not really interested in shrinking or trying to blend in.

More often than not, the hairstyle tells me that I’m looking at someone who is projecting their self-assuredness, and it’s that quiet boldness I find very attractive.

Nowadays, when I go out to social events like weddings, graduations, and stuff like that, I barely ever see women wearing locs.

I see different styles of braids and cornrows, and I see all types of wigs – bouncy, wavy, curly, and the rest of them – but I rarely ever spot beautiful, thick locs just hanging off the head of a woman.

I wonder why.

Maybe locs are difficult to maintain. Maybe locs are expensive to make. Maybe locs don’t look good on everybody. Maybe locs are uncomfortable to carry. Maybe enough people don’t appreciate the beauty of locs. Maybe locs are not in fashion. Maybe there are other reasons I’m not aware of.

I don’t know.

All I know is that they’re not common or trendy, at least, at the moment, and when I see a woman wearing them, I appreciate her, and if I’m chanced, I offer a compliment.

For me, there’s nothing quite like locs.

Intelligence (Intellectual and emotional).

I absolutely LOVE intelligent women.

This might seem a bit “on the nose” because, obviously, most people wouldn’t be attracted to someone who doesn’t have a certain level of emotional or intellectual intelligence.

However, whilst it can be negotiable for some, it’s honestly a non-negotiable for me.

Let’s take them both separately.

Intellectual Intelligence

It’s not that she’s necessarily an Einstein-level genius or an expert in quantum physics, but observing or interacting with a brilliant and well-spoken woman touches somewhere tender within me.

For me, this “brilliance” is not just limited to academic soundness, because I believe the educational system largely operates as a test of a person’s short-term retention abilities and not really a test of a person’s overall intellectual capabilities.

One of the reasons I like such women is because they are often very good conversationalists, and as someone whose primary method of driving conversations is asking questions, it’s always uninspiring to talk with someone whose answer to every question that’s beneath surface-level is “I don’t know” or “I’m not sure”.

It’s just so… ugh.

If I have a partner, I want us to be able to have conversations that can span a wide array of fields and interests, especially the ones that matter to us and affect us one way or another.

We don’t always have to talk about movies or likes/dislikes; let’s talk about geopolitics and history and human behaviour and the tension between religion and spirituality and the sweet poison called capitalism – and many other stuff like that.

Let’s talk about things bigger than just the two of us.

It doesn’t have to be all the time, but I’d hate to constantly be spending quality time, especially romantically, with a woman who doesn’t challenge my thinking or inspires my mind anytime we talk.

At least, every now and then.

She might not know everything, but I love a woman who has an idea of something about almost everything, and even when she doesn’t have an idea or clue about something, she is willing to learn.

It’s very easy to say “I don’t know” and take that mentally lazy route out of a conversation.

But when she asks questions, does her research, and shows her desire to bridge the knowledge gap that she has on a subject, I’m instantly impressed before I can help it.

And if it’s a woman I happen to have feelings for, she’s going to enthral me and strengthen my conviction about her by a great mile.

I honestly hate ignorance, and anytime I hear people proudly declare “I don’t know” about things they should know, I’m genuinely irked.

There’s nothing impressive about dressing so nice and looking so good but having absolutely nothing in your head.

I’m not like that, so it doesn’t make any sense for me to be attracted to a woman who’s like that.

Emotional Intelligence

For me, emotional intelligence is two-faceted – understanding how to deal with your emotions and understanding how to deal with the emotions of others.

I love being around a woman who has a firm grip on both and has mastered the art of balancing when to uphold her feelings and when to put them in the back seat.

It’s always lovely to see a woman who handles her emotions with grace.

I understand that because of the unfortunate suppression of voice that women have been subjected to over the years, many of them now believe that the default reaction they should have to every form of opposition is loudness and outrage.

Well, I disagree.

Everything in life requires balance.

Whilst some situations will call for loud, vocalised anger, others will call for calmness and wisdom in the way they’re handled, and it’s attractive to have conversations and be emotionally intimate with someone who understands this.

My attraction is not to docility or tractability, God forbid.

It’s to that emotional self-control that exists because she knows when to react, when to ignore, and when to remain neutral.

I like a woman who is not quick to make assumptions, or quick to always play the victim, or quick to always make excuses for her character flaws or bad behaviour.

Have you ever met someone who would rather blame everybody else for the problems they face than take responsibility for their lives?

Yikes.

A lack of this emotional intelligence is a deal breaker for me in all forms of relationships, and it’s one of the fastest things that makes me call off relations with a potential love interest.

I know some women romanticise this whole idea of “calm boyfriend + erratic girlfriend” or “having a man who can deal with your intentional sabotage, 50 daily mood swings, and sudden ghosting with no explanation”, and I have no problem with it.

I just know I can never be that guy because there’s nothing attractive or thrilling about it, maybe only in Wattpad novels.

You don’t know how to temper your words when you’re angry. You don’t know how to give me space when I need it. You don’t know how to react when I express my displeasure at something you did. You don’t know how to be honest about your feelings. You don’t know how else to handle your emotions than to only cry and sulk.

And on top of all this, you’re not interested at all in learning or knowing how to; you just want to be accepted “as you are”.

Really? Well, we’re honestly far from compatible.

Emotions are a critical part of our humanity, and we all handle ours in different ways, but there’s nothing attractive (at least, to me) about being a constant emotional wreck to yourself or a constant emotional liability to a partner or friend.

There’s just not, and maybe some guys enjoy playing the role of “shoulder to lean on” and the superman-that-will-save-her, but I don’t.

I prefer to be met in the middle: you help me, as I help you too.

Smiles That Reach the Eyes.

As someone who has no idea how to consciously smile, I love seeing women with beautiful smiles.

When I see a woman whose smile genuinely reflects the joy or the happiness that she’s feeling in that moment, it stands out to me.

It’s that kind of smile that shows up before she even realises it’s there, shifting her entire face and softening her eyes or lighting them up.

The kind of smile that has life in it.

There’s a warmth in that kind of expression that’s hard to ignore because it’s not rehearsed or merely polite or done simply to meet up with a social expectation.

And you can tell when a smile is coming from somewhere genuine because it carries a honesty that doesn’t need explanation.

It’s not always in the way the smile is offered but in this gut feeling that you get when you see it.

I’m attracted to a woman whose smile makes me feel at ease without her saying a single word and when the smile lingers a little longer than it should because she’s around me or because she’s laughing at my joke or responding to my compliment…

It’s hard for me to ignore it… it’s almost impossible for me to ignore her.

Initiative.

I haven’t met a lot of women who love or enjoy taking the initiative when it comes to doing or saying certain things, and it’s not something I’m happy about.

Things like buying gifts, planning outings, sending random photo dumps, offering help, starting debates, etc.

People say things like this come “easy” when a woman likes you, and whilst I agree to an extent, I don’t think it tells the full story.

I’ve seen guys who were with women who barely ever took the first step in doing something until they were asked to or unless they were doing so in reciprocity.

So, I don’t think it’s always just about the person’s feelings for you.

I think that, just like kindness, initiative is a character trait that has to be learnt and practised consciously before it becomes a part of a person’s character.

And I love me a woman who is like that, especially because I am a man who is like that.

I’m attracted to women who are not all about what they can get but also equally concerned about what they can give.

It’s lovely to see a woman take the responsibility of initiation, especially since it now seems like what many women want is to be on the receiving end of all good treatments.

I think it would be unfair of me to myself if, being the pourer I am, I surround myself with only receivers, and I’m left alone with the responsibility of replenishing myself every single time.

I don’t mind initiating or leading, but to what benefit is all that to me if there’s nothing that I get in return?

Might as well just remain on my own.

That’s why anytime I see a woman who is forward-thinking and is always about what she can do for the people she loves and not only what she can receive from them, I accord her a lot of respect.

It’s a beautiful trait to have, and I can’t wait till I find myself a partner who embodies it.

I will love it and I think I deserve it.

Good fashion sense.

A woman who can dress well and pull off different styles? Sign me up, any day.

I admire women like that because they usually don’t feel pressured to dress or appear in a certain way, regardless of what the occasion is or what everybody else is doing.

It’s always a turn-off when I see people trying too hard to appear in a certain manner, and dressing is definitely a major part of that.

Not every trend or outfit is going to suit everybody, and that’s totally fine.

That’s why I love seeing women who understand what works for them and what doesn’t and then go on to wear it with undeniable confidence.

Personality.

Personality is a big deal to me, and I’m attracted to women who have distinct personalities of their own.

Not a woman who just projects herself as a generic Barbie doll or as a generic Bratz doll, but one that has a nature that’s unique and so tangible that I can almost hold onto it.

And this is not because I have her completely “figured out”, but because she has an individual nature that I see, have experiences with, and will recognise anywhere.

If she’s blunt, she’s blunt. If she’s sweet, she’s sweet. If she’s outgoing, she’s outgoing. If she’s reserved, she’s reserved.

There’s no wavering or indecisiveness with her, and even if she’s characteristically dynamic, the foundation of who she is doesn’t ever change.

A good tell of personality for me is that she has convictions for her beliefs and reasons for doing the things she does, and they are largely PERSONAL.

She’s not just into stuff because she’s been conditioned by people or her environment to do so, and she doesn’t only think in certain directions because TikTok aunties or Instagram mothers have told her to.

Even if those things or those people served as doorways that helped her into certain belief systems or action patterns, she also chose to filter all she ingested and hold on to only the things that aligned with her person.

I’m attracted to a woman who can confidently answer “why” anytime the reason she thinks in a certain way or acts in a certain manner is challenged.

“Why do you believe this?” She has an answer. “Why don’t you want this?” She has an answer. “Why do you behave this way?” She has an answer.

She doesn’t do this because she feels the need to always explain herself, and she’s not trying to be “different” from other women; she’s just being her own woman in her own right, and she can tell you exactly the reasons why.

And when she does, she’ll never give you a random or cliché answer, but one that reflects who she is as a person.

I love to see it; I really do.

Braces.

Might be kind of “cliche”, I know, but just look at this…

I think that’s enough said.

There are still other things… like being a book lover, having a good sense of humour, having a passion, being a good listener, etc, etc… but that’s enough for now.

And yes, my friends are all beautiful, I know.

Lucky me, eh?

Anyways, peace.

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Maybe it was permissible back then to watch rigging videos on TV and agree with the adults when they said, “Every time they steal elections, there’s no point in voting.”

Maybe it was still okay back then to brag that you’ll “never vote” or “never have anything to do with politics”.

Maybe.

But now? Today?

Today, you’re of eligible voting age, an election is around the corner in Nigeria (or whatever other country you’re in), and you’re watching the country go to the dogs and affect the quality of life you’re living, yet you still think it’s okay for you to want nothing to do with the process of selecting the leaders that’ll govern you?

I had a stronger word in mind to use, but I’ll just say that if you still think like this, then you’re an overall part of the problem, and I can’t take you seriously for any reason.

This is probably the WORST time in history to be a young person in Nigeria.

The economy has essentially gone to shit; well-paying jobs are non-existent or locked tightly behind doors of nepotism/ridiculous requirements; the country is facing a terrible security crisis; the citizens are more divided than ever; relocating out of the country costs an arm and a leg; and, worst of all in my opinion, a large majority of the youths, the so-called “leaders of tomorrow” who are supposed to be bothered the most about all this, are the ones who seem to care the least.

They seem to be more concerned with social media trends, pointless arguments, fighting the wrong enemies, wasting their attention on well-planned distractions, and engaging in temporary frivolities, whilst the old politicians who robbed their parents of having a better quality of life rob them too, as they slowly integrate their own children into the political system so they can serve as the leaders of the next generation.

It’s quite interesting to observe and terrifying to see how well it’s currently working.

Mr Gentleman or Mrs Lady.

You’re above 18 years of age, you’re directly feeling the impact of the terrible situation of the country, and you’re aware, whether you admit it or not, that the chances of you leaving here anytime soon are very slim.

So, tell me:

Why on Earth are you not planning to vote in the next elections?

Why?

You think it doesn’t affect you? You think it doesn’t matter? You think your vote won’t count? You think Nigeria is not worth the “stress”? You’re scared of being caught up in the case of violence? You don’t know who to vote for?

What exactly is your reason?

Whether it’s any of the above or it’s something else, all I can say to you is that: YOU ARE NOT AS JUSTIFIED AS YOU THINK YOU ARE.

You and any other eligible Nigerian have no excuse to not participate in the upcoming chance that we have to change the current political administration of the country.

None at all.

Unless:

1. You’re very pleased with how everything is going, and you want things to continue this way, or

2. You or your parents/family are directly or indirectly connected to the current political administration and are benefitting directly or indirectly from it.

In which case, I have absolutely nothing to say to you.

But if you don’t fall under any of these two categories, then what exactly is your problem?

Let me tackle some popular justifications for political apathy, both the reasonable and the unreasonable ones.

“Politics doesn’t affect me”:

This one is really just a sign of sheer ignorance because in every nation, politics affects every single person, regardless of who they are, where they stay, or what they do.

Yes, depending on your social class and depending on the nature of the political action, some things will affect some people more than others.

But the bottom line, at the end of the day, is that: EVERYBODY IS AFFECTED.

And that’s why it’s so annoying when people think that “privileged people” (whatever that means) who speak out against bad governance or unfavourable political institutions are doing so performatively.

Why on Earth will any reasonable person not want their country to work?

If my businesses are making billions in Nigeria, why won’t the security and prosperity of the nation matter to me? Why wouldn’t I want the citizens to be able to continue to afford my goods and services?

It’s just common sense.

Are they outliers of people who profit greatly when the country is in crisis? Yes, definitely, but those people are in the minority.

The richest man in Africa, Aliko Dangote, cried out in public when factors within the Nigerian government were threatening the proper functioning of his crude oil refinery, and he cried out again recently, revealing exactly how much the Nigerian government is profiting from his cement business.

If he, as powerful and rich as he is, can be affected by bad governance, why do you think it won’t affect you too?

Is it because you have a couple of hundred thousands and you’re sitting in your air-conditioned room in your solar-powered house?

Is that it?

I just have so much pity for you.

We tend to fixate so much on the economic aspect of things, but what about security? What happens if the security situation worsens?

What of infrastructure, both health and road and the rest of them? What happens if you need urgent medical attention and all the roads are damaged?

What of the reputation of the nation that affects you when you travel? Do you like landing in a foreign airport and being treated like a sub-human because you have a Nigerian passport?

What of the policies of the government, like these recent tax reforms? Do you like paying tax on EVERY SINGLE THING that you buy?

So, you sit down, you think of all these things, and you still truly believe with all the logic in your head and all the rationale in your heart that politics doesn’t affect you?

Really?

Even if your life is already smooth, won’t better governance make it smoother?

Let’s just all be honest with ourselves.

Again, yes, the effect of bad politics might not affect everybody directly or in the same manner, but look at the things you’re already facing, and ask yourself this:

Then answer truthfully to yourself.

If you cannot afford to jet out of the country with all your loved ones on a whim, then you better take this issue of voting and politics more seriously than you already are.

“My vote doesn’t count, so what’s the point?”

On the surface, this seems like a justified argument, and whilst, to an extent, it is, it’s still not completely admissible.

Yes, Nigeria has a history of electoral manipulation and electoral malpractice; that’s not a new thing.

I mean, we all know who the true winner of the 2023 presidential elections was, and we all saw the magic that was performed in front of us.

So, it’s understandable for anybody not to want to go through the whole mental and physical stress of voting when they know that their votes and their effort won’t matter at the end of the day.

I understand that; I really do.

But what you must also know is that whilst in a situation your vote might not count, it still matters a whole lot.

Every single vote matters.

If they didn’t matter, then the people who want to try to steal elections won’t be so focused on encouraging apathy and trying all they could, violently and otherwise, to stop people from voting.

It’s basic math.

When many people participate in an electoral process, it becomes much more difficult to distort the true results of that process because:

1. There won’t be enough time and manpower to do so, and

2. There would be more people that are actively monitoring and holding the electoral process accountable.

This is why the first tactic of effective election rigging is to ensure that the smallest number of people as possible participate in the process.

I believe that in the 2023 elections, one thing that took certain people by surprise was the popular support and total number of votes that a certain political candidate got, even after all their attempts to discredit him and frustrate his movement.

Even though, at the end of the day, they were able to successfully steal the elections from the rightful winner, it was harder to do that time than in past years simply because more people turned out to vote.

This is why it falls on all of us who want to see a change in this country to mount even more pressure in 2027.

This is really not the time to get discouraged or to give up, but the time to apply more pressure to make what happened in 2023 become harder to repeat itself in 2027.

Your vote matters; it really does.

And even if, after all is said and done, your vote doesn’t end up counting, I think it’s enough for you to know within yourself that you did your duty in trying to fight against a political system that isn’t working for you.

It’s better to fight against the system and to fail than to have not fought at all.

Anybody who refuses to fight, for the fear of being a failed fighter, is just as complicit as the people that the failed fighters are fighting against.

“I don’t know who to vote for; they are all the same.”

Maybe, maybe they are.

But would you rather continue with what you have now than try something else?

I would rather roll the dice for the chance to get someone better than to be stuck here with what is already not working.

I don’t know if he’s the same as them; only God truly knows, but from what I’ve seen, he gives me hope.

He gives me hope that maybe we can actually have a leader that cares for this nation and puts her interests first.

I won’t tell you his name, but I know you know it.

He’s popped into your head right now.

Everybody knows it, even his enemies, because there’s only one person that fits that description.

Anybody who denies it is either grossly uninformed or has just chosen to lie to themselves.

We pray for and we wish long life on our parents and guardians, but the truth is that a lot of them are at the point in their lives where their biggest joy is watching their children succeed.

And the truth is that many of them enjoyed the benefits of a good country when they were your age.

In fact, our grandparents enjoyed Nigeria the most. Many of them had access to free education, a low cost of living, good security, and the value of the currency was more powerful than it is today.

Most of the old men sitting in power today, the ones who have put this nation where it is, enjoyed a country that was blessed and working.

Which is why I don’t understand why they’ve refused to let others enjoy the same, but that’s not today’s point.

My point is that we must understand that even if our parents can afford to be apathetic toward politics, we ourselves CANNOT afford it.

If you’re still looking at 40 or 60 more years of life in front of you, how exactly do you plan to live a good quality of life here if things continue like this?

You want to relocate? If you can, then by all means, please do so, but remember that not everybody will also be able to do that.

These things are really simple, and at the end of the day, there’s really no place like home.

I don’t believe in using “people are suffering abroad too” to discourage migration because it’s really tone-deaf and one-sided.

But if our country were working as it should, would the urge for everyone to run away even exist?

And also, I’m not encouraging disrespect or rebellion against anybody’s parents, but you must understand that there are SO MANY THINGS that this older generation does not know.

There are so many things they are ignorant about and so many flawed perspectives that they carry.

We can’t have so much access to information and so much awareness of their shortcomings, just to end up making the same mistakes they did or to end up repeating the same errors as they did.

It doesn’t make sense.

They are a generation that in almost every way always did what they were told, so they were not raised up with that spirit of fighting or the spirit of standing against opposition.

If they were, maybe things wouldn’t be this bad as they are today.

I like calling them the “Adjusters Generation”.

They are used to, and have always been fond of, adapting to hardship and moving with the tide of whatever came.

There’s never been that spirit of revolution in them, and it has led many of them to become, I’m sorry to say, SPINELESS.

They’re not interested in fighting policies, or standing against wrongdoings, or speaking out against the powers that be.

Worst of all, many of them are not interested in LEARNING new things or adjusting to the wisdom of the times.

They just want to keep their heads down, avoid trouble or any signs of it, and pray to God to protect them and their family from the general situations that are affecting anybody else.

Don’t let me even get into the role that overt religiousity and rigid culturalism have played in reinforcing this spinelessness.

It’s so sad.

I agree that we need the help of everybody in every generation to change the situation of the country, but we can’t afford to waste time waiting or afford to fall into the same apathy.

We really can’t.

They are used to playing it safe and complying with whatever is forced upon their heads, and that’s just a luxury we cannot afford at the moment.

If we do, our own children and the next generation will have us to blame when they come and meet a country that’s broken and hopeless.

Being a young person in Nigeria, I understand how discouraging the political climate is and how pointless political participation might seem sometimes.

I mean, it’s in this same country where everybody can see how bad things are that some are gladly selling their votes for bags of rice and bottles of groundnut oil.

And some others are believing that they are “cool” because they refuse to speak on politics or participate in any manner or form.

So, yes, things can seem hopeless many times.

However, now is not the time to give up or get discouraged or to back down so easily.

We’ve already experienced the first four years of this current administration, and unless you want the next four years to continue in a similar pattern, you must play your role in it.

That alone should already scare you.

And it’s sad that many parents don’t encourage political participation among their children, with some even actively discouraging it, but unfortunately, we can do nothing about it.

Educate your parents if you can and if they’ll listen, but right now, the responsibility is in your hands.

2027 will be my first time of voting, and I already know with no iota of doubt the person/party that I’ll be voting for.

I’m voting for three reasons:

1. It’s my civic duty as someone who wants to see this country become better.

2. To keep my conscience clear, so that if things get worse over the next four years, I’ll know that I played no role in it.

3. So that if this current administration continues and things don’t improve in the country, I can criticise and speak on issues freely, knowing that they’re not there because of my vote.

I’ve said it over and over again that anybody who is eligible to vote and doesn’t vote in 2027 simply because they feel it doesn’t matter has ABSOLUTELY ZERO RIGHT to complain about anything that doesn’t go right in the country in months/years to come after.

If someone asks you, “Did you vote in the last elections?” and your answer is “No”, then they have a right to tell you to shut up and stop complaining because you’re as complicit in keeping the government there as much as the people who voted for them are.

And there’s no argument against that.

One of Nigeria’s biggest problems is that we, the citizens, have abandoned collective responsibility for the sake of individuality, so we never know how to come together to call for something and to stand on it.

And even when we do, we cower away at the first sign of resistance, or we lose focus at the first offer of distraction.

We might not need to call for violent revolution if we just go to the polls and do what needs to be done.

I followed the 2023 elections with so much dedication, and I helplessly watched them get stolen in front of us.

Maybe the same thing will happen again in 2027, but at least I won’t have been standing by idle.

It’ll be unfortunate, but I’ll take that over sitting at home and reading tweets from morning till night and be sharing loud opinions that are backed by zero actions.

For Nigerians, Phase 2 of PVC registration is still ongoing, and it ends tomorrow.

Which means there’s still a chance for you to complete your capturing, and minus potential delays and lack of co-ordination from INEC staff, it’s actually very straightforward.

First, you’ll register online HERE and you’ll fill in your proper details.

Then you’ll go to an INEC ward that’s close to you (check HERE to see locations) for your biometrics capturing.

They’ll give you a receipt that you’ll use to collect your PVC when it’s time, so make sure to photocopy it or take a picture.

When PVCs are ready for collection, you can go and pick yours up and prepare to vote in January 2027.

Simple as that.

This is not “boring” information; it’s information that’s critical to your life and well-being.

And if after all you’ve read in this article, you still don’t see the need for you to participate, then I can do nothing but feel bad for you.

If not for anything else, even if you don’t care about the nation or how it affects your future, then at least, let FOMO drive you to want to participate.

At the end of the day, it’s really up to you.

All I know is that saying “I don’t care” or “It doesn’t affect me” when it comes to political issues at this stage of your life is not impressive at all.

In fact, it almost makes you look and sound stupid.

I’m sorry but… it really does.

Anyways, peace be unto you.

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NOTE - This is an open discussion.

Today, rather than doing any “teaching”, I’m going to be doing the learning.

In all humility, I have a good scope of understanding of a lot of topics, especially the ones that directly and indirectly affect my life.

But I’m also well aware of the fact that I do not know everything, and I’m always eager to learn and ask questions, especially concerning why people think a certain way about certain things.

Unfortunately, some people find this annoying, and I’ve realised that it’s for two reasons:

1. They can’t help but feel attacked and get defensive when their opinions are challenges. And-

2. They themselves don’t even know why they think or believe certain things that they do.

If you fall under either of these two categories, kindly ignore my questions and the rest of this post.

But if you don’t, feel free to answer any questions that you can.

The only conditions I have are that responses should be balanced and not too emotionally subjective.

You can give your personal opinions and express your individual biases; just let it still be reasonable.

Feel free to answer as many as possible, and I’ll be lurking in the comments, observing as always.

Finally, I’m asking to understand, so you should be replying to answer, not to castigate or condemn. This also applies to if arguments arise between readers.

Okay, that’s all; let’s dive in.

1. Why does alcoholism seem to be more “normalised” and socially “accepted” than smoking and doing drugs?

If people are gathered together in a party or taking “shots”, it seems to be a more “comfortable” sight, even to the most conservative minds, than seeing a group of people gathered together at a table smoking from a shisha pipe.

From observation, I’ve noticed that the average person has a tendency to “judge” a smoker faster than a drinker.

Why? Why is drinking alcohol less criminalised than smoking or doing drugs?

Personally, I think it’s because drinking is a more comfortable “aesthetic” to the eyes than smoking from a balloon and puffing it from your nose and mouth or snorting cocaine from a table.

That has to be the reason because, at the end of the day, both of them, when done excessively, are as harmful to the human body and a person’s mind/behaviour as the other.

That’s my view though; let me hear from you.

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2. What’s the practical intersection between feminism and Christianity?

That is, as a Christian woman or man, how do you balance your feminist views with your obedience to the authority of God’s Word.

Personally, and correct me if I’m wrong, I believe that one doesn’t necessarily have to oppose the other if both are expressed with the right balance.

Overtly religious voices will tell you to “pick one” and say things like “a Christian can never be a feminist”, but is that really true?

I see “Christian brothers” ramble on and on about how they can’t “marry a feminist”, and when they explain their points, I don’t really see any sense in it.

Does one have to leave for the other to exist properly?

Let me know.

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(P.S - I think I saw an article on Substack that gave a balanced view on this topic, if you’ve read it; kindly leave the link in the comments for those who need it.)

3. Why do many women seem to love and prefer wigs over their regular hairstyles?

I always get some very brutish responses when I ask this question, and I don’t understand why.

I’m not even trying to be in “women’s business”. I’ve just always been curious to know if there’s any particular aesthetic or social reason.

The response I mostly get is that it’s “personal preference”, and why that’s a 100% viable option. What I want to know is the reason for that personal preference.

Does it stem from a financial perspective? Being that wigs can be one-off investments that cost less to maintain over time than regularly changing hairstyles?

Or does it stem from a social conditioning perspective, where the use of social media influencers and the skewing of beauty standards have caused many women to see their “natural hair” as being “less” and wigs as a “must-have” in order for certain brands to sell their wig products? Sort of like what happened in the make-up industry.

I’m not making inferences; I’m just sharing the narratives I’ve heard.

For context, I began to ponder on this around my graduation time, when one of my friends was telling me how grad prep had been so “expensive” and she still had to get a new wig and some other things.

Innocently, I asked her, “Why don’t you just make one of those long, fancy Pinterest braids? Do you have to wear a wig?”

Her response was like I had just committed blasphemy, and she was like, “How won’t you wear a wig for graduation?”

So, that whole conversation just had me wondering if it was that deep or if I was missing something.

Is hers an isolated case, or are wigs really the standard over regular hairstyles now?

Let me know.

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4. How would you feel if you were in a close friendship with someone who you share things deeply with, but they don’t do the same?

The scenario here is that: You talk about your feelings and your plans regularly with your friend, and you also ask them for advice sometimes, and they’re always so eager and patient and willing to listen and be there for you.

But, on their own end, they’re just calm and casual, and they never really say much or share things that are going on with them in their own personal lives.

You know they love you, care for you, and trust you, and when you mention it, their response it that nothing much is going on with them, at least, nothing noteworthy enough to share.

How would you feel, and are these valid grounds for you to end the friendship or reduce the way you tell them things?

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5. People who don’t believe in God or engage in any form of religious activities, how do you cope when life gets difficult?

Let’s assume all religions are a lie and are just being used as “copium” by people to handle life; in that case, what’s your own copium?

How do you deal on bad days? Where do you run to when it all gets too much? What’s your assurance that tomorrow has a chance of getting better? Where do you drop your burdens?

If you don’t have a force that’s much bigger than you that you rely on, what exactly is the hope or backing that you have?

People are always so quick to fault and berate people who believe in God, refusing to understand that, faith and religion aside, there’s a psychological ease that comes when you put your trust and confidence in a Higher Power.

So, if you’re one of such people, tell me, how do you deal?

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(P.S: Responses like “I listen to music” or “I drink/get high” or “I meditate” don’t count here. I want actual answers.)

Yes, so these are a few of my many questions.

Once again, feel free to respond as you deem fit; just be sensible and respectful about it.

Thanks a lot for your indulgence.

Before I go, last week I launched a sort-of “mini-podcast” page where my Substack articles will be narrated as audio essays.

Ebun Speaks: Audio Essays on Life and Living.

I did this so that it’s easier to consume my content on the go, and also for those people who don’t really like reading.

Three episodes are already out and more will be coming over the next month.

Follow the page so you’ll get access to new episodes every Friday by 8am CAT/ 1am EST / 6am UTC.

Enjoy!

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After 302 days, or 43 weeks, or 7,248 hours, or 434,880 minutes, or 26,092,800 seconds - it’s finally over.

The highly unnecessary NYSC service year has come to an end, and with it, my first (and hopefully, last) corporate job.

Hallelujah to the Lord God Almighty.

This post is scheduled to go live by 4pm, so by the time you’re reading this, I've probably already packed my bags and started to head back to my house.

It might seem like I’m overly excited to be done, but the truth is, I’m really just over it.

I’ve been over it all since August.

Over the waking up early. Over the getting home late. Over the green khakis. Over the monthly clearances. Over the “team meetings”. Over doing tasks that I didn’t enjoy. Over the overly formal emails. Over it all.

So, yes, I’m glad it’s finally over.

Once again: Hallelujah!

Honestly, it’ll be very wrong and ungrateful of me to act like I had a bad service + work year, because by any measurably metric, I did not.

I lived alone, my job was relatively peaceful, I had great co-workers, I made a few new friends, I joined a great church, I finished my debut novel, I got to live in a great city, I had a lot of time to myself, and - most importantly - I had almost no interaction with NYSC outside the monthly clearances.

So, in all honesty, the past 9-11 months were exactly how I wanted it to be: calm, solitary, and largely uneventful, and I’m grateful to God and everyone else who made that possible.

Now, it’s all over, and I’m looking forward to the “next phase” (as everyone keeps calling it), with my biggest anticipation being having the bulk of my time back to myself.

My biggest issue with “corporate” work is and will always be just how much of your time and your life gets traded away to in job in the name of a “salary”.

And it’s crazy because when you measure time and the potential value that can be gotten from it to the job hours:end-of-month salary ratio of like 80% of the corporate workforce, there’s a huge discrepancy.

But, like I wrote before, to each their own.

If you’re trading off time for a job that aligns with your purpose and you still get compensated fairly for it, that’s a W for you.

And if you’re not, then I really hope you have or are planning to have an escape plan, because there’s so much more you could be doing and being.

For me, it doesn’t sound like the type of life I’d like to subscribe to any longer than I already have, so it’s time to leave.

Naturally, there’s been some pushback and confusion from parents and concerned friends.

“So, what will you be doing?” “Why don’t you work for a few years first?” “What’s your next step?” “How do you plan to survive?”

Amongst many others.

What’s surprising the most to me is even the surprise because I’ve been saying this thing for many years now, but I guess nobody thought I was being serious.

But it makes sense that when you’re attempting to do something audacious or something unfamiliar with general expectations, people won’t take you seriously until you actually do it.

That’s fine by me.

And that’s why I’ve been meeting all questions and inquiries with curt responses and simplified answers.

I do appreciate the concern, but apart from my parents, the number of people that I owe an explanation totals to a grand sum of zero.

When you’re aligned with God and you’re confident in yourself and your plan, you’ll have to be very stubborn because discouraging situations and different people will try to discourage you, even in their love.

And if you give in, you’ll end up sacrificing what you want for whatever it is that you’re given, and that’s just very sad.

One of my biggest fears in life is looking back as an old man and realising I didn’t scratch the surface of my potential because I was too afraid to try, or because I was holed up in an office.

That’s scarier to me than being broke or going hungry.

Who knows? Maybe I’ll end up working another job; maybe I won’t.

Either way, the decision would be mine, and I wouldn’t do it “just to earn” or just to “make ends meet” because, frankly, I refuse to trade away my time and my aspirations for the purpose of survival.

There’s way more to life than all that.

I’m not encouraging anybody to jump into uncertain waters or leave what’s working for them; God knows I still have many questions, and I haven’t seen the full picture yet.

However, I’ll never know if I don’t try, and there’s no better time for me to try than now.

Ideate. Plan. Try. Fail/Succeed. Learn. Document. Repeat.

As many times as possible until all the old goals are achieved and new goals are set.

At the end of the day, there’s no one defined path to achieving your goals or reaching your dreams.

You just have to ensure that you’re aligned with your life’s purpose at all times, regardless of the way you’re on, and I’m pretty confident that I’m on the right track.

I had a good year, and now I’m looking forward to a better 5 years, and a better 10 years.

So help me God. Amen.

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I got a few interesting and concerning responses, and I was unsure of how to immediately proceed with all the information, so I just left it.

However, I’ve decided to circle back to the results of the survey and to take them question by question, just so we can talk about them.

The questions I asked were:

= What is/are your biggest struggle(s) in your day-to-day living?

= What issue(s) do you wish more people paid more attention to?

= If you could counsel yourself from 5 years ago, what would you tell him/her?

= What’s your biggest fear?

= What’s your biggest dream?

For this post, we’ll be focusing on the responses to the first questions: The struggles faced on a daily basis.

I split similar responses into different categories so they’re much easier for me to address, and as always, I hope it helps.

(Fair warning - This article is much longer than usual because it’s a whole lot of issues all crammed into one. Enjoy.)

A. Consistency and Discipline.

Responses: “Consistency in my actions”, “Consistency in newly acquired habits and re-sharpening my mindset,” “Discipline,” “Going according to plan.”

Most of the habits and thought patterns that we exhibit or believe in became a staple part of us because they were constantly reinforced in our minds over time.

Whilst many of them were formed consciously, a lot of them were also formed unconsciously, and because they have been part of us for a long time, they are often very difficult to change or remove.

Doing so, or attempting to do so, would require a lot of intense and consistent effort on the part of the individual.

Let’s say you want to build the habit of making your bed every morning. If you have been living life without doing this for twenty-five years, it’s not something you’ll suddenly start doing every day after you wake up.

You might do it for some time, but you’ll most likely forget on some days, and before you know it, you’ve forgotten you were even trying to do it, and you’re back to not doing it at all again.

This is a simple example that points to the fact that you can’t have a habit or a mindset that has been a part of you for 10, 15, or 20 years and think that because you suddenly decided to stop or change it, then it’s going to happen immediately.

It won’t. In fact, it can’t.

This is the same principle that applies to addiction.

The fact that certain indulgences seem so strong and unbeatable is because they have been wired into the fabric of your nature as a result of you doing them consistently for a long period of time.

That’s why I’m saying that these things are not things that you can undo in a short time, even if you have all the willpower and discipline in the world.

And this also applies to the healing from trauma and from mistakes/tragedies of the past.

Scientists believe that a bulk of mindsets that form the roots of many of our actions are formed in our minds without us even being aware.

Therefore, if we’re going to break any of those strongholds, it would require us putting in a conscious and consistent effort of doing so over the same period of time or over a longer period of time than it took to build them in the first place.

I know it sounds overwhelming to think about; that’s why I need you to first take in a deep breath and then exhale.

You have to admit to yourself that breaking this habit or changing this action or being consistent in this action or learning this new habit or changing your mindset about this thing is going to be difficult.

It doesn’t matter what it is, whether it’s going to the gym, becoming more consistent in your devotion, reading books, changing the way you see your friends, forgiving your parents, mending broken relationships, or building a business – whatever it is – you have to be prepared for it to be very hard.

Then the next important thing for you to do is to constantly remind yourself why you are doing what you’re doing.

Make it a mantra:

“I’m hitting the gym consistently because I want to lose weight.”

“I’m forgiving my parents so that if I ever have children in the future, I will not bleed on them by hurting them the same way my parents hurt me.”

“I’m taking this course so I can become better at this skill.”

“I’m building my brand and business so I can become financially independent.”

And so on like that.

You need to have a “why” for whatever it is you’re doing because it will serve as your grounding foundation for days when you’re discouraged, unmotivated, or over-excited by your progress.

I’d advise you to even go a step further by writing it down and putting it somewhere you’ll constantly be seeing it.

For me, anytime I’m trying to ensure something sinks into my consciousness, I type it in bold text in my notes app, I take a screenshot, and then I make it my lockscreen wallpaper.

That way, anytime I open my phone, whether I read it consciously or I don’t, I’m seeing it. The more I see it, the more it settles into my mind, and the more it serves as a reminder.

So far, it’s been very effective.

Once something becomes a part of your subconscious, it indirectly starts to influence your conscious mind; that’s why mental reinforcement through constant imagery is very important.

And that’s why it can also be very dangerous if you’re constantly exposed to seeing the wrong things.

The next important thing for you to master is consistency with the little actions, time after time.

You cannot go from level 1 to level 100 in a day.

If a habit took 10 years to form in you, don’t expect to make 80% of your progress in unlearning it in just a month or in just two months. It’s not just going to happen.

The human brain, as powerful as it is in learning and unlearning things, still needs proper time to make changes and adjustments.

So, you have to be consistent with it, day by day, and you can build this consistency by starting with the “easiest” actions. The goal is to ensure that you’re doing something to improve at every given time.

That’s why they encourage that even on the days when you’re lazy and tired, you should still show up at the gym and do something, even if it’s not your regular routine.

The same applies to thoughts, even more so.

Anytime you catch yourself thinking in a direction that you don’t want to think in, pull your mind back, and point it to the direction of the new mindset you are trying to form.

It’s these little but regular actions that will compound into growth and changes as the years pass, even if it’s not outrightly obvious.

My final advice on this is that you should focus less on what you are trying NOT to do and focus more on what you ARE trying to do.

I’ve written more extensively about this before:

If you want to lose weight, don’t tell yourself “I don’t want to be overweight”, rather, say “I want to be physically healthy”.

It’s just a small shift, but it makes all the mental difference in the world when you take your eyes off the problem and focus it on the solution you are trying to implement.

Another thing that would help you is finding a partner or a group of people who can hold you accountable for the new habit you’re trying to build.

It could be people you’ll go with to the gym, or a cell unit in church with people you’ll do spiritual activities with, or a savings group with people who also want to build financial discipline. Could be anything.

Accountability helps because we are social creatures, so we like social validation.

When you have a group of friends doing something they enjoy together, regardless of what it is, there’s a good chance it will happen regularly.

So, yeah, these are the few ways I believe will help build consistency and discipline and get you closer to achieving your goals.

B. Procrastination & Distraction.

Responses: “Procrastination,” “Time wasting,” “Doomscrolling,” “Getting carried away by irrelevance,” “Mindless gossip,” “Not having a daily plan.”

Hehe, I honestly love the self-awareness.

I already comprehensively spoke about how to deal with bad habits and replace them with better ones in the previous section.

However, what’s interesting is that we can know the solutions to all of our problems and we’ll still not do anything to implement them.

It’s easy to talk about changing your life or wanting to change a situation, but it’s much harder to actually do something about it.

The fact that you’re hungry doesn’t mean you have an appetite. Same way, the fact that you’re angry or hurt by something doesn’t mean you’re ready to confront or change it (Nigeria in a nutshell).

So, you have to check: This habit I want to change, have I done anything tangible in the past few months to work on it, or have I started doing the opposite of this thing consistently enough for me to confidently say that I am building a better habit?

Yes? No?

One thing I’ll just add is that when you are trying to beat a habit, the best way to do so is by replacing it with another habit.

This is one of the basic tenets from James Clear’s Atomic Habits: Just replace the bad habit with a new, much better one.

Whatever habit it is that you are struggling with, think of something better and more productive, and then slowly – because, like I said, it takes time – start to phase it in as you phase out the other one.

And for the sake of emphasis, you want to: Focus more on what you want to achieve and less on what you don’t want to achieve.

C. Direction & Purpose Confusion.

Responses: “Lack of direction,” “Not knowing who I want to be,” “Indecisiveness,” “Sensitivity.”

Discovering purpose, which simply means knowing who you want to be and what you want to do with your life, is something that’s necessary for everybody to do.

Every life has a purpose, and to live life without one is one of the saddest mistakes a person can make.

I believe that the best way to know your purpose is paying attention to your burdens, that is, the things on your heart that bother you, the things you complain about and wish you could change, and the things you see around you that you wish would be better.

Oftentimes, these things are a pointer to your calling, so you need to pay serious attention to them. And as you start identifying them, you also need to start doing whatever it is you can to address them.

You can start taking theoretical steps, like learning about the issue, and practical steps, like doing whatever you can to change it.

For example, if you don’t like seeing children begging on the streets, you can intern at an NGO that does that kind of work. Or if there’s a child in your area that you see around often, you can offer him/her food as often as you can.

The goal is for you to do whatever you can do in the capacity you can, and then as you grow, you’ll aim to do more and to spread your sphere of impact.

The thing about these burdens is that, more often than not, they are not things that you chose to worry about. They are just intrinsic worries that have existed as far back as you can remember.

We all have these burdens, and the only way you’ll miss out on them is if you’ve not been self-aware, and even then, the fact that you’re not aware of something doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.

Apart from burdens, your skills and abilities also serve as a pointer to what your purpose in life is.

Whatever you are good at, whatever comes to you naturally, and whatever you enjoy doing, you should think of how you can use it to benefit the world and the people around you and how you can also use it to make a living for yourself.

Many people believe that you always have to pick one, but I disagree.

Yes, you can choose to do either, but you can also choose to do both. You can have fun and make a living from doing what you enjoy; it’s not impossible.

If you lack that “sense of direction” with your life, it’s simply because you haven’t found your bearings yet, and regardless of what anybody says, that doesn’t spell the end of the world for you.

Once you start to get an idea of what your purpose in life is, even if you don’t see the clear picture yet, finding “direction” becomes easier for you.

This is because you’ll start to know the things to learn, the things to give attention to, and the things to tailor your life around, at least on a general scale.

The more you do this, the clearer the picture gets as time passes.

For the people who struggle with indecisiveness, I’d tell you to remind yourself of all the times you were indecisive in decision-making and how much you regretted it after the moment had passed.

Regret is a painful teacher, but it’s a very effective one too.

And like I said before, whatever you’re doing or trying to do, you should have a strong “why”, and you must be ruthless with yourself about sticking with it.

It gets to a certain point in life where nobody will have to advise or encourage you about anything again because you by yourself will decide that enough is enough, you’re making a change, and nothing will get in your way.

The struggle with not knowing the kind of man or woman you want to be traces back to the fact that you’ve not identified your purpose in life yet. That’s the gap that first needs to be bridged.

Once you know what you want to do, then you will have a good idea of what a person that wants to do that has to look and sound like, and then you can work on effectively shaping yourself into that person.

Remember, it’s a slow process, but if you start today and are consistent every day, then by this time next year, you’ll be much closer to being the person you want to be than you are today.

Finally, for those struggling with being “sensitive”, first off, I want you to know that it’s not entirely a bad thing, especially in this age where dopamine exposure and constant exposure to sensationalism has almost everyone feeling numb and unaware of the true depths of their emotions.

You just have to learn to manage your emotions so you channel them to the right things at the right time.

I expounded on a similar concept in this article:

It has everything you need to help you understand how to better control your emotions, especially in relation to the words and actions of other people.

D. Financial & Survival Pressure.

Responses: “Money,” “Family financial struggle,” “Honestly just trying to survive and stay productive,” “Living… not surviving.”

Sighhhhh… the real matters.

Permit me to digress a bit…

Everybody likes money. Everybody needs money. Everybody uses money. Money is very, very important to our lives and to the things that we do.

People like to misquote the Bible and say that “money is the root of all evil”, but that’s very wrong.

The Bible says that the love of money is the root of evil, and the meaning of “love” there is excessive obsession.

And we can clearly see this in play in our world today because 90% of the atrocities committed by humans to other humans on a daily basis all trace back to money and a desire for power.

When you centre your entire life around money, you are making it your identity, so it’s all you think of and it’s all that you are.

When you don’t have it, you’re obsessed with chasing it, and you’ll do whatever to get it. And when you have it, your life becomes about showing off your money and being reckless with it.

Then even after all this, you’re still not satisfied, so you keep going for more, more, more, more, more.

It’s an endless cycle that often times ended in shame, regret, and an outright regression into poverty.

That’s why the Bible warns against reaching that level of money-mindedness where it consumes your soul, and it’s easy to get to this point, especially if you were born or raised around an environment that was characterised by poverty and lack.

So, we have to be very careful.

However, the truth is that we all need money, and we all use money, so never let anybody make you feel bad because you desire a better financial life for yourself.

And never let anybody use your current financial status to mock you as insignificant if it’s bad or to exalt you as a god if it’s good. Don’t also do either of the things to yourself.

We all like it, we all love it, we all need it, and we all want it, but at the end of the day, money should never be valued over our souls, over our values and principles, over our reputations and names, and over our friendships or relationships.

It should never be placed above intangible things that cannot be easily replaced, because money is tangible, and trust me, in theory, it’s one of the “easiest” things to get in this life.

Now, back to the original point, I understand the weight of being in that situation where you are struggling financially or where your family or your parents are not so well off, so making ends meet is hard.

I understand the feelings of frustration and hopelessness that can come with it, and it’s a very sad and often lonely path because you might not know who to ask for help or even have anybody to ask for help.

Sometimes, it can also be a road that’s plagued with shame because there’s this stigma around money in our society today that’s especially directed toward people who don’t have lots of it.

And it is very ironic because statistics have shown that Nigeria has the highest poverty rate in the world, so, logically, it’s normal for most of her citizens not to be swimming in millions.

Yet, in all this, we’ve found a way to be classist and discriminatory toward one another, despite a good percentage of the population being in the same situation. It’s insane.

On the same hand, we now also have those people who refuse to come to terms with their financial situation, and they now go about projecting that they are more well-to-do than they actually are, forcing them to live under constant pressure to keep up appearances.

That’s not a proper way to live at all.

In relation to financial pressure, I’d say that, and this might sound cliché, things could always get better.

And I’m not trying to sell you false hope; that’s why I’ll add that if you are currently not doing anything to change your financial status – if you are not reading books, if you are not working, if you are not starting a business, if you are not selling a product, if you are not offering something – then you will most likely always be broke.

That’s the truth.

And if your brilliant idea to achieve financial freedom is gambling or begging or hunting for giveaways or trying to win the lottery, then I really pity you because you’ll remain stuck for a while.

Those once-in-a-lifetime, once-in-a-million odds, one-person-in-10,000-people methods of making money will not work for everybody. And even if they somehow work for you, you could end up finding yourself in a situation where you don’t have the structures or wisdom to handle the money that you now suddenly have.

I see people make jokes about how they wish they had a billion dollars, and it amuses me just how many people don’t understand the power of money; they just talk a lot about getting it.

And many of such people don’t each have substantial things they want to use money for, just frivolities upon frivolities.

No judgement, I mean, to each their own, but the truth is that many people have ruined their own lives because they got into possession of amounts of money that they were not ready, both mentally and physically, to handle.

So, keeping all these in mind, I would sum it up to two things:

Number one, you need to find something to do.

What can you do right now? What can you start with what you have? What is a solution you can provide to a pressing problem?

The basic principle for income is that you’re either selling something or providing a value.

Most people start by selling their time; that’s where 9-5 jobs and the likes come in. Or selling a skill or service that they have.

However, while these things work properly if done well, I believe the foolproof way, especially long-term, of becoming wealthy is by making yourself so valuable that it literally defies logic for you not to be rich.

It’s highly impossible for a superstar musician who is being invited to headline shows around the world to be poor because he’s being valuable to people, and that value is then putting money in his pocket.

The second thing I would say is that, while you are still trying to figure out how to make a consistent income and grow your wealth, you should also be learning as much as you can about money.

Read books, track your spending habits, and build the discipline to have a saving culture, however little.

All this is necessary because you can suddenly come into a lot of money, maybe your business explodes or someone sends you a huge amount of money, so you don’t want to be in that space where you get overexcited or overwhelmed and you don’t know what to do with all of it because you were not mentally prepared.

Building structures will always help you in advance.

Finally, about your desire to live and not just survive.

I understand that sometimes, if you don’t have a lot of money, it can be difficult to enjoy certain experiences.

It’s even worse if you are in a society like here in Nigeria, where the cost of living is always reaching all-time highs, and “fun” activities are often gatekept behind relatively expensive costs.

However, I strongly believe that the notion and conditioning around our society that you always have to be outside doing something expensive before you have fun is very wrong.

You can create your own memorable experiences absolutely for free.

The reason people don’t seem to enjoy such activities anymore is because they’re not always so aesthetically pleasing to post about online or to show off to strangers on the internet.

I saw a video about a friendship/romantic date idea that literally cost nothing but a few hours of video watching and a few hours of conversation, and the idea made total sense to me.

Apart from it being free, it is also an effective exercise for gauging the intelligence and articulation abilities of the person you are talking to, so you’ll effectively be killing two birds with one stone.

And there are thousands of other similar ideas all around us.

The harsh truth is that, whether you are broke now or whether you are rich now, life is going to keep passing, and trust me, you don’t want it to pass you by.

In 10 years, you’ll be 10 years older than you are today.

If you keep waiting till you have millions to tour the world or till you can take aesthetic pictures or do things on a grand scale, then you’re doing nothing but denying yourself of the many pleasures in life that are freely available.

You’re already alive, so now you have to live.

Certain financial situations might put you in circumstances where you know you have to be in “survival mode”, and you might not have the liquid cash flow to do many things.

E. Spiritual & Moral Struggles.

Responses: “Keeping a consistent relationship with God,” “Lust.”

I know by personal experience that spiritual fervency can sometimes feel like this never-ending cycle that has you drifting from progress to struggle to progress and back to struggle again.

That being said, I’ll be speaking to this section from a Christian perspective, and the first thing I want you, and anybody else who is struggling, to know is that absolutely nobody has it all completely figured out.

Trust me, nobody does.

Even the best of preachers have days of struggles. Even the best of scholars have days of doubts. Even the best of teachers have many unanswered questions.

People like to embody perfection and project sainthood, but no human can ever truly reach that point. If we could, what then is the point of relying on a perfect Creator for anything?

What many “spiritually fervent” people do differently than others is to have two things in their lives: Faith driven by knowledge and a system for consistency in spiritual activities.

However, before we dive into that, I need you to know, as a matter of foundational knowledge, that God, God in heaven, wants this relationship with you more than you could ever think of wanting it.

So, no matter how much you struggle, no matter how much you try, no matter how discouraged you feel about the fact that you just can’t seem to “get it right”, God is not angry or annoyed.

In fact, that you’re even trying already makes him happy and excites him, the same way we get excited to talk to people who we love.

Another thing to know, foundationally, is that God’s love for us is not predicated on our activities. The love of God for us is constant and permanent regardless of whatever we do, and it doesn’t ever change.

He doesn’t love anybody more because they pray more or because they know their Bible more; the love is equal to all, on the same plain level for everybody.

The only things that differ from person to person are the level of love we have for God and our revelation knowledge of him.

And it is in our bid to understand and know him more that we then engage in spiritual activities.

So, with the knowledge of these two things, even if you’re struggling, you should be encouraged.

As long as you are trying, as long as you are doing something, as long as you’re really making an effort, then you’re already on the right path.

This doesn’t make sense to the human mind because 90% of our relationships are based on one condition or another, but God’s love isn’t.

That’s why even if you go days or weeks without reading your Bible or praying, whilst it’s not ideal, God doesn’t get angry with you or start to keep malice against you.

Whenever you come back, he’s ready for you to continue.

With this foundation set, let’s track back to our two pillars of spiritual consistency: faith by knowledge and consistent systems.

You know, in our Christian faith, we talk about a man who did miracles and was hung on a cross and then rose up again after dying; we talk about otherworldly realms and angels; we talk about moral uprightness and self-denial; and we talk about many other things.

Many of these things defy logic to an extent.

They are not all completely “foolish” because we have historical and scientific bases for a lot of them, but many of these things also can’t be perfectly “proven” by the wisdom of men because they are spiritual things.

Therefore, we need a level of faith – faith that extends beyond reasonable doubt.

And this faith must be driven by knowledge because the more we learn about these things, the more our belief in them grows.

At least, ideally.

For many people, the more they learn about spiritual things and Christian things, the less their faith becomes, and that just shows that there is something wrong with the way they are going about it.

Either they are not asking the right questions or they are getting the wrong answers.

The bottom line is that a level of faith is needed to believe in these things because when “atheists” and “deconstructionists” start to do their little breakdowns and bring their tricky questions that are perfectly designed to throw you off, if you are not careful, you might start to find yourself having doubts.

Now, asking questions is not a crime; in fact, it should be encouraged more often.

But if your basis for believing in God or in the Bible is that everything in it must be 100% comprehensible by your tiny human mind, then you’re already wrong.

Now, to the issue of deconstruction.

First off, I don’t believe it’s a sin or a Biblically wrong action.

Many people try to shut people up when they start asking uncomfortable questions about the faith, and it goes to show how shallow their own beliefs must also be.

The full ways of God in His divinity might not be questionable, but we’re allowed to have questions about His actions in the activities of men.

Questions like ‘Why did God order the genocide of inhabitants of many nations?’ ‘Why did God wipe the earth with a flood?’ ‘What happens to children when they die?’ ‘Why do women seem so “subjugated” in biblical texts?’ ‘Did God support slavery?’

Many questions like these and many more.

The problem is that when you start asking all of them, overtly religious people who also had these questions but never had the courage to ask them will try to shut you up and to make you feel like you are doing too much or that you’re a child of the Devil.

But the thing is that God loves you, and he wants you to come to him with your questions so that he can answer them. And then after you get your answers, your faith would then increase.

We might not get all the answers we want. But we can get the ones that truly matter to our journey on Earth.

That’s why I said faith driven by knowledge is the first important component.

Many people who are spiritually consistent have certain knowledge about spiritual things that they’ve learnt over time through personal experiences or through teachings that have now solidified their faith.

So, I’ll encourage you to never feel discouraged.

Yes, you have questions and you have doubts, but they should never make you feel guilty. Just focus on bridging your knowledge gap.

You should find a proper spiritual teacher or mentor; listen to sermons that answer these questions – from the right people too, so you don’t get deceived – and build your knowledge base so you can build your faith.

Bonus Tip - You can also subscribe to , my other newsletter where I try my best, as inspired, to write knowledge-based articles on the Christian faith, answer questions, and clear misconceptions.

And since the timing is perfect, I’ll plug in this excerpt from my church’s Bible Study on Tuesday.

For those with certain questions…

The second pillar for spiritual fervency is a system for consistency.

I’ve spoken a lot about consistency in this article, and that’s simply because it’s the driving factor of growth in any area of life. Once again, the best way to be consistent is by starting with the little things and doing them as regularly as possible.

In this context, those things include: Studying the Bible, praying, and learning the Word of God.

We need to build a system that allows us to do these things consistently because we can’t truly say we want to grow and then leave it all to chance.

When do you pray? Immediately after you wake up or before you sleep? When do you read your Bible? Do you attend church regularly? All these things need defined structures.

Feel free to start little, you know, 10 minutes, 15 minutes, and then you scale and you grow from there.

Don’t let anybody make you feel like because you’ve not done a 100-hour prayer marathon, you are a failure and God will not answer your prayers.

Don’t let anybody intimidate you or belittle you, because, at the end of the day, it’s not a competition.

In fact, I strongly believe that it’s better to be consistent with the little things than to be doing the “big” things all the time and not be consistent with them.

Of course, growth is also as important as consistency because it doesn’t make sense for you to be doing 15 minutes of prayers for 5 or 10 years. That’s extreme stagnation.

The more you do something, the better you get at it, the more you should be able to grow in it also.

In summary, to improve your relationship with God, you have to build your faith by learning more about him and then have a system for consistent fellowship with him.

Honestly, it’s much “easier” than many people think because there’s a lot of grace available for us.

I used to think these things were unattainable till I started to learn and build consistency.

The “hack” I’ll recommend is that you listen to sermons regularly. It’s a perfect way to learn fast and the best system for consistent spiritual consciousness.

Just find two to three preachers who resonate with you, check their messages on Spotify or YouTube, and then listen, listen, listen, and apply, apply, apply.

You’ll be surprised by how much you’ll grow in 3 months.

I understand that many people are scared of taking their spiritual lives more seriously because they’re worried about how much they might change and just how many things they’ll have to put off.

Well, your fear is not invalid or completely irrational, but I’d just say this:

Unless you believe there are absolutely NO BENEFITS to having a good relationship with God, then you can continue, but if you do, then the earlier the better for you.

If you don’t find God in the days of peace, trust me, it’ll be much harder for you to find him in times of trouble.

He’ll be there, of course, but if you’ve not mastered Him when there’s no pressure, when pressure comes, you won’t know exactly what to do to get what you want.

At the end of the day, we seek God for who He is and not for the things He can give.

Now… let’s talk about lust.

I have written an article about this subject in the past, but it was mostly directed at the male gender.

I also have a follow-up article to it that hasn’t been published yet, but that is also focused on the male gender.

I know that women struggle with lust too, but I mean, according to social observation, it’s more of a struggle for men, especially if we are to consider the expressors of its grave consequences on our society.

So… how do we deal with lust?

Well, there’s the spiritual manner that involves prayer, meditation, and all those other things, and there’s the mental/behavioural manner which involves the rewiring of the mind to replace the habit with something else.

I think for something as addictive as lust, and also because it takes lower effort to express than other negative traits, you’ll first have to really decide within yourself that you don’t want to entertain it anymore.

Then you’ll start to make conscious behavioural adjustments.

You must become very aggressive about the things you think about and the things you spend time concentrating on.

So, if it’s the movies you watch, or if it’s your TikTok For You page, or if it is your playlists, or if it is the books, you’ll have to do a thorough and honest review on which and what has to be cut off.

You see this our human brain? It loves reinforcement.

So, you cannot be constantly feeding your mind with a particular thing and not expect that thing to become a part of your nature, whether it’s good or bad.

Anything around you that constantly brings those ideas or thoughts to your head has to go, and then you have to replace those things with something else because that void needs to always have something that’s filling it.

Read new books and read different genres of books; it’s not every time that you must read fantasy romance stories with the billionaire CEO and his shy secretary, come on.

Find new things that are just as interesting to fill your mind up with because it always starts with a thought.

In life, once you can master controlling your thoughts, you will master your actions, and then you will master being the kind of person you want to become.

Lust is a very common struggle, and yet it’s one that’s often spoken about with so much stigma/condemnation or not even spoken about at all, especially in spiritual spaces.

You must understand that the desire you feel and the thoughts you have are rooted in a completely natural impulse, so there’s nothing “wrong” with you.

However, as with many things that relate to life, anything that’s done at extreme levels or done perversely often has adverse effects on the doer.

Effects that are different from the regular benefits that the action/thought was originally meant to provide.

So, we have to be careful.

I understand that lust also has spiritual originations (it’s the opposite of the first fruit of the spirit, which is love), so you can’t completely throw away your responsibility in that realm, but your physical actions matter just as much.

That’s how it works.

It most likely won’t be easy. In fact, I can guarantee you that it won’t.

I can tell you that you’ll have many moments of struggle and even many times when you’ll stumble and fall, and then shame and guilt and condemnation will come.

All this is a part of the process and is to be expected.

However, the BIGGEST MISTAKE that you can make is to stay on the ground and to give up. You can’t do that.

Always remember:

Change your thoughts, change your actions, change your life.

F. Social Boundaries & Relationships.

Responses: “Not knowing how to say no to friends,” ”Fellowship struggles.”

Based on everything that has been covered in this article, loose ideas on how to face these struggles have already been suggested.

Once again, I recommend you read my article The Art of Never Getting Offended.

Many people struggle with saying “no” to friends or setting boundaries in relationships for two major reasons.

For the first reason, we need to do a little background review.

As we should all know, our childhood experiences play a more than significant role in determining how we live and think for the rest of our lives.

If you’re someone who was brought up in a home where your relationship with your parents was a top-to-down one, meaning that you had to do every single thing they commanded, regardless of whether you liked or understood it or not, it could result in you not being able to have autonomy in your friendships.

Ironically, it could also result in you having a lot of autonomy in friendships and in your life in general, up to the point where you never want anybody to tell you what to do or to advise you because for so long you were not able to do anything else apart from what people told you to do.

While that’s another extreme, that’s not the focus right now.

The second reason, which I believe is more common, is that you have a low self-esteem or a very bad perception of yourself.

If you’re someone who is constantly seeking the validation of your thoughts and actions from people, you’ll always be too afraid to say or do anything that might upset them, even when you need to.

And that includes times when you have to put your feet on the ground and say “No” or express your displeasure about something.

There’s the place of sacrifice and compromise in relationships, yes, but when it gets to the point where you are now infringing on your values, belittling things that matter to you, afraid to step on toes, afraid of confrontation, or afraid of having difficult conversations, then it starts to become a serious problem.

It will be difficult for you to “reject” and say “no” to people when you’re constantly tiptoeing around conflict and being the only “odd” one out in a situation.

So, that self-esteem issue you have is the root, and everything else you’re experiencing is merely a symptom.

The only treatment for this is that you become more self-assured and more grounded in your person.

The more confident you are in yourself and with your values and your personality, the easier it becomes for you to set boundaries against the things that don’t align with who you are or what you want.

And as you’re working on doing that, sometimes you’ll just have to fight against all the resistance you feel within you to force out the “No!”

At first, it will be difficult to tell your friend that you can’t hang out anymore, and it will be hard to insist that you no longer do certain things, but the more you do it, the easier it becomes.

In fact, sometimes, you might almost feel like you’ll die, but you won’t die.

I know this because I’ve been there.

Anytime I speak on all these issues and I write expansive articles such as this, it’s because I’ve been in these situations, I’ve come out, and now I have an idea of what it takes to bring other people out.

Other times, it’s that I know someone who has been there, who has come out, and with the knowledge I got from their experiences, I have a strong understanding of how to do the same if I ever find myself in that same position.

So, yes, I know it can be difficult to reject people, to be scared of offending them, and to confront them when they hurt you, but it’s something you’ll have to master.

Especially if you’re going to live a principled life that’s devoid of people-pleasing and unnecessary compromise.

At the end of the day, habits, once again, are built by little but consistent compounding over time.

That’s how you get your results.

Finally, for fellowship struggles, I’m guessing this has to do with you not being comfortable with being in a group of people or doing things together with other people.

Well, I’ll be honest and just say that I don’t have a specific answer to this because I also don’t always enjoy being involved in things that have to do with other people, especially when they’re strangers.

It’s not even a struggle for me; I just don’t like the idea or the reality because I enjoy working by myself.

However, I know that it’s something I will have to work on becoming comfortable with as time goes by because with the plans I have, the projects I’m building, and the things I’m getting involved with, I will eventually need a team of like-minded people around me to work with.

I’ve barely started, and some things already seem like too much to handle alone.

So, let’s just decide, you and I, that we are going to step out of that box of complete dependency on self and source for help whenever we need it.

It’s a necessity because if anybody is going to do anything long-term and substantial, and if they are going to be consistent at it, then they will need partners and people who support them and keep them accountable.

We’re human beings, and, like it or not, we need each other because no man is an isle.

That’s a simple example to show that on the path to greatness, we all need people to help us.

If one can chase a thousand, and two can chase ten thousand, then imagine what tens and hundreds will do if they’re working in the same unity of mind.

Remember the story of the tower of Babel? It’s the same vibe.

I’ve actually promised myself that I would start to try to be more involving of people in my plans, and even though the mere thought still makes me cringe sometimes.

This whole teamwork thing comes easy to some, but for others, it’s more difficult.

Some people are firstborns who have had to shoulder the bulk of responsibility by themselves all their lives, while some others are only children who have had to do it all on their own since they’ve been born.

These and others are the reasons many people don’t understand how to open up to a team, or how to be vulnerable, or how to work with people, so they just prefer to work alone.

For me, I like working alone because when I have my ideas, I feel like nobody else would “get it” as much as I do. So until it’s something I can’t do or learn how to do or just don’t want to do, I usually go solo.

However, at the end of the day, the point of building a team and building people is getting them on your wavelength and taking charge from the front as a leader.

That’s what it’s all about.

We’ll just have to learn how to trust, be patient in disappointment, be forgiving in betrayal, and be enlarged in our hearts to the point where we can allow people to help us with things and to do things for us.

The earlier we start, the better for us, so let’s just try.

Okay?

G. Existential / Emotional Weight.

Responses: “Being alive.”

I believe that life is a beautiful gift.

Once we die and we leave this earth, that’s the end of all those things.

We can debate all day on whether the afterlife exists or not, and while I believe it does, the honest truth is that the activities in the afterlife and the activities here on Earth are completely parallel and a billion, infinite miles apart.

The things that matter to us don’t matter to them, and the things that matter to them at the moment currently don’t really matter to us.

My point is that being alive is a very beautiful gift.

So many people have passed away who we wish were still with us. So many people have died early in ways that were shocking and unexpected, and the grief left with their loved ones is never ever painless or easy to bear.

As long as we are alive, we need to appreciate the privilege of being alive.

I’m not denying the existence of pain and struggles.

And I know people say, “I’m suffering, I’m struggling, my whole life is pain, I don’t know happiness. What kind of a life is this? I’m sick; all I know is pain. Why should I want to continue living? ” and many other things like that.

I’ve not claimed that life is a bed of roses or that it’s easy for all.

I understand struggles to an extent, but I also understand that there are certain struggles that I can never understand.

I know there are people who are going through a lot of insane, unspoken things, pain, haunted by trauma from the past, and by decisions in the present, and by fears about the future.

There are certain situations that I might never be able to know or relate to the pain they carry, so I’m not trying to be insensitive, and I’m not saying, “It doesn’t matter; just live.”

I’m not a prophetic seer that’s coming to claim and tell you that “everything will get better”, because the truth is, sometimes, life just seems to get worse.

Sometimes it doesn’t get better; sometimes it doesn’t look like it’s getting better anytime soon. I understand and I relate to most of those feelings.

HOWEVER…

The bottom line at the end of the day is: No matter how low you get and no matter how bad shit turns, as long as you are still alive, there’s a chance that things will get better.

No matter how bad or dark the tunnel gets, as long as you are alive, as long as you are still breathing, there’s a chance that things will get better.

And the higher your will to live and to conquer life gets, the more you increase your chances of things turning around.

In this fallen world, only the stubborn will survive.

Often times, when people are at their lowest lows, they don’t see any end out of the tunnel, and that’s why they remain in the tunnel for a long time.

But when we can rise up through our challenges and despair and look forward and see forward and picture a better life, a better way at the end of the day, we will give ourselves better chances of reaching there.

This is not a one-size-fits-all principle, but the constant is that: As long as you are alive, as long as you are living, there’s a chance that things will get better and that you will be your hope.

I believe that hope is worth holding on to.

So, please, I beg you, live on and keep living.

Whilst reading the responses and writing this post, I realised that, at least on a surface level, many of us wrestle with the same issues and the same thoughts on a daily basis.

The challenges might come in different shapes and sizes, but if you look around you and pay a little more attention, you’ll realise that you’re not as alone as you think.

That’s comforting, in some sort of way, because, even if we can’t all understand each individual’s pain and their experiences, we can use the things we do know to help one another.

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Which is why I want to encourage you to share this article with as many young people as you know or with anybody whom you believe it might help.

I usually leave the sharing to your discretion, but on this occasion, permit me to appeal to you to share it with someone or people who you know might need to read it.

If you got a lesson or two from it, it won’t hurt for someone else to do the same.

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: Those who are FOR and those who are AGAINST.

Many debatable opinions usually have a right vs. wrong or good vs. bad standpoint in play.

However, sometimes, neither side is exactly wrong, and neither side is completely right.

And what strikes me nowadays is the ability of both sides of an argument to drag the stances and the expression of opinions to extremely opposing levels.

We’re at the point where #TeamFOR and #TeamAGAINST, regardless of the topic, are now more than willing to throw out every form of balance, nuance, and agreeableness in order to establish their opinion on an argument.

It’s very worrying.

And it’s concerning because it happens all the time nowadays, especially when it comes to certain conversations around gender, religion, politics, women‘s rights, shared human experiences, and others.

As a generation, we seem to have lost our ability to be objective, so what we’re becoming is a bunch of angry, opinionated people who are holding on tightly to their subjective beliefs and refusing to see any positives the other side has to offer.

This culture of extremity applies in many ways, but for this article, I want to focus on one direction:

The desperate attempt of this generation to be completely “different” from previous generations.

Extremes. Extremes. Extremes.

Everywhere you go and in every context of our lives and living nowadays, somebody is giving an extreme opinion about a subject.

It’s terrible, and even though it’s still early days, we’re already setting a terrible precedent for the next generation.

We’re not even done dealing with the extremes that our parents created and imposed on us, and we’re already creating and imposing a new set on ourselves.

In a bid not to make the same mistakes they made in the past, we’re making mistakes of our own, and we’re doing this because we’ve decided to go completely in the opposite direction.

- Many of our parents were blindly religious, so we want to be completely apostate.

- Marriage was used as a tool to control women, so we want to completely denounce it as we berate the women who desire it.

- Women had no say in childbirth and family planning, so we want to demonise pregnancy and childbirth as we villainise the women who want to have children.

- Politics has put our country in a ditch, so we want to be completely apathetic towards it and pretend it doesn’t matter.

- Society has been terrible to poor men, so we want to abandon the development of values and well-rounded personalities so we can chase money and become men who have money.

- Men have been conditioned by society to bottle things up and hide their emotions, so we want to raise men who resort to tears at every difficult juncture rather than rise up to face the challenge.

- As children, our voices were silenced, and we were suppressed in the name of “discipline”, so we’ve decided to raise pampered children who won’t learn the pain of discipline and the culture of respect.

Do you get the point?

In a bid to avoid A, we’ve decided to adopt Z, and both of them, despite being different, will have similar outcomes that won’t be favourable to us at the end of the day.

I’ll give you the THREE major reasons why we’ve become this way:

1. Firstly, we’re traumatised.

Due to the hurt and pain that many of the decisions and actions made by the older generation have caused us, we have now become bitter and resentful when it comes to handling certain topics.

We’re highly sensitive when those topics are mentioned, so when we respond, we subconsciously lash out in pain and in hurt.

Is this pain valid? Many times, yes.

Is this trauma justified? Oh, definitely; in many situations it is.

However, anything that attempts a solution that’s borne out of anger or hate cannot produce positive results.

These negative emotions are a pointer to something deeper, and until that root of hurt is removed from the equation, we cannot resolve whatever issue we’re facing properly.

If your dad was abusive, there’s a good chance you’ll grow up resenting male authoritative figures, and you’ll become aggressive anytime a man of any kind tries to “tell you what to do”, even if the person is in a position to.

Clean water can never flow out of a polluted stream.

So, until we deal with the things that ail us from within, we’re going to keep spinning extremes upon extremes every time.

2. The second reason we’re tilting toward extremes is because we’re afraid.

We’re so afraid of making the same mistakes and errors that the people before us did that we now largely believe that the only way to avoid doing so is by doing the exact opposite of what they did.

In many cases, this is not always the most effective solution.

Fear, like the other negative emotions mentioned earlier, is a terrible foundation for a solution because it is a blinder.

Fear tunnels your vision and shows you only the worst possible scenario, effectively leading you to adopt irrational decisions because they seem “safe”.

I’m afraid that because we’re afraid of being like our parents, we’re going to end up being like them.

Or even worse.

3. The third reason we’re becoming an extreme generation is because we believe we know better than the people who came before us.

Do I think so? Yes.

Do I really think so? No.

I’m a man of balance, so I recognise context and situational differences, and I can say that whilst we’re very knowledgeable about things, there are still so many things we DO NOT know.

As a generation, we have lost and are still losing a lot of specific wisdom about specific issues, wisdom that many of the ones who came before us possess in unquantifiable amounts.

And I think this is a trend that occurs generation after generation.

- For us at this time, we’re very good at putting ourselves first, but the people who came before us are much better at making sacrifices.

- We are good at setting boundaries in relationships, but they are much better at maintaining long-term relationships, even without regular contact.

- This generation is good at fighting for rights, but they are much better at enduring difficult situations till they pass, regardless of discomfort.

So, the honest truth is that neither generation is “wiser” or “better” than the other; we just have different primary knowledge for our different times.

However, at the end of the day, I believe that what gives the older generation the wisdom advantage is this little thing called: EXPERIENCE.

I honestly don’t care how “smart” you are from your books and your TikTok videos and your discussions with your like-minded agemates; you CANNOT be as wise as someone who has treaded the same path you’re treading for 30 or 40 more years than you have.

Please, don’t think that I’m saying that age is a catalyst for wisdom; I’m not. There are many old fools around us, and we see and interact with them daily.

Old age doesn’t equal wisdom, and I wish many more of them knew this.

What I’m saying is that:

If I have spent 5 years as a writer reading books and acquiring knowledge on writing, I cannot be as good as a writer who has spent 30 years doing the same writing, even if I have more theoretical knowledge than he does.

And even if I have more “talent” than him, he will still beat me by skill because he’s more experienced at it.

That’s the truth.

We see this in sports all the time when an average team of experienced players will often beat a young team of extremely talented players.

There’s just no substitute for first-hand experience in life.

That’s why we must not believe that because we have some new-age wisdom about how not to repeat the mistakes of former generations, we must now completely discard their ways because we can’t learn anything from them.

That’ll be foolish.

We might have the “idea” of what to do better in our heads; that’s fine, but until we actually get there and do better, we can’t claim to truly know better.

We might be “woke” in all our ways, but they have the real-life lived experience that many of us won’t get until we’ve lived another 30-50 years.

And experience will always beat theoretical knowledge, especially in the practical situations of life.

Who would you trust with your life?

A first-time 20-year-old surgeon who got A+ in all his practice surgeries in medical school, or a 70-year-old surgeon who has done 100 surgeries in his entire career?

Even if only 70 of his 100 surgeries have been successful, many of us will still pick the old surgeon because he’s done what we want many times before and he gives us a better chance.

Same applies here.

Even in the foolishness of our elders, there’s still so much wisdom to learn from many of them.

That’s my point.

Many people don’t know that the fact that they are aware of an issue, knowledge-wise, doesn’t mean that they have the wisdom that’s needed to solve it.

Or the understanding that’s required for them to do better.

“Head knowledge” is the easiest thing for anybody to have nowadays, especially in this age of pseudo-intellectualism where everybody has access to the “insights” from GPTs and instant information from the internet.

It’s easy for me to have theoretical knowledge about something, but it’s much more difficult for me to know how to apply that knowledge to tangible actions and decisions that will ensure I get the results I have.

Unfortunately, many of us only have theories in our heads: “Instead of this, he should have done this…”

And we also have information on the mistakes of the past, anger about certain issues, and a “voice” on social media.

So, all we do is rage and shout and argue when, deep down, if we were to check, we don’t have sufficient wisdom on how to do better or what to do differently.

Even when we think we do.

I know that, many times, the obvious action or decision to make in a situation is glaring, even to the blind.

For example, as a husband, I should love and honour my wife, and I should take responsible care of my children.

That’s just basic common sense, and I shouldn’t need any supernatural insight or years of experience to know that.

However, when it comes to dealing with issues in more specific contexts and situations, the line of what to do being “obvious” becomes blurred.

And that’s when we have to be careful of applying theoretical solutions to situations that we have no experience in.

- If you’ve not been a father of 3 children before, you definitely don’t understand the struggle of being broke and feeling like a failure because you can’t take care of your family.

- If you’ve not been faced with the peer pressure to achieve and feel among, you can’t judge your friend for doing certain things just because they want to be accepted by their peers.

- If you’ve not struggled with temptation before, you can’t condemn me to hell because I still indulge in certain bad habits I know I should avoid.

Now, I’m not defending the terrible actions people have taken, and I’m not making an excuse for wrong behaviour.

I’m just saying that you can’t proudly or self-righteously believe or declare that you wouldn’t do something if you were in the same situation as someone who did it.

Because how do you know? Tell me, how do you know?

I know that most of us have deep convictions about certain actions we’ll never do; that’s fine, and that’s very possible.

But still, it’s very easy to tweet, easy to comment, and easy to talk – until the same situation is staring you in the face.

And you find yourself doing or considering things you never imagined you would.

The problem with extremes is that they don’t solve anything.

Nothing at all.

When you leave the percentage of men who rape women to start condemning the entire gender with “all men are rapists”, you’ve not solved anything.

It might soothe your angry emotions and vindicate the (justified) anger you’re feeling, but does it do anything to change the situation?

No, it doesn’t.

Instead, what you’ve done is to shift the focus away from the main issue, and at the end of the day, what you’ll get is a lot of argument and anger and spewed hate back and forth.

Both parties will have unsuccessfully convinced the other to see their point-of-view, and will end up leaving the conversation with more defiance-fuelled conviction about their opinion.

It’s a waste of everybody’s time.

We must become BALANCED in our worldviews, our opinions, and our beliefs, and the first step to finding this balance is healing.

We have to heal from whatever trauma or hurt that has caused us to adopt extremely biased opinions about certain issues.

After we’ve done this, we must learn to contain our emotions when we make conclusions and give opinions.

I know this can be difficult to do because certain topics rightly provoke emotions such as anger, sadness or grief.

However, whilst we can react with emotions, we must never conclude with them.

And this leads to the final step of achieving balance, which is that we must adopt the ability to apply nuance and consider contexts as they apply per situation.

Not everything is black and white; not every situation has a one-size-fits-all solution.

We’re different people with different experiences, and the same way your life isn’t A-B-C is the same way another person’s life isn’t A-B-C.

Once we stop being extremely biased and we set aside emotions, we can then objectively consider situations before we form opinions about them.

For the sake of balance, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with you having subjective opinions about topics that you hold onto tightly.

After all, if we don’t stand for something, we’ll fall for anything.

However, we must still learn balance, and not just because it’ll help us regulate our internal beliefs but also because it’ll help us handle our external articulations of these beliefs much better.

Finally, let me stress the fact that this entire article only applies to topics that have two subjective sides, meaning two sides that are neither completely “right” or “wrong”.

So, those are debatable topics like “Should both parents work full-time when the children are young?” and not ridiculous takes like “Should child marriage be a crime?”

You can only have two extremes if both sides have a valid, agreeable point.

When only one side is making logical sense, the other side should automatically be categorised as being wrong.

History doesn’t repeat itself, but human beings do, and now we’re doing the exact same thing that was done in the past.

We’re creating extremes.

If we keep going like this, one day, when our children and grandchildren look back, they’ll be speaking about us the exact way we speak about our parents and grandparents.

And considering the fact that we like to consider ourselves to be “woke” and “enlightened”, that would be very unfortunate.

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Especially because there’s a thin line between:

You being “humble” because you don’t exalt yourself above what you actually are,

and

You being “humble” because you don’t even believe that you’re anything to be exalted in the first place.

Many people, especially in African cultural dispositions, believe that true humility is when you act or speak in a manner that presents you as “small” and “unthreatening”, and I greatly disagree.

There’s nothing “humble” about being inconsequential and unimportant, and there’s nothing “prideful” about being confident and outspoken, or even moderately egoistic.

Somehow, we’ve managed to skew the lines between both traits, and now we have too many people walking around with damaged self-perception and low confidence that we praise for being “humble”.

There’s NOTHING humble about you looking down on yourself or perceiving yourself as lesser than others, and even if people praise you for it, you’re ultimately doing yourself a great disservice.

This is why I’m asking you:

When you downplay your achievements,

when you shrink in spaces where people are expressing themselves,

when you don’t accept compliments,

when you refuse to believe that you’re loved and valued,

when you don’t showcase the things you can do,

when you swallow your ideas/thoughts in conversations,

when you walk through crowds with your head bowed down,

when you can’t hold difficult conversations,

when you avoid eye contact,

when you try to hide in group pictures,

when you refuse to share your opinion because it’s contrary,

when you look in the mirror and you don’t see beauty staring back,

when you undermine yourself…

Are you doing so because you want to keep your ego in check or because you believe that you do not “measure” up?

When you’re on level 100, and you move like you’re on level 10 because you don’t feel confident enough in yourself, that is NOT humility.

When you’re on level 10, and you walk around with the confidence and assurance of someone on level 100, that is NOT pride.

When you’re on level 10, and you cower and shrink yourself when you’re around people on level 100, even though you have good value to just offer like them, that is NOT humility.

When you’re on level 100, and it shows outwardly in your speech, actions, and demeanour, that is NOT pride.

Like I said, it’s a thin line.

Humility is simply you not exalting yourself beyond the scope of who you are and what you can truly offer; humility is not you presenting yourself as “less” than what you are.

I’d even argue that presenting yourself as below your actual level is one of the most subtle signs of pride, the same way I’d argue that holding on tightly to pain and resentment from the past is also a sign of pride, but let’s not dive into that.

Apart from low self-esteem, you can fall into this false humility trap because you’re afraid of offending people or of stepping on their toes.

This particular one is very annoying to me because people with low self-esteem will always be offended by confident people who are not afraid to project their confidence, no matter what.

They prefer to brand them as arrogant and egoistic, rather than admit that they are intimidated by their self-assuredness and then work on improving their own self-esteem.

That’s why you can’t pay attention to such people.

And that’s why you also shouldn’t be such a person.

You can get to that point in life where you use “I’m just a humble person” or “I’m reserved by nature” as an excuse to soothe your low self-esteem and not go for the things you should go for.

When you become like this, it becomes much more difficult for you to get out of the rut you’re in because you’ve already refused to admit that you’re in a rut.

As powerful as the human brain is, it LOVES anything that can validate the things it already believes in, and the human mind generally hates its conceived notions being challenged.

Are you really “humble”, or do you just not have anything to be proud of yet?

Are you really “shy”, or are you just scared of failing and embarrassing yourself?

Are you really “not interested” in doing that thing, or is your fragile ego scared of being bruised by rejection?

You have to pay attention to these things.

We find all sorts of excuses and pretty narratives to give for the things that are wrong with us, and they do nothing but distract us from the actual issue we should be focusing on.

When you can’t stand in front of a crowd to speak,

when you can’t hold eye contact with people to tell them “NO”,

when you can’t post a video of yourself on your story without feeling ashamed,

when you can’t record yourself in public because people are staring,

when you can’t ask strangers for help,

when you can’t give opinions that are different from everyone else’s…

It’s not necessarily because you’re “nice” or “reserved” or “shy”; often times, it’s a pointer to the fact that you have little to no assurance in yourself.

You’re not confident, your self-perception is skewed, and you don’t see yourself in the positive light that you should.

It’s a very thin line between disciplined self-regulation and unconscious self-subjugation, and it’s one you want to be very mindful of.

Especially if you’re in an environment that celebrates smallness and appreciates undue uniformity.

There’s this Nigerian/African culture of conformity that tries to force people to fit in with everybody around them.

This culture is built foundationally on people’s desire for acceptance, and so it encourages you not to be too “loud” or outspoken and even, in many cases, not to be too ambitious or to dare to dream too “big”.

Unfortunately, too many people have fallen victim to this culture.

I’ll be brutally candid:

Nigeria is a third-world nation that’s steeped in poverty and shaped largely by a culture of mediocrity and inconsequentiality.

Many Nigerians have been forced by hardship, dysfunctional families, and various mental limitations to embrace smallness and to see being average as the norm.

Even in many developed countries too, you can also find this culture present in middle-class and lower-class families.

So, if the time ever comes when you try to do something that’s different to elevate yourself to another level, the culture will most likely fight you.

The culture will call you arrogant and tell you that you’re being disrespectful, and it will use people who never amounted to anything in their own lives to discourage you and to pull you down.

The biggest irony, however, is that when you do fight against all opposition and succeed, this same culture that tried to limit you will morph into an even more vicious culture of entitlement and god-worship.

The same people who wanted you to dream small and never supported you will now exalt you as a “god” because of your achievements and demand to be beneficiaries of your success by all means.

It’s so crazy.

I beg you, please, don’t fall victim to this faux humility box that many adults and many cultures (or religions) will try to put you into.

It’s a limiting space that will choke out all your dreams.

I’m honestly tired of this subjugating culture of “yes, sir/yes, ma’am” that never allows you to have an opinion or do anything outside the already established confines of their own experiences.

I understand the place of respect, but respecting a person doesn’t mean putting yourself down to keep them on a pedestal, and that’s mainly what we practise in this part of the world.

If you try to achieve more than the people older than you, it’s an issue.

If you disregard their advice and choose to forge your own way, it’s an issue.

If you refuse to conform to their standards, it’s an issue.

And we all complain that nothing in families or society is working; how is anything expected to change if the same thing is repeated over and over again?

It doesn’t make sense.

People will excuse their lack of success, and their poverty, and their overall smallness, and then they’ll accuse you of being “proud” because you desire better for yourself.

It’s foolishness, and I advise you to run far away from such people.

I’m a HUGE fan of people with crazy confidence who don’t care at all about hiding it or shrinking it to massage anybody’s fragile ego.

Especially when they’re like artists or talents who achieved their successes by grit, determination, and hard work.

If you got to where you are by your tenacity, why should you try to downplay it for anybody?

Some real-life examples are Ronaldo and LeBron, and some fictional examples are Thomas Shelby and Harvey Specter; a perfect lineup of men whose self-confidence and charisma I personally admire and envision attaining.

Regardless of adversity and setbacks and even when they face criticism and hate, that inner determination never flinches.

I honestly love seeing ego in display; I love when people who have earned the right to “talk their shit” with no reservations.

If seeing or hearing people talk about their achievements and the pedestalled view they have of themselves makes you feel inadequate or hurts your feelings, you need to check yourself.

I think we can all get to that point of unshakeable confidence, and we should aspire to it.

It doesn’t mean that there won’t be moments of self-doubt or hesitation, but even when those moments come, they won’t do anything to deter your convictions about yourself because you fully believe in them.

And finally, for the sake of balance, confidence doesn’t have to slide into arrogance.

You become arrogant when you start to exalt yourself above everybody, and you begin to trample on people without regard.

This, I believe, is where the line is.

No matter what you do, you must never directly make other people feel less about themselves or try to intimidate or invalidate them.

You can be confident and egoistic, but the moment you start to perceive yourself as being better than others, then you’re entering dangerous territory.

Your self-assuredness should come from the confidence you have in your convictions, your beliefs, and your abilities, and not from the fact that you feel “better” than anybody in any aspect.

That aside, be aggressively confident, please.

Talk your stuff, do what you can do, and be satisfied in your own skin.

Never, ever dumb yourself down to sate anybody else, especially to sate yourself.

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I was that friend who you’d randomly wake up to hundreds of messages from, telling you how much you were loved and valued.

Making the people around me know how much they meant to me came very easily, and it was a normal part of my nature.

I loved doing it, and those that received it loved receiving it.

However, over the past few years, this part of me has slowly died away.

I don’t know when exactly the change happened, but nowadays, I’m not much of that guy anymore.

Apart from those occasional moments, the desire or the interest to do those things just doesn’t exist within me anymore.

At least, not as much as before.

And the irony is that I still have people who I deeply cherish.

That eagerness is just… gone.

I mean, I still do those things when I have to.

If my friend is down and needs a booster, I’m definitely going to be there.

If I’m feeling really grateful for something that someone did for me, trust me to show profound appreciation.

If I’m talking to a girl I like, obviously, I’m scoring an A+ in the “intentionality” test.

In these situations, if I need to, oh, I will.

And when I do or say anything, I mean it.

It’s just that now, there’s little to no spontaneity anymore.

That urge to randomly go the extra mile just because I want to is dying within me, if it’s not already dead, at this point.

Once upon a time, I’d write 3 paragraphs; today I just write a few sentences.

Before I’d randomly overshare about random stuff; now I prefer to listen more and speak less.

In the past, I’d do the cute things, like an interactive webpage or an extra thoughtful gift; now I’m fine with whatever I can do, as long as it’s above the bare minimum.

And I promise, all this is not because I now care less; it’s just because I don’t feel like it anymore.

Personally, I like to ignore my feelings to do what needs to be done per time, but in this case, it’s different.

Why? The reason is simple, really.

The older I got and the more in touch with my emotions I became, I started noticing a little something that skipped my attention before because I didn’t know I deserved it.

An overall lack of reciprocity.

Being that guy who went the extra mile made me realise that most of those miles were just one-way streets.

So, unconsciously, I started asking myself a simple question:

“All these things you’re doing, who’s doing the same for you? Or who’s thinking of doing the same for you?”

That period was truly humbling.

Honestly, there are absolutely no hard feelings.

Maybe I was walking longer miles with the wrong people, or maybe the whole point is not to expect something in return.

Maybe.

Whatever rationalisation might have applied, it didn’t matter to me again.

I realised that every form of relationship is a two-way thing that works both ways and works back and forth, and this realisation changed me drastically.

At first, it was probably slow and quiet, but now I have to admit that it’s more intentional, more conscious.

Nowadays, outside of birthday wishes…

Or moments when a friend needs encouragement…

Or celebratory episodes…

That energy just isn’t there anymore.

I still love my friends and I still care about them, that’s never going to change.

But those extras?

Like the regular reminders? The random affirmations? The random emotional paragraphs? The intentional gestures? The extra displays of appreciation?

Those little things that we don’t need, but it would be great if we had?

My interest in doing them is almost dead in the water.

It’s just sad cause I know the things in my heart that I’d love to do and say, if all things were equal.

Oh, you’d love to have Ebun as a friend, trust me.

But I also know the things in my heart that I’d love to get and to hear, if all things were equal.

However, like I said, no hard feelings.

My only prayer is that my heart doesn’t slide completely into apathy and I don’t become too comfortable with never doing more than what is necessary.

I lean toward reciprocal energy as a principle now, and it’s very peaceful on this side.

I can’t be everything to everybody, so all I’ll be now to anybody is exactly what I am to them.

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To celebrate this very special day, I asked different women to describe what being a women means to them.

If you’re a woman, I want you to take the time to read these words, reflect on them, and see yourself in the meaning they make.

If you’re a man, I want you to read these words and try to see the world through the lens that they present to you.

I understand that we might never understand what it means to be a woman, but we can use these words as a compass to, at least, try.

We celebrate all women everywhere today, have an amazing day.

And THANK YOU to all my writers for submitting an entry.

(Favour’s Newsletter).

To be a woman is to arrive in the world already carrying a certain weight of existence. It is to inherit, almost instinctively, the habits of caution, tenderness, restraint, and resilience long before one fully understands why they are necessary. To be a woman is to learn softness in a world that often demands endurance. It is to feel deeply, to carry emotion in ways that cannot easily be dismissed, and to understand that sometimes tears are simply the body telling the truth. To be a woman is also to live with constant calculation -of safety, of timing, of consequence. A woman learns early that moving through the world is rarely neutral; it requires awareness. She thinks twice about the streets she walks alone, the hours she keeps, the decisions that shape her life, marriage, motherhood, career, belonging—because these choices often carry expectations and consequences the world does not place equally on everyone else.

And yet within this demanding experience lies something profoundly meaningful. To be a woman is to hold one of the most remarkable capacities known to humanity: the ability to bring life into the world. Civilizations, families, and entire generations have passed through the body of a woman. Because of women, people exist. The world continues because of them. This does not remove the difficulty or the weight that often comes with being a woman; instead, it reveals the deep complexity at the heart of womanhood. It is at once heavy and beautiful, restrictive and creative, exhausting and deeply important. To be a woman is therefore not a simple condition but a layered experience. In many ways, it can feel like too much, like a lot to carry. And still, women continue to hold it, with grace, with care, and with an extraordinary persistence that keeps the world alive.

(Thoughts, Unfiltered).

To be a woman is to carry a whole house in your head and still be asked what you do all day.

Mama once told me that strength is a woman’s beauty.
She was rinsing rice when she said it. The water kept turning cloudy, and she kept pouring it away. She did not look at me. She said it gently, like she was handing me something sacred, like a family secret recipe.

I believed her. I wanted to be beautiful in that way.

But twenty years into marriage with Jide, I can tell you for a fact that this is not the kind of strength Mama explained.
She did not tell me that strength could mean slowly putting yourself away in small drawers and telling yourself, “later.” Later things will get better. Later he will change. Later I will return to myself.

Except that later never came.

And maybe I should stop saying “to be a woman,” because I do not know every woman’s story.

So let me correct myself- To be my woman.

To be my woman has meant living inside a marriage so fully that I no longer know who I am outside of it.
Permit me if everything I say circles back to my marriage. It is not because I think womanhood is only marriage. It is because this is the life I have lived. This is where my ache has settled.

To be my woman has meant discovering that my husband cheats- not once, not twice, and still waking up the next morning to make sure the children are ready for school.

The first time it happened, I thought something was wrong with me.
Maybe I stopped dressing a certain way. Maybe I changed. Or was it because of the changes pregnancy did to my body?

So I adjusted.

But it happened again. And again, and again.

After a while, I knew I was not the problem.

The worst part is not even the cheating.
The worst part is hearing that he speaks about me to those girls I am old enough to birth, like I am a burden.
Like I am the reason he is unhappy, Like I am a circumstance he found himself in.

A circumstance?
Me? Omotolani? A circumstance?

I built my entire adulthood around this man. From when we started courting in school, I streamlined my future to fit into “us.” I planned my life around being his wife.

I regret it so much. How could I have been so foolish?
How did I let my feelings guide me? knowing fully well that feelings are powerful but not reliable?
Did I just say “knowing fully well”?
Cut yourself some slack, Omotolani, because you did not know.

Mama did not tell me that to be my woman is to wake up every morning and serve breakfast while already calculating what everyone will eat for lunch and dinner. My head and rest are strangers. I am always thinking, always adjusting, always calculating.

To be my woman is to leave this house for three days and return to chaos because I am the only one carrying the structure of this home. Everyone suddenly loses their ability to think and do when I am not around.

To be my woman is to play both mother and father without announcing it.

To be my woman is also to question.
To pause and ask-
“Is this the only way?”
There has to be another, surely.

To be my woman is to pray for a “responsible husband” even when you already have one on paper.

Mama did not tell me that
“To be a woman is to share your bed with a man who shares himself with girls young enough to call him uncle.”

After church, he lies on the bed scrolling through his phone while I untie my gele, wash my face, and head to the kitchen.
The pot is hot.
Our children are shouting in the sitting room.
My chest feels the same way the pot sounds- too much heat, too much pressure.

She did not tell me that to be a woman might mean learning how to sit across from your husband at dinner, knowing another woman has tasted the same mouth that is asking you to pass the salt.
I remember staring at his phone. My name was saved as “My Peace” while he was telling someone else she made him feel alive.

One evening, my first daughter, Titilayo, told me she is not sure she wants to get married.
I told her good marriages exist.
I said it confidently, almost automatically.

But I do not know if I fully believed it when I said it. Maybe I was convincing her. Maybe I was convincing myself.

Because I have seen good marriages. I have seen the way Chude treats Cynthia- with respect, with care. They cannot all be pretending.
Or are we all pretending, and I just do not know it?

I have carried so much.
I have loved and endured.
I have bent myself to fit a life that did not always bend back.
I have cried silently. I have held my children and a heart that sometimes cracked beneath my ribs.

I have wondered who I am beneath it all, when the world does not see my ache, when even he cannot.

And in that quiet, when no one is looking, I remember that I am still here.
I am still breathing.
I am still human.

Maybe, to be a woman, is first to be human.

(Anywaysasiwassayingg).

To be a woman is to be all. All the good, the ugly and the exceptional the world has to offer, and to never attempt to be less than that, for the alternative would be to be nothing at all.

It is to carry within you contradictions the world insists on separating, and to live in the fullness of those contradictions, and yet to be told, constantly, to edit them. A woman must learn early the art of curation, and decide which parts of herself are safe for daylight and which must be folded neatly away for later.

To be a woman is to be a mother, to be a nurse. To be a florist, to be a cook. To be that fun likeable aunt at parties, who pretends she doesn’t hear whispers and rumors of her spinsterhood. To be the young girl who is only worthy of respectable if she is viewed as respectable. To be a listening ear to some, and a mother to all. To be unwavering in your stance and to be kind in your dealings. To be small enough not to unnerve a room, but significant enough to shake it. To move with care and tact to avoid harming others- or yourself, but to never forget to smile and make an entrance in every room. To know unimaginable pain, and face unfathomable cruelty. To be a fighter, even if no one is fighting for you.

I suppose that to be a woman is also to journey to understand the lifelong partner we have: ourselves. To find joy in our bedrooms late at night watching the most mundane of shows or reading the most enlightening of stories. Or in long phone calls with friends who share similar struggles. To rest and regroup before once again, in the daylight, we become who we’ve been told we are.

To be a woman means to be the one thing man was not meant to be capable of: to be perfection.

(The Meadow…).

To be a woman is to dance in the rain like a wildfire, fierce and unafraid, even when the storm was never meant for you. The same wildfire that notices another woman’s crown slipping and gently adjusts it without announcing her downfall to the world. A fire that understands that protecting someone’s dignity costs you nothing and means everything.

To be a woman is to love in excess. To love freely and guiltlessly. To give your heart without a receipt, without a guarantee, or even the fear of being called foolish. And when love bruises you, you do not curse your heart for trying; you respect it for having enough courage to feel.

To be a woman is to understand that your mistakes are chapters, not conclusions. That your body is not a battlefield for society’s standards. That you were never too much, you were simply in rooms too small for what you carried.

Then again, the world will try to name you before you can name yourself, because you are the author of that story. But let it try and fail.

To be a woman is to burn and keep burning. To endure the furnace without losing your essence. Because gold does not apologize for the fire that shaped it. It simply glows.

(Shall We Write?).

To be a woman is to lose your twin sons one evening, and show up for work the next morning.

Because the world doesn’t stop just because your body did.

Because the bills don’t get paid just because your body cannot function the way it ought to.

Because if you don’t work, you will not eat.

And if you don’t eat, you will die.

I thought long and hard about all the things I could have written for this piece. You know when there’s so much to say but you don’t know which one to talk about. I simply could not find anything strong enough.

It almost felt like I was not woman enough to qualify for this. I know I am. But this piece is dedicated to my mom, the strongest woman I know.

Growing up, my siblings told me that mommy was once pregnant with twins. Boys. But she lost them.

She would have been a mother to three boys and a girl. But I guess that wasn’t God’s plan.

Today is for my mother, the strongest woman I know.

She is the bravest, the kindest, and the most loving human on this earth. Without her, I would never be here today. Literally and figuratively.

As a child, I was sickly.

I fell sick so often that my genotype was checked repeatedly, even though both my parents are AA. I caught almost every kind of childhood infectious disease, from chicken pox to ringworm and everything in between, and I had a perpetually runny nose.

I used to have nightmares too, and somehow they led to insomnia because I became afraid of sleeping.

So most nights I slept in between my parents. Up until I was ten.

Because my mother is a nurse, and my father a doctor, people would always say, how can their child fall sick so often?

But my mother would ignore them and keep praying to God to heal me.

I started to feel ashamed of it at some point. I just wanted to be well, if not for anything, for her. I was tired of the night fevers and seeing her run around trying to cool my temperature and get an IV into my body.

Somehow she knew, she knew about the shame.

And I’ll never forget the day she told me the story of my birth, how she had waited for seven years after the miscarriage, and how God gave me to her when she had long stopped trying.

That day she said, “You are God’s perfect gift to me. There is nothing wrong with you.”

I was around seven then, in Primary Two, but that story is forever imprinted in my memory. She has said it many more times over the course of my life, but it was different then because I needed to hear those words. I needed the shame to go away.

Many nights I had fevers so bad you could warm yourself by sitting near me. Many nights I might have slipped away if she had not held me in her arms and watched my every move.

She would hold me all night,

and still show up for work the next morning.

She would cry all night,

and still force a smile in the morning.

She would carry the weight of fear,

the way many women do.

And still, she would make sure I never saw how afraid she was.

There is nothing more frightening than having a sick child.

Yet she handled it like a professional, even when she was breaking inside.

For all the mornings you woke up by 5 to get us ready for school.

For all the breakfasts and lunches and dinners you made for us.

For all the times you took care of us when we were sick.

For all the wrappers you didn’t buy because you wanted us to get the best education.

For all the trips you missed just to be present for every moment of our lives.

For all the dreams you set aside just so we could chase ours.

Thank you, Mummy.

I love you so much.

I bless God for the gift of my mother.

And even though it gets complicated sometimes,

even though we fight, we make up. We hurt each other, but we always find our way back.

Because a mother’s love is love in its purest form.

And perhaps that is one way to understand what it means to be a woman.

(Oyin’s Journal).

To be a woman is to walk a path carved by the courage of those who came before me.

I stand tall today because Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti never stayed silent, because Dora Akunyili risked everything to keep us safe, because Chimamanda Ngozi-Adichie wrote the words that found me when I was lost.

When I look at Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Folorunsho Alakija, and countless others, I see the truth: “impossible” was never a fact. It was a lie fed to us; one they simply refused to believe.

But if I’m being honest? My real North Star is much closer to home.

I am who I am because of my mum. She loved me so loudly that I never heard the voices telling me I wasn’t enough. She spent her life pulling the weeds of fear out of my mind before they could ever take root. She is everything I strive to be: unapologetically strong and profoundly kind.

To the women who refused to stay small, who demanded their seat at the table, and who cared when it was easier to look away… thank you. You didn’t just survive; you paved the way.

I am standing here, free and grateful, because you refused to back down.

(The Thoughts Archive).

To be a woman is to inherit the unfinished dreams of other women.

It does not happen all at once. No one gathers you in a room and announces it. No one formally passes anything down to you. But if you grow up paying attention to the women around you, you begin to notice something. You are surrounded by women who have lived full lives and still carry the small weight of things they once hoped to do. You hear it in passing conversations. In the way an aunt mentions that she once wanted to travel. In the way your mother talks about a course she almost studied. In the way an older woman pauses for a second before saying she is proud of you.

At first you do not understand what you are being handed. When you are younger, you think the women around you are simply telling stories about their past. Later you realize those stories are not just memories. They are fragments of dreams that were interrupted. Not always by tragedy. Sometimes just by life.

You grow up and you start to see the pattern.

A woman who wanted to study further but had to start working early. A woman who loved to write but never believed anyone would take her seriously. A woman who had a talent for something but slowly folded that part of herself away because there were more urgent things to do. Marriage. Children. Survival. Responsibility. The ordinary demands of living.

None of these women complain the way people expect disappointment to look. That is part of what makes it difficult to notice. They laugh. They cook. They work. They show up for everyone else. But every now and then, something slips through the cracks of conversation. A sentence that begins with “I used to want to…” A memory told with a softness that feels almost too careful.

You start to understand that womanhood is not only about your own life. It is also about the lives that came before you. The women who walked into rooms where they were not always taken seriously. The women who were told to be patient. The women who were told their ambitions could wait.

Some of them believed it. Some of them fought it. Some of them simply kept moving because there were other people depending on them.

And then there is you.

You sit in a classroom they were not allowed to sit in. You speak with a confidence they were sometimes punished for. You imagine futures they were told were unrealistic. Sometimes it feels exciting. Sometimes it feels heavy.

Because you realize that when an older woman tells you she is proud of you, she is not only celebrating what you have done. She is also remembering a version of herself that once hoped for the same freedom.

To be a woman is to feel that connection across time. You begin to recognize it in the way women encourage younger girls. The way they insist that you should not limit yourself. The way they say things like “Go as far as you can.”

It is not just advice. It is something deeper than that. It is a quiet form of hope.

You carry it even when you do not intend to. When you decide to pursue something seriously. When you refuse to shrink yourself to make other people comfortable. When you allow yourself to imagine a bigger life than the one people expected for you.

In those moments you are not only living for yourself. You are continuing something that started long before you were born.

This does not mean your life belongs to other people’s dreams. You are still allowed to want your own things. You are still allowed to choose your own direction. But there is something powerful about knowing that your freedom did not appear out of nowhere. It was built slowly. By women who made small openings in the world so the next person could push the door a little wider.

Sometimes the inheritance is not about ambition. Sometimes it is about courage. The courage to speak honestly. The courage to leave situations that do not honor you. The courage to live differently from what people expect.

When you look closely, you realize that many women before you practiced that courage in small ways. They might not have called it bravery. They might have thought they were simply doing what they had to do. But their choices created possibilities that did not exist before.

That is the strange and beautiful thing about being a woman. You are part of a long, quiet chain of lives influencing one another.

You learn from the women who raised you. You learn from women you meet briefly. Teachers. Friends. Strangers whose strength you notice in passing. Even the women whose stories end in compromise still leave something behind for the rest of us to pick up.

That is what this inheritance really is. Not pressure. Not obligation. Just a reminder.

A reminder that the world has always been shaped, little by little, by women who refused to let their hopes disappear completely.

So when you move forward with your own life, when you choose to try, when you refuse to give up on the things that matter to you, you are doing something that is both personal and collective.

You are finishing sentences that other women had to stop writing.

To be a woman is to step into a world shaped by the persistence of other women. And to leave behind, in your own way, a path that someone else might one day follow.

(Comma, Period.).

To be a woman is to make room for yourself in places that were not built with you in mind, and to leave the door wider for the girl coming after you.

It is to inherit strength and inspiration from women you may never cross paths with, and to pass it on in quieter ways than history often records.

To be a woman is to become in public, to be watched while you grow, questioned while you choose, and still continue becoming, anyway.

(Letters With Joy).

To be a woman is to forever hang in an unexplainable balance.

They say be yourself and then tell you exactly who to be.

They say apply yourself and then tell you your smile isn’t wide enough.

They push you to speak up then say you talk too much.

They sell you the dream of being the first woman to achieve a certain feat but why can’t you just be one of many?

They congratulate you for being the only woman in the boardroom when in truth, there should be others.

They advise you to support your household but remind you to stay small and quiet when the man of the house speaks.

Embrace your femininity but don’t be emotional.

Go to the gym but remember you don’t need muscles.

Be easy and available but never wayward

Hide your pads and periods because it’s not to be spoken out loud but don’t live in silence.

Make your money and be wealthy but not to the extent where a man feels threatened.

They tell you; Yes, humility isn’t gendered but let’s be honest it fits women more.

To be or not to be.

Some ask for your name; It’s Joy, you reply. Oh okay darling, they say in response. But that’s not my name.

Internalized, deep seated, they don’t even see the wrong.

But you can’t let the anger or disdain consume you.

Because where there’s a Judas, there’s a Jesus.

So everyday, we pick our battles wisely, because we know sometimes silence could be equated for agreement.

Maybe one day, we’ll stop fighting.

Maybe one day, we’ll find perfect balance.

But till then, my dear girl

Don’t let anyone push you to the extremes.

And because the rules have to change doesn’t mean we should scrap the idea of rules altogether.

To be a woman is to be a direct product of God’s creativity and perfection.

Oh how I love being a woman.

Damola ().

To be a woman is to live as you please, show up however you want, and be the best you can be.

When I got this, I wondered for a very long time what this should be about, and I settled on speaking freely about my choices as a woman. To speak to the lot of you, I would first speak to myself. For as long as I can remember, I wondered why March 8 was not as celebrated as I had hoped, and one random day, my alter ego said Why wait to be celebrated? Ideally, every day is a good day to celebrate a woman.

Since this discovery, I have chosen not only to celebrate myself but also to celebrate every woman every day. It is an easy task, in that the way I have chosen to do so is to live as I please, show up however I choose, be the best I can be, and externally appreciate every woman, however she does this herself.

Here’s what this looks like for me.

Adedamola does not conform to standards. I would never prioritise a “standard” over what I truly want for myself. Who says a lady must date? Who says she must be preparing for marriage? Who says a lady should not live on her own? Who says that as a lady, you should find fulfilment in being chosen? Who is this person who has put ridiculous standards in place to measure the adequacies and inadequacies of a woman? I don’t see them; I wouldn’t prioritise them either. I might come across as the bad egg, the black sheep, the spoil and all of that, but what matters is that I have made a choice to stick to the standards I set for myself.

Adedamola exists with grace, ease and a little bit of crase. In choosing to show up however I want, every day, I choose to be at ease, forgive myself, lead with grace, treat people how I would love to be treated, and surprise the ones who think all I have is grace to give. A pleasant surprise for human beings I have come across who have mistaken my grace and ease for a floormat, and in choosing to show up however I want, I have a reserve for people who see women and immediately see opportunities to take advantage of themsa.

Adedamola is unstoppable. I am the best version of myself every day. No matter how many updates there are, I am committed to being better and the best. Good is average, and women are nowhere near average. To be the best, I don’t count myself out of anything; I try as much as possible, and I am dedicated and diligent to any cause I deem important. Every day, I defy standards, outshine the status quo and remain better than I was a day before. In being the best, I set standards, defy odds however stacked, and set new expectations, and in this, I am an example to the generation behind.

This year, International Women’s Day is themed “Give to Gain”. How I see it is to contribute to the betterment of every woman I come across, be intentional about advancing anything women-related, and contribute to a world where women see themselves however they please and not how society does, and see opportunities and count themselves worthy. I am pledging to contribute to the advancement of women worldwide, starting with the women closest to me.

Let’s celebrate ourselves not just today but every waking day, and always remember that, as women, we have the right to live as we please, show up however we want, and be the best we can be.

To be a woman is to command power, competences, skills, possibilities; and yet, softness, stillness, airiness, depth, beauty, elegance, poise, love.

To be a woman is to stare submission in the face, have all your inner battles and demons come to the surface, feel the need to be independent and strong, needing no man, but ultimately deciding that waiting for a kind man is the best for your nervous system.

To be a woman is to bring to life, in every sense of the word. To give meaning and depth to this life you have birthed. To nurture and grow and nourish and love and mould.

To be a woman is to be intensely multidimensional, multifaceted, multi-passionate, out of this world and still fit those things into your allocated 24 hours per day.

To be a woman is to live with fire beneath your bones, constantly crying out for expression in diverse ways. To exist with layers and layers and layers of desires and emotions and interests and hobbies, yet one body.

To be a woman is to eye a sit at the table, then go ahead to build tables for thousands of women across industries, spheres of influence, backgrounds and walks of life.

To be a woman is to fight for what you know belongs to you, reaching for examples in women who have gone ahead of you. It is to leave a mark upon the world, one that erasers cannot fulfil their purpose upon.

To be a woman is to live with a knowing that you make the world go round. Your presence here is intentional and purposeful, filled with unlimited opportunities to set the world ablaze and hold your head high while it burns.

To be woman is to be termed the weaker vessel, yet possess all the power and strength in the world to bring it to its knees.

To be a woman is to live with that paradox every day, and yet, take over the world anyways.

(A Day In The Life).

To be a woman is to live in a body that remembers, adapts, and transforms. To carry life within you. To feel the world shift with each heartbeat. To embrace the paradox of giving life while holding your own.

To be a woman is to have a kind of strength that doesn’t always need to be loud. To endure and offer small acts of care—the meals prepared, the words spoken—while carrying your own unseen burdens. To move forward when the path is uncertain, when doubt creeps in, when the world asks more than you feel able to give, and still finding the courage to rise again.

To be a woman is to understand connection. To have spaces of shared stories, laughter, grief, advice, and survival. Kitchen tables after long days. Late-night phone calls that stretch past midnight. Quiet understanding exchanged across a crowded room. To have sisterhood.

To be a woman is to experience femininity as a uniquely layered expression of intuition, emotion, and identity. To be creative and ambitious, nurturing and daring, tender and fierce, unapologetic and thoughtful all at once. To hold contradictions and complexity without losing authenticity.

To be a woman is to define womanhood on your own terms. To find joy in partnership, or in being alone. To embrace motherhood, or choose art, or both, or neither. To chase adventure, or find solace in a quiet community. There is no single blueprint, only the paths we carve for ourselves.

The beauty of womanhood lies in its expansion. In the growing freedom to choose, to stumble, to rise again. To live a life shaped by biology, culture, history—and the wild dreams you dare to follow. To carry stories in your body, resilience in your spirit, and hope in what’s ahead.

To be a woman is to keep becoming.

(Letters To Life).

To be a woman is to be told to sit up straight, speak softly, close your legs, laugh lowly and chew with your mouths closed. To be a woman is to perfect the art of “I’m fine” while your soul writes down a different journal entry by midnight… it is to inhabit a body that changes like climate and to learn how to dress for every single season.

It is also to host a heartbeat that isn’t yours, until it insists on having a rhythm of its own.

It is to find delight in the little things, fresh sheets, everything bath, a compliment that lingers all morning. It is lipstick on ordinary days, perfume for no reason and the little jiggle of your shoulders when food feels like a blessing. It is to carry a tampon not merely for yourself, but for the unspoken understanding that passes between women in restroom mirrors. To be a woman is to keep a hair tie in your purse, compliments on your tongue and hope in your chest.

(Tea In A Coffee).

To be a woman is to die. To bare your inflamed wounds and still have a smile on your yellow teeth. Tears will streak down your face. The salt burning in its wake. It will leave scars only you can see. Just then you’ll find yourself wanting to truly die. For the remains to no longer exist. For your soul to be carried away by the wind. To be no longer found.

A question that will never leave your head, that will make a home of your mind is, “what if I were a boy.” Would you then have lived a better life? To have lived to see the day when you become someone? For your dreams, the ones that haunted you in your sleep—to see them become reality. And to have someone—mother, to support you.

I don’t know how it came to be, for women to be viewed weak. Incapable. Stupid. I was barely born, before I had a label put on me. Mother already planning my wedding. Why has she never asked me if I wanted to get married. To ask me whether I had a dream of my own. But why would I? Everyone knows the role I play from the beginning—from before they knew I was going to be there. All I am meant to do is clean, birth, clean, serve, clean, SHUT UP.

My words hold no value, even though father said it would be good if I got an education. Later, just like any other man, degraded me. “Why would you waste time in school?” said he, spit blinding my eyes. I never faulted him then. It was embedded in me that I was not capable of such privilege. That it will always be out of reach.

And now even as I have grown, trying to relearn everything, I still have moments of doubt. My brain convincing me that I am not smart enough for hard things. But somehow my body is meant for hard things. How ironic all of it is. To have my brain picked at. Told things and devalued, only for my body to possess a price that anyone can afford.

‘Mother, why do men pay for me to get married?’ I have longed to ask my mother this question. To have answers of why she allowed me to be sold off by 4 cows. Why? Did she never see me worthy enough?

And maybe that’s where it all started. That men had to pay a price, and that’s how they gained control over you. Telling you how worthless you are.

To be a woman, is not about how your family treats you, but it is how little we are valued in society—in the world. And it has come to be that even woman have begun to side with the monsters. They too have become monsters. Or maybe to be a woman is to pretend, to be a clown, hoping that maybe you will be seen. But in truth we are never seen. So we continue being women.

(Poems and Pieces).

To be a woman is to live many lives inside one life. It is learning to embody different versions of yourself for different people and situations.

What does it really mean to be a woman?
Is it the body? Or the biology?
Or is it something deeper?

A girl sits in class and suddenly feels a sharp pain in her stomach. She shifts in her seat, trying to get comfortable — but almost immediately, she feels it and she knows what it is.

Quietly, she slips her hand into her bag — her fingers becoming her eyes as they search for what she hopes will save her.

Her hand reaches the lip gloss. The very thing she could not leave the house without. But that’s not what she needs. Not right now. So, she drops it immediately. She picks the hand cream, but that’s not what she needs either. Finally, her hand reaches a pad wrapped neatly in nylon. She touches it again, just to be sure. Yes. This is it. Finally.

She smiles as if nothing is happening. Stands up calmly and walks to the bathroom.

For many women, this is one of the first doors into womanhood.

To be a woman is a beautiful thing — but sometimes, it is far from beautiful.

It is the monthly reminder, announced through cramps and stained dresses.

It is the unexpected mood swings that arrive in the middle of a perfectly good day.

It is making sure extra pads are in her bag, just in case.

It is the fear of her body surprising her at the worst possible moment — in white clothes, or in public.

Wanting comfort but not being able to receive it — because this is not something she can control.

And when that monthly visitor does not arrive when expected, it is the sudden fear — the persistent panic — that something might be wrong.

Beyond this discomfort and panic is another side of womanhood — the part she gets to define.

To be a woman is to wake up before the sun rises to get dressed for the day — carefully applying makeup and debating between two dresses to wear.

It is choosing a foundation shade that matches her skin tone.

Having lip gloss in her bag every single time, because without it, her day feels incomplete.

It is carrying a small bottle of perfume, because smelling nice feels less like a choice and more like a requirement.

It is buying bags and shoes she may not necessarily need at the moment, but getting them anyway.

It is being able to dress however she wants — short dresses or long gowns, wigs, or natural hair— and still feel confident.

It is the way a woman can transform how she carries herself with a single swipe of lipstick — and still feel very comfortable when she decides not to use make-up.

It is looking in the mirror and admiring the woman she is becoming.

To be a woman is to hold space for other women.

It is to stand up for them in rooms where they are spoken over, misjudged, or made the subject of careless jokes and rumors.

It is cherishing your female friendships and nurturing them until they grow into sisterhood.

It is allowing yourself to be vulnerable with your girls — correcting one another without tearing each other down.

It is having misunderstandings but settling them with tears and honest conversations.

It is celebrating them when they reach a milestone and standing by them in their lowest moments.

It is helping them pick out their outfits. Telling them honestly when a dress isn’t all that, and screaming in excitement when their entire outfit eats.

It is becoming not just friends or sisters, but each other’s safe space.

To be a woman is to know the comfort of being understood by other women without explanation.

But beyond this comfort is a world that often tries to define womanhood for us.

Some women are told who they should be before they even discover who they are.

They are told to be soft. But not weak. To be beautiful. But effortlessly so.

Before a girl becomes a woman, she becomes aware. Aware of how she should sit, how she should speak, where she should be and where she should not. She becomes aware of the first drop of blood that changes everything.

But womanhood is not a script that others get to hand her.

Some women love heels; some love sneakers.
Some want marriage; some want freedom defined in their own terms.
Some want children; some do not.
Some love to be on the stage. Some don’t mind being with the crowd.
Some are still discovering themselves. Some know who they are already.

There is no single way to “be” a woman.

The real power comes when we stop measuring ourselves against a narrow definition and start embracing the fullness of who we are.

To be a woman is not simply to exist in a female body.

It is to navigate a world that both celebrates and challenges you.
It is to fall, rise, adjust your lip gloss, and keep going.

On days like International Women’s Day, we celebrate icons like Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, who fought for women’s political rights in Nigeria, and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, who showed that women can excel in places of power.

But womanhood is not only found in global figures. It is in your mother. Your lecturer. Your girlfriend. The market woman. The girl who gave you a pad in class.

To be a woman is to bleed and still build. To cry and still conquer. To love deeply and protect yourself wisely.

To be a woman is to know the language of women — the glances, the tears, the shared laughter, and the silence that says everything.

(ACupOfCoffee).

To be a woman is to love with strength. When I see a woman, I see purpose unfolding with grace, I see resilience held gently. I discarded my first response to this prompt because it was filled with too many negative projections. The world is burning with hate and when a house is burning, do you add more fuel to the fire? It was difficult to look inwardly and write what it means to be a woman. For the longest time, I have sought for answers, I have quietly wrestled God’s intention when He created woman, I would read past the word, helper in Genesis and suddenly feel a tide of discomfort. Like, was that it? Just a helper nothing more? On some days, the thought of the creation of the woman being an afterthought would visit my mind and I would instantly dismiss it because I lacked the courage to sit with that idea. While seriously reflecting on this prompt and at the same time struggling with writing a response that doesn’t sound sour, I called my friend and in the middle of our conversation, there was a revelation that answered the questions that have carefully sat in my chest.

The Hebrew word for woman is Ezer, the literal translation is helper; it is the same word used to describe the Holy Spirit and also used for God by the psalmist severally. When we speak of God as our helper, we do not think of him as a secretary or a nanny, we think of him as someone with our best interests at heart, someone with more expertise so we seek him. Have you ever wondered at the fact that it was a woman that carried the gospel first in her womb and shared the good news to the world after resurrection? Do you know how sacred that is?I will leave you to sit with this.

A woman is not less, she completes. The world lacked something thus the creation of the woman was inevitable.

(JART’s Pen And Paper).

To be a woman is to be my mother first.

I remember her standing in a kitchen that did not begin as hers,

wearing responsibility like an apron tied too tight.

She stepped into a life already in motion

and loved it

as if she had built it from scratch.

We were not born from her body,

but you would never know.

She held our fevers through the night,

pressed cool cloths to burning foreheads,

whispered prayers into the dark

like she was stitching protection into the air.

She taught us about God

the way some people teach recipes—

by repetition,

by memory,

by heart.

He was far away.

Another country.

Another timezone.

A voice that visited more than it stayed.

And she—

she learned how to be two parents

without ever calling herself brave.

Seven years of quiet devotion.

Seven years of stretching one income, one body, one spirit

wide enough to cover us.

Still, the accusations came.

You don’t care enough.

You spend too much.

You’re failing.

I watched the words land on her

like stones.

I watched her bend.

I never saw her break.

That was the first time I understood

that love is not loud.

It is sleepless.

It is tired hands and steady prayers.

It is growing roots in soil no one praises you for tending.

We thrived because she refused to stop watering.

To be a woman is to be nineteen now,

standing at the edge of twenty

like it is both a doorway and a warning — without her.

I remember when the world changed its eyes on me.

When laughter had to be calculated.

When clothes meant something more than fabric.

When freedom learned the shape of caution.

I outgrew the girl who ran without looking over her shoulder.

Sometimes I miss her.

Sometimes I mourn her quietly.

To be a woman is to be handed instructions

before you are handed understanding.

Be soft.

But not too soft.

Be strong.

But not intimidating.

Be beautiful.

But effortless.

I have spent years unlearning

what was never mine to carry.

Trying to find my own voice

beneath the echoes of expectation.

To be a woman is to forgive a world

that does not always know what to do with your light.

It is to bend without snapping.

To speak even when your throat trembles.

To love,

even when love has teeth.

It is to look at your mother

and realize

you are becoming her in the best ways—

resilient, prayerful,

still tender after everything.

To be a woman is not a finished sentence.

It is a becoming.

And I am still learning

how to hold myself

the way she held us—

with patience,

with faith,

with hands that do not let go.

To be a woman is to simply be human.

Yet, somehow, that has never been enough.

It is learning that “no”, a full sentence, must be apologetic; that your boundaries are an inconvenience you must soften for others. It is shrinking yourself to fit into spaces that were never designed with you in mind. This is not because you want to disappear, no! but because the cost of being too much can feel greater than the cost of being too little.

It is walking into a crowd and still not feeling safe. Scanning the room before you attempt to enjoy it. Holding your bag a little tighter when footsteps fall too close. It is the exhausting calculation of your own safety in spaces where you should just exist.

It is not being able to laugh too freely with a man, or talk too long, or be too warm without suddenly owing him something you never even offered in the first place. You learn to guard your own openness. To be friendly, but careful. Present, but guarded and having to quietly manage how you are being read.

And through all of it, you are expected to give. To be the soft place where others land. To be nurturing and warm, endlessly available, a reservoir of patience and love that never runs dry. love deeply and you serve freely, not because anyone forced you, but because somehow care became your first virtue.

Here is what is rarely spoken aloud; that same woman who pours herself out for everyone around her is often quietly drowning in the feeling that she is never enough.

That her body is not the right shape, her voice is not the right volume, her ambition is either too large or not large enough. That she owes something to the world that she can never quite finish paying - I mean God forbid a woman even has an installment plan.

*scoffs*

This is the contradiction at the heart of womanhood: to be expected to give everything while simultaneously being made to feel that everything you are is somehow not quite right. To be strong enough to carry others and soft enough never to let them see the weight. To be resilient and gentle, fierce and quiet, present and unassuming, all at once.

We still go on loving and building and showing up, not because we are unaware of how much we carry, but because there is something in us that refuses to be reduced to the weight of it, that even in the hardest moments, we are not to endure but also be able to take up space.

To be a woman is to simply be human, but also to be one of the most loudly extraordinary things in the world.

(Recurring Thoughts).

To be a woman is be.

Growing up as an African woman I have been instructed and reprimanded on countless things which a woman can or can not do. When my grandmother tried to force me to carry a 20litre bucket on my head despite being fully capable of carrying it by arms. When grown women would snicker behind me when I wore the shorts that my school gave me for PE, as if a female body is to be hidden. When  my cooking lessons came mandatorily with my gender.

There is so much advice online from women from dysfunctional relationships or rooted in self righteous and male centred hygiene practices , in churches with a skewed marriage doctrines which perpetuate enduring at the alter of marriage and women’s conferences perpetuating the message of forgiveness of promiscuous husbands. Advice at home for on how to walk, talk, serve cook that male counter parts never receive and truly I’m tired of it.

In my home country Zimbabwe there’s a tradition called a “kitchen party” which entails  marital advice for women in preparation for their upcoming wedding. This sounds wholesome but the contents of the advice is far from it; majority of the advice that the older married aunty give aligns with being subservient to your husband and to giving in to his whims.

I would be more tolerant to this tradition if there was a male version of this “garage party” perhaps for the men instructing them on being better husbands, but there is none.

“kitchen party” even the name is suggestive of the duties you’re expected to carry out.

I think it’s time we let women be. There is no one way to be a woman. The only wrong way to be a woman is to be inhumane and unauthentic. The only version of yourself you owe the world is the true one. You have to be so rooted in your self worth and character that anything or anyone who jeopardises that is not worth a moment.

To be a woman is to be; human.

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Take a moment (or two) today to celebrate the important women in your life and all the beautiful women around you.

This is not a day to highlight flaws or to point out shortcomings.

We celebrate women by exalting their strengths and appreciating all the unique gifts that only they can offer.

Every woman is a star, and the best of women are still women.

Happy International Women’s Day, once again. 💐❤️

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You might get offended at this, but trust me when I say that this is not a complaint. But it’s also not a compliment.

I really do love you. And I do love loving you. And I want to keep loving you. I do… but, my God.

You make it so damn difficult sometimes.

People say “love is pain”, and Taylor Swift once said, “Love is torture”, but your love is none of those things.

If your love was pain, I’d just walk away from it; if it was torture, then I’d scream out for help.

Your love is complicated, and no matter how much I try to figure it out, I just can’t.

It’s in your words, and it’s in your unsaid words, but it’s also in your actions more than anything else.

You say you want something that’s real, but you’re not willing to do what it takes to get it. You say you’re willing to go all the way to one hundred, but swallowing your pride to take step one is too hard for you. You say you want my advice because you know I’ll never validate your excesses, but you get it and you do nothing with it.

I don’t understand it.

And I don’t understand why loving you is complicated.

I’m not asking for easy; I’ve never asked for easy. All I’m asking is for a love that’s straightforward.

I don’t want to have to prove, or to have to beg, or to have to perform, before you see that I mean what I say.

Many guys claim to be fans of the “chase” and of the “thrill”, but I prefer my efforts met halfway.

I prefer reciprocity because I know the things I offer to you and the things I do and will do for you.

So, if you do love me as you say, then middle ground shouldn’t be hard for us to find.

My love definitely isn’t complicated.

Maybe that’s the reason we don’t work.

Maybe you’re used to a love that’s rigid and restrictive, the kind of love that comes with a certain kind of pain, a pain that your bruised self-esteem has gotten so used to romancing that you don’t believe you deserve anything better than it.

Maybe that’s the kind of love you want, but that’s not the love you should want.

Even if you demand that kind of love, I wouldn’t be the one to give it to you, because that kind of love is complicated.

And loving me is not complicated.

All I ask for are three things: Effort, Trust, Intelligence.

Effort to back your words with the right actions. Trust in me and my love for you, even on the most difficult days. Intelligence to know the things to say and do, when to say and do them, and how to say and do them.

You try with the intelligence part, and you sometimes make a commendable effort, but trust? You don’t trust me.

I don’t think you do; not as much as you should and definitely not as much as you say you do.

That’s one of the reasons loving you is complicated.

I’m patient with you; I know I’ve been, and I know you know that I have been too.

I understand where you’re coming from; I understand the baggage that you carry, and I understand that you have unhealed scars from the past that you haven’t let heal properly.

That’s why I try.

That’s why I wait, and I stretch out my hand at the edge of the pool when you’re drowning, and I tell you to grab it so I can lift you up.

But you never do.

Every single time, you panic and you retreat, and you drown further in the pool.

You’d rather swim alone and risk drowning than grab my hand and take a chance at salvation.

Swimming alone is predictable, but taking my hand is uncertain, and you hate uncertainty.

I’m sorry if you’ve reached out to helping hands before, and all they did was shove you back into the pool to drown as they laughed at you.

I’m really sorry.

But I’m not them, and they were not me, and I try my best to show this to you every single day.

Yet, you wonder why you should trust me.

Why should you trust me when the ones you trusted in the past also failed you?

Well, you have no reason to, and that’s why you don’t, and that’s why loving you is complicated.

I wonder if you loving yourself is also complicated.

When you look in the mirror, what do you see? Who do you see? Why do you see what you see?

Does the image you see reflect hope for the future, or is your reflection merely a harrowing reminder of a fractured past?

I’m asking you even though I know you won’t tell me.

You don’t have to tell me, but at least you can be honest with yourself.

If you loving yourself is complicated, then you letting anybody love you will always be complicated.

The love we accept or reject reflects the love that dwells inside of us, and we all accept or reject the love we think we deserve.

Or don’t deserve.

I believe that you believe that you don’t deserve my uncomplicated love, but still, here I stand, giving it to you.

It’s not perfect, but it’s willing to try for you.

People say I’m crazy for loving you like this, since all you return my love with are puzzles of emotions and riddles of feelings.

Some people say I don’t love myself enough, and that’s why I relentlessly pour out my love into a basket that’s filled with holes.

But they don’t understand my love, and I don’t expect them to.

I’m good by myself, and I have never claimed to need you, because I don’t, but I do want you.

I want you here.

I don’t see you as a “basket with holes”; I see you as mine, the one I love.

Loving you is complicated, I know, but it doesn’t always have to be this way.

I hope it won’t always be this way, but only you can decide that.

Unfortunately, I’m not going to be here forever because even the most enduring of all love grows weary.

That’s not a threat, I promise. It’s just the harsh reality of life.

One day, I will take my imperfect but willing love with me, and I will walk away forever.

However, that day has not come.

Today, I am still here, standing at the edge of the pool, stretching out my hand to you.

You don’t have to drown alone.

Just trust me.

Take my hand.

Take my uncomplicated love.

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If you’re perceptive enough, you can interpret this in many ways…

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It’s a deep narrative that encapsulates the whole reality of adulthood, and you can read it HERE.

Like it or not, you’re older than you were yesterday, and by this time tomorrow, you’ll be older than you were today.

You are getting old, yes YOU. 🫵

That’s not a debate.

The question is: Are you scared?

In 365 days, you’ll be older than you are today.

You’re getting older. I’m getting older. Everybody gets old.

Does this thought scare you?

Personally, it doesn’t really bother me.

But if it bothers you, there’s no shame in that.

It can be a bit daunting that just a few years ago, we lived lives that were, more or less, “carefree”, with little to no responsibilities.

More than 90% of the decisions that guided our lives were not completely in our hands.

All we did was chill, eat, sleep and do as we were told (occasionally).

Other people handled the important stuff.

However, today, one choice, decision, or action can drastically alter the direction of our lives, whether positively or negatively.

All of a sudden, almost 100% of the control of our lives is in our hands.

And it’s like,

“Yo! What the heck? Nobody prepared me for this sh*t!”

There was no manual or directional guide or prior warning that it would be like this.

All we got was “You’ll see when you get older,” and whilst many of us didn’t understand what we would “see” back then, we definitely get it now.

It’s crazy.

There’s barely even any room for “trial and error”, because every action has its own consequences that must be dealt with, and there’s barely any time to figure things out.

So, it is something to be scared about.

No shame there at all.

Growing older is a funny thing because there’s really no announcement.

There’s no dramatic event, and, minus birthdays and physical changes, you might not even notice because it’s very subtle.

As we carry on in the quietness of our lives doing this thing called living, a thousand tiny shifts occur regularly.

Sometimes, we can even be indifferent or casual about it until the awareness comes in a random moment.

That awareness of “I’m getting old” or that “Time is going”.

When you realise that time isn’t as infinitely stretched out as it used to seem and that you actually have to do something and be something in this short period of time that you have.

That’s when this “panic” usually sets in.

It’s present in:

The weight of expectations.

The fear of falling behind.

The ache of constantly wondering if you’re making the right choices.

(Or doing the things you’re meant to be doing.)

And this panic becomes much worse when it seems like everyone else around you has their lives all figured out.

Then the question comes again:

“What am I even doing?”

You probably ask yourself that every now and then, and sometimes, I do too.

There was a time I didn’t know how to answer that question.

I didn’t know how to curb that disturbing feeling of not being enough or doing enough as the days were passing.

It’s gotten much better now, but on some days, I still question myself, my actions, and my plans for the future.

I don’t know it all, I agree.

However, what I do know is that adulthood is not a race.

It’s not a competition, and there’s no grand prize for whoever achieves the most or accumulates the most.

I also know that we all have different paths in life.

Many times, it bothers me how everything we are and achieve and become ends here on Earth.

And I wonder:

“Why do humans spend their whole lives chasing and buying and getting if it really won’t matter beyond the ‘now’?”

It’s so easy to get caught up in the “grand mundane”:

Building the career, Having the family, Achieving the achievements, Meeting the expectations, Buying the fancy stuff, Making the millions, Creating the memories, etc.

However, making all this the primary focus of our lives just leaves room for this “panic” to grow.

What if we’re not meant to live life focused on doing all those things?

What if we’re meant to be concerned about the small, meaningful ways we can live each day?

What if we’re meant to be thinking:

What can I do today to make a difference?

What can I do today to be better than yesterday?

What can I do today that I’ll be proud of in a few years?

What if it’s the “little things” that matter the most in life?

Whether you panic about it or not, time will continue to pass because it waits for no man.

You will be older tomorrow than you are today.

Very soon, you’ll be 30, then 40, then 60, then 80.

As long as we’re alive, getting older is inevitable, so it’s up to us to decide how we want to spend our time.

How do you want to spend this “adulthood” that so greatly terrifies you?

Will you keep dwelling on the abstract things you can’t control?

Or will you just live?

Someone once said:

If we spend too much time worrying and panicking about whether we’re living life “right”, then we risk missing out on actually living the life.

It’s okay to be afraid, and it’s okay to wish you had more things figured out, but that fear should never hold you back, because while you’re busy worrying about what’s next, life is already happening in the now.

We probably won’t get every decision right – we most likely won’t – but what matters is that we keep going, that we “trust” and “enjoy” the process.

Especially since we only get one chance at living.

My advice to you is that you look around; find the goodness in today, no matter how small; and trust that even if you don’t know it all, you’re still growing, still learning, still becoming.

The happiest people in life aren’t those who have “figured it all out”; it’s those who don’t worry about it and choose to just live instead.

Adulthood is definitely not a death sentence, and it doesn’t have to be the countdown to the end of your life.

It’s not the termination of your dreams or the loss of the “childlike” things that give you joy.

It’s not a call to live a life that’s focused on just working, paying bills, and handling responsibilities.

It’s not a call to pressure yourself into being everything all at once.

There’s absolutely nothing in it to be afraid of.

Especially when your worries are things that you can’t control.

Every day you get is a chance to live, to love, to laugh, and to leave a piece of yourself in the world.

When you wake up, say a prayer to God and get ready to take on the day.

Don’t let pressure or expectations weigh you down, and don’t get in the trap of feeling and thinking you’re running out of time or falling behind.

At the end of the day, life is not about how much we accomplish anyways, it’s about how fully we live.

That’s just how I feel anyway.

I’m just like you, I’m still figuring things out one day at a time.

But I’ve made a decision to focus on the things I can control and take each moment, decision, and challenge as it comes.

After all, today’s choices determine tomorrow’s outlook, so in reality, I have a huge say in how my life looks when I get older.

There’s no way am I wasting that.

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In case you missed it -

I can slowly feel myself sliding into a writing slump, which means that a break is very much on the horizon.

However, before that time comes, we’ll be visiting an old series I totally forgot about.

I want your thoughts and comments and opinions.

If you’re not going to give them, then you can kindly skip this post.

If you’re willing to indulge me, then go right ahead.

I have ten different hypothetical situations, and I want you to tell me what you would do if you were ever faced with any of these choices.

Try your best to use options that I provide, and don’t add or invent your own answers.

Cool? Cool.

Dilemma #1

Your best friend’s partner, who is also your close friend, is secretly planning to propose, but your friend already privately told you she’s unsure about the relationship.

Do you warn your best friend about the impending proposal?

or

Do you tell your close friend to delay the proposal?

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Dilemma #2

You can guarantee that your child will grow up wealthy but unhappy, or poor but deeply fulfilled.

Which life do you choose for them?

Wealthy, but unhappy.

Or

Poor, but fulfilled.

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Dilemma #3

You can find out the exact date of your death.

Do you find out?

or

Do you live without knowing?

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Dilemma #4

You can remove all war from human history, but it will also erase all the technological and medical advancements that resulted from it.

Do you remove war entirely?

or

Do you leave history unchanged?

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Dilemma #5

Your partner gets a huge opportunity abroad and wants you to follow, but your own career is just taking off.

Do you move with them?

or

Do you stay and risk the relationship?

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Dilemma #6

You find out your close friend group has a separate group chat without you in it.

Do you confront them about why you’re excluded?

Or

Do you pretend you never saw it and act like everything is normal?

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Dilemma #7

You can be the most talented person in your field but be perpetually misunderstood and unappreciated until after you die.

Do you choose greatness/posthumous fame?

Or

Do you choose being average but well-liked while you’re alive?

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Dilemma #8

You can have a “social battery” that never runs out but that means you lose the ability to enjoy time alone with yourself.

Do you take the unlimited social battery?

Or

Do you keep your introversion?

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Dilemma #9

Would you rather:

Say ONLY the truth for 24 hours?

or

Say “YES” to every request for 24 hours?

(P.s. - People won’t know you have no choice but to say “yes” to them.)

Leave a comment

Dilemma #10

Would you rather:

Never eat any form of meat again?

or

Never drink any liquid apart from water again?

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There you go.

Don’t hesitate to share your thoughts, please.

I just want to add that it’s so easy to claim with words that you’ll always “do the right thing” until you find yourself in a certain situation.

Just try to be as objective as possible.

Looking forward to your responses.

Peace.

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“Unexpressed emotions will never die. They are buried alive, and will come forth later, in uglier ways.” - Sigmund Freud.

Resentment is a very terrible thing.

It’s the silent killer of everything good, and what fascinates me the most about it is how it can be present even in the best of times.

You can hold bitterness in your heart, and it’ll lie there dormant for years.

It’ll be there when you’re having the best conversations. It’ll be there when you’re laughing and smiling. It’ll be there when they do good things for you, or you for them.

Sometimes, you’ll feel it, and other times, you won’t.

Either way, it’s still there, and even if you don’t acknowledge it, it’s there.

Just waiting and waiting, waiting for the perfect moment to reveal itself.

Waiting for the wrong word, the wrong action, or the wrong joke.

Then when that day and time finally comes… BOOM!

Resentment rears its ugly head.

Then you might start to wonder -

“How long have I been holding all that in?”

Resentment is a very complex emotion, and I strongly believe that it’s worse than hate.

“Hate” is often explicit and acknowledged, and when it’s involved, there’s usually an obvious form of conflict or separation.

However, resentment festers beneath the surface, slowly eating up all the trust and intimacy that was present far longer than it was.

Unfortunately, I have a lot of experience with this emotion, and I’ve felt it deeply before.

You probably have too.

That tugging of anger and dislike swirling in your heart towards someone that you, on the surface, probably have no real reason to be upset with.

Or against someone who you have every right to be upset with.

It’s a terrible feeling.

They can be doing all the right things and saying all the right things, and yet you’re there, just feeling… bitter.

They can have moved on with their life, enjoying their days, and yet you’re there… bitter.

I’ve been on the receiving end of resentment too.

A few years ago, I did something to a friend of mine that she absolutely hated.

And, of course, I apologised and promised to do better going forward, which I tried my best to do.

Yet, in the following months, she still resented me for what had happened, despite trying her best not to.

I thought we were good. I mean, we seemed good, and I assumed everything was behind us.

Until one day when she just couldn’t pretend that things were fine anymore, and she lashed out bitterly at me.

The whole illusion shattered.

After that, we proceeded to have some very difficult conversations that involved some difficult emotions, because we both wanted to save our friendship.

Fortunately for us, we did.

We had to take some time off talking, just to give each other some space, and then we came back into close, regular contact.

I’d like to believe now that the slate has been wiped clean permanently.

And now that I think about it, this exact scenario has played out with two different people.

The primary cause of resentment is found in that quote above -

“Unexpressed emotions.”

Negative unexpressed emotions.

Resentment is born when we feel wronged by someone and the hurt from their actions or words goes unaddressed.

Either unaddressed by you internally to yourself (“This action made me feel bad”) or by you externally to them (“What you did made me feel bad”).

Resentment can also arise when you did express how you felt, but your hurt was dismissed.

Or they apologised and you forgave them (or thought you did), yet the hurt still lingered within you.

When either of these things happens, the seed of resentment has been planted.

Describing in literal words how resentment feels is very tricky.

However, you can think of it as a toxic cocktail of anger, disappointment, bitterness, and spite that’s directed at someone you genuinely care about or once cared about.

At first, resentment is easy to ignore, but as it grows, its creeping signs become more and more obvious.

Some of them include:

Passive-aggressive behaviour:

You might find yourself expressing your hurt in indirect ways, such as giving them the silent treatment, dropping backhanded compliments, or scrutinising their every action.

Emotional withdrawal:

You might start to pull away from them emotionally or even physically.

Suddenly, you don’t crave their presence anymore, and you may even feel more at peace when they’re not around.

Keeping score:

You begin to mentally tally every little transgression they make, even the ones they are not aware of committing and the ones that are genuine mistakes.

You make it a habit to constantly remind yourself (and sometimes them) of their past errors.

Hypersensitivity:

Everything they do irritates you.

A bad joke is infuriating, and wrongly timed touch can set you off.

Even the simplest of questions can trigger an unexpected reaction within you.

Do any of these sound familiar?

They do, don’t they?

The longer resentment lingers in a relationship, whether from one person to the other or on both sides, the harder detoxifying the relationship becomes.

The best way to prevent resentment from gaining a stronghold is by nipping it in the bud as soon as you notice any of the above signs.

Some of the practical steps you can take to stop resentment from growing include:

Identify the source:

First, you must get to the root of the problem.

What exactly did they say or do to hurt you? What bothered you that you refused to admit? What unresolved feelings are fuelling your anger?

Pinpointing the source of the bitterness is essential because it’s the first step to addressing, and maybe, resolving, the issue.

Open communication:

This is where things get a bit tricky, and I’d admit that it’s probably the toughest part of the process.

If possible, then you need to have that difficult conversation or conversations with that person or people.

The goal is for you to talk openly and honestly about your feelings, patiently explaining yourself and patiently listening to their explanations.

In cases where communication with the other party is not possible, maybe due to certain circumstances, then you’re going to have to have the talk with yourself.

You must be honest with yourself about the pain you feel and the reason it’s essential for you to now move on.

Practice forgiveness:

I know that forgiveness is easier said than done; however, letting go of the past is essential for your peace of mind.

Forgiveness doesn’t mean that you condone their actions or allow them back into your life; it also doesn’t mean that you have now “lost”.

It just means that you’ve chosen to stop holding on to the hurt that was committed against you.

And you’ve decided to stop holding their wrongdoing against them.

Once you release that negativity, even if you don’t “feel” better immediately, over time, the wound will begin to heal properly.

Sometimes, you also have to be the one to forgive yourself.

Focus on solutions:

In situations where you’re resentful toward someone you care about, the next question to ask after forgiveness and communication is, “How do we move forward?”

The time has come to move on from mistakes.

You might need to ease slowly into the level your relationship was before if it’s something you both desire.

It might be very difficult on some days, but the most important thing is that both parties are committed to making things work.

Once this factor is settled, time and intentionality are enough to handle the rest.

I still struggle with resentment sometimes, so I know that all this is easier said than done.

There will be moments of setbacks and “healing”; however, the form it’s required in might take some time.

However, when we take responsibility for our feelings, communicate them effectively, and actively seek solutions, we can build healthier and happier relationships.

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It explains how, as humans, we have different tastes and different types for different things.

People have varying tastes in music, movies, books, fashion, food, partner preferences, and basically every other thing in life.

I can see beauty in something, and you might not see the same beauty I do.

Whilst you might see a person and perceive them as struggling, damaged, and broken, another person might see the same person as someone who has the potential to be a great person with just a little help.

That’s the way it is.

However, one thing I believe that people fail to take note of is the fact that, as a person, you have the power to decide what you see beauty in.

Unlike the viewpoint that many desires and preferences were things that we were born with, we actually have a very strong say in determining what those things are.

Of course, our past experiences also play a (subconscious) role in this, but we’re still in the driving seat, especially since even long-standing beliefs can be rewired if preceded by a conscious, consistent decision.

The point again is that we, by ourselves, decide what is beautiful to us and what is not beautiful to us.

The moment you come to this consciousness, you will start to treat your life and your life choices with a lot more intentionality.

And you will pay much more attention to the things that you pay attention to.

Many times we have feelings towards people: feelings of admiration, feelings of respect, feelings of love, and others.

Sometimes, we even put them on a pedestal because we believe they are worthy to be there.

We’ve decided that they are worthy of the attention, worthy of our love, and worthy of every positive feeling we’ve attached to them.

(This also applies to negative feelings of bitterness, hatred, etc.)

Once we’ve attached a certain perception toward a person, then we proceed to treat them according to the way we perceive them.

However, once that perception is shattered, we realise that such a person is not who we thought they were, and we remove the beauty that we have attached to them.

Then suddenly, they start to appear ordinary and mundane to us, and we wonder if they were the same person we once held in high regard.

We wonder how one mistake could change our entire perception about them, and we wonder how someone can go from loved to completely hated because one piece of information came out about them.

Well, it’s because, as humans, we decide where we see beauty.

It’s as much a conscious decision as it is an unconscious one, and our rational judgement can often be clouded as we make these choices, simply because of the elevated (or subjugated) perception that we have of that person.

And while people, through their actions and their words, can influence the perception we have of them in our minds, ultimately, we still have the final say to decide on how we view them.

This is why I said that the moment we realise this power that we have, it’s only sensible for us to become more intentional in decisions like the choice of the people that we let into our lives and the people that we devote our time, our energy, our love, and our attention to.

Now, it’s not just people; this same principle applies to everything “life” in general.

Whatever we give our energy, time, and attention to is going to grow, regardless of what it is, positive or negative.

If you are trying to build a brand or a business, and you give it enough of the right attention, it will grow.

If you are trying to build a relationship, and you give it enough of the right attention, it will grow.

This also applies when you constantly give attention to your insecurities, failures, and weaknesses.

They will have no choice but to grow, and they will end up outshining your strengths and your potential because you’ve decided to pay less attention to them.

If you constantly consume information about how a certain business is failing and how anybody who does that business is doomed to fail, there is a good chance that you’ll also fail because you’ve shaped your entire perception by focusing on failure.

You can never be more than what your mind can perceive, and you will never become what your mind has not yet comprehended.

So, if beauty lies in the eye of the beholder, and if your beholding determines the beauty you see, it means that you have to make a conscious effort to focus on the pictures that paint where you’re going, even to an extent where you might appear delusional.

If you have an idea of where you are going, you must give it the right attention, and if you have an idea of where you don’t want to go, you must pay little to no attention to it.

Some people believe that by constantly obsessing over the mistakes they don’t want to make, they can use that awareness to avoid those mistakes.

That’s not true.

You can be aware of all the mistakes you don’t want to repeat and still end up repeating them because the antidote for failure is not awareness; it’s wisdom.

And you can’t have the wisdom to achieve something if all your focus has been on knowing how not to achieve that thing.

I’m big on perception. I’m big on perspective. I’m big on what I give my attention to.

There are many things I don’t want to know, and there are many things I don’t want to hear.

Once I get the vibe that a video or a tweet or an opinion is going to lead my thoughts to a place I’m not interested in going, I ensure to shut it out of my mind immediately.

And this is not a matter of being ignorant; it’s simply a matter of choosing to reserve your emotions, feelings, and thoughts for the things that serve you as a person.

Remember that whatever you give your time, your energy, and your attention to is what will grow.

You cannot be constantly looking down upon yourself and looking down on everything about you and then think that you are going to just wake up one day and love yourself with satisfaction and content.

It doesn’t work that way.

That’s why this principle first applies to us.

The beauty we behold in ourselves is what determines the beauty that we reflect out to the world.

You must behold your strengths, your weaknesses, your insecurities – and see the beauty in them.

If you don’t see the beauty in yourself, nobody is going to see the beauty in you.

“Perfection” as a perception is to the degree of your distance to what you’re beholding.

The closer you are to a person, the more you understand their flaws, and the less “shiny” and “blameless” they start to seem.

That’s why when negative news comes out about a famous celebrity or well-loved star, people are always shocked.

Meanwhile, they never knew this person in reality.

You’re looking at them from far away, and that’s the only reason they look perfect and blameless.

The closer you get to a person, the more you understand who they really are, and that’s when you start to decide: Is this person what I want for myself? Are they the type of friend I want? Are they the type of partner I want to be in a relationship with?

You can’t be quick to say “I love you” to someone you don’t know.

You can’t be quick to promise things to someone you don’t know.

If you are going to be in anything with someone, there has to be a degree of closeness, close enough for you to see who they really are.

This applies to us too.

The more familiar we are with ourselves, our strengths, our weaknesses, our triggers, our desires, our goals, our dreams — the more we can decide what we want for ourselves.

So, before you behold the beauty in anything or anybody, make sure that you are truly seeing it for what it is.

And never try to behold the beauty in another until you’ve first beheld the beauty in yourself.

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Over the last decades and centuries, the word (and/or expression) “Love” has been described and defined in so many ways by so many different people.

Some have called it “a feeling”.

Others have called it “a choice”.

Many say it’s “chemistry”.

Most say it’s “commitment”.

Regardless of how you’d like to describe it or what you think it is, “Love” is not a word or concept that’s strange to you.

Even if you’ve not experienced it in its purest form (yet), I’m very positive that you have seen it being manifested in diverse forms.

Love is all around us.

We see it in movies, we hear it in songs, we read it in books, we see it in initiatives, we observe it in charitable actions, we feel it in the way it drives our actions toward certain people, and we experience it every day from our Creator.

In its purest form, Love is the greatest and strongest force in the universe, and it is the driving factor behind every positive endeavour on the face of the Earth.

On the same scale, every evil and wickedness that’s ever been done and is still being done by humans to humans stems solely from a lack of love.

Sometimes, it kills me to imagine that there are people out there in the world who have never been loved properly before; people who don’t even know how it feels to love or to even be loved.

That’s quite sad.

There are also people who have once loved or been loved before, only to end up being burnt harshly by the source or the recipient of that said love.

That’s also very sad.

Sometimes, I wonder if we still know what “love” even means.

Love has been used to manipulate, to excuse wrongdoings, to avoid accountability, and to rebrand cases of lust.

Love has become transactional, so now, I’ll love you if you make me feel good, I’ll love you if you never correct me, and I’ll love you until you no longer serve my ego.

Have we forgotten that love is not always aesthetic and that it’s not always soft or butterfly-stirring?

Real love loves to correct and to sacrifice, and it stays when staying is hard and walks away when enabling is worse.

You love when you choose to forgive in private. You love when you pray for someone who hurt you even when you don’t talk anymore. You love when you let someone go because staying would be unloving to yourself.

“Love” has been defined and interpreted in many different ways, so in this post, I want to go back to the original template to explain what love is, what it does, and how you’ll know it’s present between you and somebody.

1. Love is patient.

Patience is painful; oh, it really is, and it’s painful because it makes you wait.

It makes you wait for something that you want immediately and for the things that you’d rather have in that moment.

However, wherever love is present, there’s patience too, and when you love someone, you’ll be patient with them.

I’m not talking about the kind of patience that’s always offering reminders and setting deadlines, but the kind that offers a lot of… graciousness and space.

Space to grow, space to heal, space to learn, space to make mistakes and work through them.

You can’t say you love someone if you’re constantly reminding them of their flaws or hanging every wrongdoing over their head.

Patience doesn’t connote condoning intentional recklessness; it is in the recognising of effort when it’s present and the giving of time required for the effort to blossom into tangible actions.

You’re patient when you don’t give up on the first letdown, you’re patient when you forgive for the hundredth time, and you’re patient when you see others how you’d like to be seen by them.

This doesn’t just apply to the people around you.

Patience is first extended by you to yourself, as you recognise that this is your first attempt at life, so you can’t have a flawless performance.

Regardless of what you know or how you feel about yourself, you will slip up, fall, and let yourself down.

Love is when you stand up, learn from your errors, and keep it going regardless.

2. Love is kind.

I believe that kindness is the foremost expression of love as an action.

Let me just plead with you to never enter or remain in any form of relationship with a person that is not kind.

Kindness is deeper than you just being nice, and it’s definitely not just about you smiling at someone and saying all the right words to them.

Anybody can be “nice” when they are in a good mood or when they are having a good day; that’s not a grandiose achievement.

A person who has a kind heart is the person who goes out of their way, regardless of feelings and prejudices, to do good to others.

A love that is kind will never, ever make you feel belittled; it will never humiliate you, and it definitely won’t choose pride and ego over apology and reconciliation in moments of wrong.

Kindness is genuinely the most important trait for a human being to have because every good action that he/she does will stem from that place.

That place of consideration, appreciation, and unconditional goodwill.

You should be kind, and I should be kind, and we should all be kind.

And not just to the people we love but to everybody around us; that’s the only way this world will get better, and it’s already shitty enough as it is.

Fortunately for all of us, it costs nothing to be kind.

3. Love does not envy.

I heard that some of you get jealous when you see your friends or siblings winning in life and that you build up spite and resentment in your heart when you see them getting the things that you desire.

That, my friend, is the definition of “witchcraft”.

If you feel like that toward anybody at the moment, especially if it’s a close friend or someone who truly loves you, then you need to treat that cancer with a lot of urgency and make sure you kill it.

It’s for your own sake because this form of bitterness has birthed actions that would forever be regretted and destroyed many otherwise beautiful relationships.

I believe it’s better to end a relationship or put some distance in it when you notice this trait, rather than you continuing to envy the other party all the time.

Some of you even deeply envy your friends, and yet you shower them with compliments as you pretend to be happy for them.

Jeez.

I hope you know that’s how murderous intentions start?

That’s NOT what love is, not at all.

When you love someone, you rejoice with them every time they rejoice, even when they got what you wanted and even when your own life feels stuck.

Love is not and should never be a competition.

In a real friendship or relationship, true love is not threatened by the growth and glow of someone else.

It celebrates it.

I’m not saying that it’s always going to be easy or convenient, but if the stream of the love you have for someone will remain pure, then you must never allow jealousy to contaminate it.

Envy is a disgusting monster that says, “Why not me? ”, and Love is a self-denying friend that says, “I’m happy for you, and I believe my time will come too. And even if it doesn’t come, I’m still glad for you.”

You should be able to reach deep down to that place of inner satisfaction within you where you can find peace at all times, regardless of however backward you might seem and how forward everyone else seems to be.

Remember that time and chance will eventually happen to each and every one of us.

4. Love does not boast.

I also heard that some of you are in relationships, dating or married, and you are “competing” with your partners to constantly show them that you are “better” than they are.

It is well.

I hope we all remember that being in a relationship is not by force?

If your love is always eager to prove that it’s better, smarter, richer, and stronger, then it’s not love at all.

When you boast, you turn love into performance, and you’ve put yourself under the burden of always needing to impress and to show off.

In that case, you’re just your lack of self-assurance, and you’re projecting your need for validation on the other person.

True love doesn’t need constant admiration or applause, especially when you have to belittle the other person in order to get them.

Someone who loves you will not always remind you of how great and awesome they are in a bid to make you feel “lucky” that they chose you or that they are with you.

Love loves, in spite of and regardless of whatever accolade is present or absent.

5. Love is not proud.

Pride is the bane of human existence, and it is the opposite of everything that is God and is good.

It’s even worse when it’s fuelled by the bad kind of ego.

If love lets you build bridges, then pride forces you to build walls.

True love will never survive for long in any relationship where one party or both parties are given to pride.

Pride and love are polar opposites.

Pride is the one that says, “You hurt me, so I won’t reach out first,” while Love is saying, “You matter more to me than my ego.”

Pride wants to shut your heart out to protect you from potential hurt, but Love is more than willing to be vulnerable and to express its grievances.

Pride always wants to win, while Love always wants to understand.

Humility is an ingredient that’s needed for any relationship to go the distance and to survive difficult moments.

It takes humility to apologise, to forgive, and to admit that you were wrong.

Trust me, I know that setting your pride aside is never easy, especially in situations where you are the one who is justified.

I’ve worked with pride, and I’ve worked with love, and I’ve come to the conclusion that if it’s a relationship with someone that truly matters to me, then I’d choose denying my ego every single time.

6. Love does not dishonour others.

You claim to love that person, but you always gossip behind their backs.

You claim to love, but you never have anything good to say about your friend.

You claim to love, but you use secrets told you in confidence as talking points with other people.

What exactly are you doing?

See, the thing with Love is that it is consistent, even in conflict and disagreement.

You have one bad argument with your friend, and you’re already badmouthing them to everybody you know. Is that love to you?

Love is honourable, so it accords maximum respect at all times.

Love doesn’t laugh at someone’s downfall or find joy in constantly mocking them with reminders of “I told you so.”

Love grieves with the broken; it hurts when others hurt, and it always longs for healing.

I understand the place of healthy banter and sarcasm in certain relationships, but that is never an excuse for you to constantly drag down or diminish the esteem of someone who you love.

Especially in public.

If I truly love you, then I’ll be very interested in protecting your reputation and guarding you from shame, no matter the circumstance or the current terms of our speaking.

Love shields people’s dignity and defends them in their absence.

I mean, your guys are mocking your girlfriend in your presence, and you’re laughing along with them because “it’s not that deep”?

Big shame on you, man.

7. Love is not self-seeking.

One of the hardest tenets of love, and one that’s often ignored, is the fact that true love is self-denying.

It puts others first.

I know that this is very difficult for us to reconcile with in this generation because we’re all about “self-love” and “putting yourself first”.

That, to an extent, has its own advantages, but there’s a reason why many of our parents had friendships and relationships that endured decades, long distances, and various challenges.

It’s because they understood the place of denying self in order to preserve an important relationship.

Love’s default design is not to know, “What can I gain?” but to know, “What can I give?”

And this doesn’t always have to be expressed in big statements or grand gestures.

Sometimes, it’s choosing to watch their movie even though you hate it or enduring a little inconvenience in order to put a smile on their face.

Love in itself is a call to put someone or something before you.

You CANNOT say you love when the focus is always you, you, and you.

That’s not love, trust me.

8. Love is not easily angered.

This ties in perfectly with the earlier point of patience.

Love is the number one giver of grace, even in situations where there’s a constant repeat of error.

Trust me, love will not flare up at the slightest provocation to call you names, and love will most definitely NOT slap you on the face or beat you to a stupor.

I understand that certain people struggle with containing their anger at certain moments, but I also know that love is a great catalyst for change and self-development.

The next time someone whom you love provokes you and then you want to flare up or get angry, just pause, breathe, and ask yourself: “Is this worth losing them over?”

9. Love keeps no record of wrongs.

Love will not keep a loaded gun of your past mistakes, waiting for the perfect argument to fire bullets that contain reminders of your errors from beforetime.

Love is a forgiver.

It doesn’t necessarily mean forgetting, but it means choosing to let things go and leaving the past in the past.

Love doesn’t tally mistakes or document flaws, and it definitely doesn’t use your past to gain leverage over you.

Even when the hurt is fresh and the pain is justified, love will choose to cry and weep, and then after, it will forgive, release the burdens to pass with time, and then move on.

Oh, it’s hard, I know. I really do.

But that’s what love is, and that’s why it is the strongest force in the universe.

10. Love rejoices with the truth.

The truth can be difficult to hear.

Sometimes, it’s very hard to hold it, sit with it, and then admit it to yourself.

So, if you have someone in your life who always tells you the truth with dignity and compassion in every situation, then you have someone who truly loves you.

You’d be surprised at the number of people who have important observations about your to tell you but will never do so because they are scared.

Or because they believe it’s not their business.

If you love someone, you’ll be more than willing to always tell them the uncomfortable truth, rather than deceive them with a comforting lie.

Ignorance is bliss, but what you don’t know can also kill you.

I don’t understand how you can have a friend that’s treading on a dangerous path, whether with their actions or with their mindset, and you don’t feel concerned about it at all.

You don’t even feel the need to offer them a friendly warning.

What kind of love is that?

“What if they don’t listen to me?” Okay, but what if they do? Don’t the benefits of that greatly outweigh whatever shame or embarrassment you might feel if they didn’t listen to you?

The truth builds, and it will always set free, even if it first has to burn and is difficult to accept initially.

That’s why it’s a tenet of love, because love is always real, even when it’s not convenient.

11. Love always trusts and hopes.

I have a friend who has had some disappointing experiences with love, and she’s always confused by my optimism when I encourage her to forget the past and just look forward.

She says, “I don’t believe love is for everybody.”

And I tell her, “There’s love out in the world for each and every one of us, sooner or later.”

It might be difficult to reconcile this truth, especially if all you’ve had in the past have been terrible, painful experiences, but the truth doesn’t change based on our personal experiences.

I tell my friend that she can decide to never love or allow herself to be loved again, and that would be fine. But if she ever decides to hope, then love is always going to be open to receiving her.

Even after every form of disappointment, love still believes.

Love believes in the best about people; it believes in restoration, and it believes in change.

Love isn’t naïve or stupid, but it isn’t cynical either.

Even when the situation feels bleak and there’s a struggle and all instincts are screaming to “run!”

Love finds a reason to hope and to believe in the best.

Every. Single. Time.

12. Love never fails.

People might change.

Feelings might fade away.

Circumstances will be unpleasant.

Despite all this, love never fails.

I’ve seen parents reconciled with their estranged children. I’ve seen lost pets reunited with their lost owners. I’ve seen victims forgiving their offenders.

I’ve seen love endure through excruciating circumstances.

Love is real, and it has a tremendous amount of power to effect good in the hearts and lives of all those who let it in.

If we all let love lead in everything that we do, we would live better lives, and our world would be better served by it.

I want you to do something.

In all of the points above, replace “Love” with your name.

Does it still sound right?

Are you all those things? Or at the very least, are you striving to be those things?

Ponder it to yourself to see if you’re loving right.

Now, if you’re in a close relationship, romantic or otherwise, I want you to do the same thing.

Replace “Love” with the name of that person.

Does it sound right?

Are they all those things to you? Or at the very least, are they striving to be those things to you?

Ponder it to yourself and see if you’re being loved right.

When we want to talk about love, we should remember the true essence of love.

It’s easy to talk about it with filters and play around with our perfect romance fantasies, but love in its perfect nature is patient, kind, truthful, humble, and forgiving.

Love doesn’t just make you feel good; it also makes you become good and helps you become better.

That’s the type of love that is worth giving, the type worth waiting for, and the type worth growing into.

Love is many things except a weakness.

It is a choice, that daily decision to show up, even when it’s hard and even when it hurts.

It is both soft and strong; tender, yet unwavering.

It holds you accountable and still holds your hand.

It does not always feel good, but it always does good, and in a world that’s growing colder by the day, only love can save us.

So, be good, love those who love you, and love those who don’t too.

To conclude, let’s never forget the ultimate representation of love, which is God, and the ultimate demonstration of that love, which is Christ Jesus.

You have heard the story a million times, but if you take a minute to truly ponder it, you will have no choice but to ponder what manner of it truly is.

That kind of love is the only love that never fails.

And we might not be able to attain that level of perfection yet, but we can at least try, day after day, person after person.

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So, I’ve got two announcements coming on Monday…

1. I’m releasing a new guide for writers and aspiring writers.

2. I’m hosting a paid webinar for aspiring writers soon.

See you then.

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My name is Ebun, and I am a citizen of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

I am also a Christian and a believer in God.

I firmly believe in the influence of the supernatural over the physical realm, and I subject myself regularly to the power of prayer and faith.

I also believe in the ministry of Angels.

However, despite all this, the system of Nigeria can utterly fail me today, and it will not be God’s fault.

I can lose my life or the life of any of my loved ones, and my faith won’t be liable to any blame, because there is absolutely NOTHING God can do to rescue a social system that’s as fundamentally broken as ours.

Okay, I need you to patiently walk with me.

According to the Bible, God created the Earth in 6 days (whether that’s literal “days” or not, nobody knows), and then he rested on the 7th day.

This creation event probably happened like tens of thousands of years ago, and I’ll have you know that even till today, February 9, 2026, God is still resting.

And the reason God could create the entire world, begin the human race, and then rest was because he put systems in place.

There are thousands of systems that run autonomously every day without His intervention, and those are the things that keep our world running smoothly.

Systems like: The sun rising in the morning and setting in the evening, rain falling when the clouds are full, the food chain in the animal kingdom, trees bearing fruits in season, and many others.

All these things happen periodically with little to no interference from God, because the ideal and model style of management is to put things in order and then watch them work.

After doing all that, He put man and woman, His final system, in place to handle the management of everything that happens on the Earth.

Understanding this is foundational to where we’re going.

It’s clear from God’s management system that human beings were not designed to rely solely on His constant intervention in their lives in order for them to live good and peaceable lives every day.

However, after the fall of man and everything else that happened after, human beings have had to become dependent on God for help in their activities.

In spite of this, though, our world is still structured on the principle that - If a proper system is in place, there would be little to no need for divine intervention.

And this is because God has already ceded full control of human activity on the face of the Earth to men and women.

I’ll explain this further in a minute.

The point is that if a country has excellent systems in healthcare, economy, politics, social living, education, and everything else that relates to the well-being of its citizens, then there would be no need for God to constantly be called on to intervene.

Unfortunately for Nigerians and the citizens of many other third-world countries across the world, this is not the case.

For example, if I got bitten by a snake today, here’s how much I’ll need God to intervene:

I’ll first pray to God that there’s a functioning hospital close to where I am. I won’t bother calling for an ambulance because I most likely won’t find any.

Then I’ll pray to God that there’s no traffic on the road, or that the road is not too bad so that whatever vehicle I’m in can move quickly, or that the Police doesn’t randomly stop me on the road to extort me and waste my time.

Then I’ll pray to God that the hospital staff is not on strike or that they will even attend to me immediately without asking me to pay some money to open a “file”.

Then after all this, I’ll still pray to God when I get to the hospital that they should have the anti-venom medicine I need not to die.

All these prayers will be done by me or by people for me in a matter of mere minutes, while I’m in an intense amount of pain and agony.

Let’s assume that God decides in His mercy to step in and supernaturally neutralise the venom from my system (which I firmly believe that He can do); will God also supernaturally fix the roads? Will God also supernaturally make antivenom appear at the hospital? Will God also supernaturally educate hospital staff to know that empathy and saving a life are more important than money?

Meanwhile, if I were in another country, a country with the proper systems in place, I could easily call for help and get the needed medical attention within 15-30 minutes.

Compare these two scenarios together; what do they tell you?

Nigeria’s problem is not an issue of not “praying enough” or not “having faith”; it’s an issue of a rotten and damaged system that can be a detriment to anybody at any time.

Regardless of your age, financial status, religious affiliation, or political loyalty, Nigeria can “happen” to you, and if it does, you better hope (or pray, ironically again) by all means that you survive.

I’m not against any kind of prayer, but the only reason we pray some prayers as Nigerian Christians is because our nation is fundamentally broken to the barest minimum.

We pray to God before we can afford rent, we pray to God that our universities don’t go on strike, we pray to God for “favour” so we can get a good job after spending years in the university, we pray to God for “grace” so that the Police can do their job after we file a report - we basically pray for EVERYTHING in this place.

There’s nothing wrong with praying these prayers, and I can categorically tell you that God answers them all the time, but the point is that if we were in a sane society with the right systems, we wouldn’t even be praying about many of these things.

And this is a valid, albeit colourblind, argument that atheists have against the validity of our faith.

Their ignorance of the existence of the supernatural and its superimposition over our physical realm is laughable, but they have a point when they say that many Nigerians would not “need” God if our society was working as it should.

I’m inclined to agree partially because I know that many Nigerian Christians only attend church, go to prayer meetings, and hold on to their faith because they are afraid that everything will fall apart if they leave the covering of God.

But we were never meant to be this dependent on God for basic survival; our dependence on God is solely meant for dominion and establishment.

Unfortunately, our version of God, what we’ve made God appear to be and reduced Him to, is something that a working government could easily replace by putting a few things in place.

God is meant to be much more to us, and we will know Him much more and perceive Him much better if the situation of our nation didn’t force us to be dependent on Him for the most basic things.

If Nigeria, and other nations of the world by extension, were operating as they were meant to be, then our view of God and our relationship with Him would be more love-dependent than need-dependent.

We wouldn’t relate to Him from the standpoint of desperation to see our needs sorted or bitterness from unanswered prayers because God won’t be playing the role of a vending machine in our lives.

It’s quite sad if you understand what I’m saying.

We will always need God, especially as a spiritual anchor against the negative spiritual influences that also exist alongside Him.

But, man, this is not how it’s meant to be.

My biggest issue with systematic religion, and I’ve spoken about this countless times, is how it can blind people completely and erase all their ability to think rationally.

How can a man blatantly rig an election and force his way into power, and your only response is, “It’s the will of God; that’s why he won. Let’s just pray for the best.”

Isn’t that foolishness?

If you were to ever witness irrational Nigerian Christians (or any other religion) giving reasons or excuses as to why the country is the way it is, you’d either be driven to tears in pity or driven to anger in shame.

Trust and faith in God are not meant to make you stupid or illogical; they are, in fact, meant to elevate you to a higher level of thinking and perception.

If your belief in a “God” or your loyalty to a “religion” reduces you to nothing but a mindless sheep who accepts everything he/she is told and never thinks outside a ridiculously limiting box, then you’ve either been brainwashed or you’re in a cult.

We have outsourced the duty of saving our nation to God, and that’s one of the reasons we’ll continue to remain stagnant for many, many years to come.

We’re not even ready at all.

Many Nigerians, especially the illogically religious ones, have adopted a nationalistic view of individualism over corporate responsibility, and this clearly reflects in how they practise their faith.

Individualism – “As long as I and my family are doing good, then there’s no problem. God will bless and protect us, and this administration will favour us. We will succeed in Nigeria regardless.”

Corporate responsibility – “This country is really terrible, and we have to do something about it. I think we should create a grassroots mobilisation group to sensitise people to their democratic rights.”

Do you see the clear difference?

Once again, I’m not saying those prayers are a crime or that they don’t get answered, but the biggest problem with them is that they dull us to have a sense of responsibility that the state and future of this nation are actually in our hands.

Personal prayers are good and vital, but they rarely ever save people when it comes to cases of systematic failure.

In cases of systematic failures, you can have 100 victims, and only 10 would live to tell the story or share their testimony.

In a country where more than 80% of its citizens are practising this form of individualism in their religion, deluding and comforting themselves with “I’m just one man; what can I do?”, it’s easy to see why there’s no visible progress.

If any progress is going to be made in this nation, then we can’t be tone deaf or insensitive to the glaring issues of our nation in the name of faith or religiosity.

It’s easy to testify about how you were the only one who survived a bus accident or about how you were the one selected for the job amongst 99 other candidates.

You’re ignoring the fact that if we had good roads and safety regulations and if we also had a good job economy, then your bus would probably not have crashed in the first place, and you and 99 other people might not be hustling for one job due to a lack of options.

We need balance.

We need balance, for God’s sake.

God is not going to save Nigeria anytime soon because there’s literally NOTHING that He can do.

What can He do when the citizens are docile, defeated, and distracted, and the leaders are so wicked, selfish, and inhumane?

We’re all better off storming government houses and lynching all our politicians than fasting and praying for the next 50 years.

Prayer is good, and knowing God is better, but when you have a group of people who live and think the way that we live and think here, then we will always make God and prayers look like a failure.

If you’re wondering if God can fail, then yes, He definitely can.

Your religious mind will panic and tell you that God is perfect and blameless – and He is – but when it comes to human beings, God has been let down many, many times in the past.

God is not a man, even his “failures” are inherently much more greater than our biggest successes, because they always end up working to achieve his grand plan.

However, man has consistently proven that he can render God’s sovereignty useless through his selfish actions.

In the Bible, God couldn’t get the Israelites into the promised land despite all his attempts to because of how damaged that generation was due to the slavery they endured for 440 years.

That entire generation had to die in the wilderness before their children – the ones who were not exposed to the slavery – could enter the promised land.

And even then, that new generation still struggled when it came to being courageous and audacious because they had only ever been exposed to smallness all their lives.

Do you think God wanted that?

No.

Nigeria is like a perfect typeset of Biblical Egypt, and one day, I’ll paint contrasting parallels so we can clearly see what’s ailing us.

Before then, you should read this-

Like I said earlier, the system of God on Earth is man, which means that there’s little to nothing God can do if He can’t find a man or woman on Earth that’s willing to enforce what He wants done.

God created the world and RESTED; you need to understand that supernatural intervention was never meant to, and can never, completely replace the establishment of working systems.

People ask why God doesn’t do anything about the suffering on earth; they ask why He sits back and watches millions of people die.

We can debate back and forth about the reasons all day, but I’ll tell you the simple answer: It’s because there’s actually nothing He can do about it.

What can He do?

Isn’t it man that’s inflicting suffering and pain on his fellow man? Isn’t it humans who turn blind eyes to the sufferings of the other humans around them? Aren’t men responsible for the wars that have wreaked havoc around the world today?

Weren’t men and women the ones who trafficked, assaulted, and sacrificed little children on Epstein’s island?

How is any of that God’s fault?

The nature of man’s free will was that he would act in subservience to the will of God to ensure the smooth running of God’s system on Earth.

Man rebelled, and has been rebelling ever since, against that principle, and that’s why our world is as shitty as it is today.

Until men and women come together to fix broken systems and establish governments that’ll actually work on putting the right structures in place, nothing is ever going to change about the world.

At least the citizens of many nations are even more advanced than we are; anytime I reflect on Nigeria, I just shake my head.

Having “systems” will not replace the role of God in our lives or mean that our country will suddenly become perfect, but it means that we can live and breathe a little easier than we currently do.

God cannot save us until we’re ready to save ourselves.

All that being said, the least you can do for yourself, and your family, and your friends, is ask God to help you on a daily basis.

The systems of Nigeria have all already gone to shit; do you still want to endanger yourself more by leaving your whole life to chance?

That’s for you to answer to yourself.

Peace be unto you.

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Yes and No.

But in all honesty, yes, you actually can.

When people talk about situations of cheating or being cheated upon, the most popular comment is often:

“He/she never loved her/him.”

Or

“You never loved me.”

It’s an emotional response that’s often borne out of disappointment, betrayal, and hurt, but is it always true?

Does one (or multiple) act(s) of unfaithfulness denounce the love that a person claims to have for their partner?

Well, it really depends on how you want to look at it, and there are many different ways you can look at it.

But before we proceed, let’s just be clear that this article is not endorsing or aimed at enabling cheating in any way.

Now, that being said, the reason I believe it’s possible for a partner that loves you to cheat on you is because those two things (“love” and “cheating”) are not mutually exclusive.

The fact that one exists in your relationship doesn’t mean the other cannot exist alongside it.

The opposite of unfaithfulness is NOT love.

The opposite of disloyalty is NOT love.

The opposite of infidelity is NOT love.

Therefore, it doesn’t make much sense to say that because one is present, the other is or will automatically be absent.

I can love you and still not be faithful, loyal, or express fidelity to you.

Is that the right thing? No.

Can it still happen? Yes.

And the existence of that possibility should tell us that “love” alone is not enough to sustain a healthy relationship.

Which brings me to my next angle:

What exactly is “love”? Or what does it mean to “love” someone?

I’ll leave you to ponder that.

But I think we’re all sensible enough at this age to know that love, true love, is more than just a feeling.

It’s more than butterflies and that intense yearning you feel in your heart when you’re close to them or when you miss them.

It’s more than the ridiculously curated or laughably overpriced Valentine packages I’m seeing all over Snapchat at the moment.

Love is a choice; a choice in spite of.

When you love someone in the true sense of the word, it’s you saying that you’ve made a choice to accept them the way they are.

It means that you’ve chosen to care for them regardless of their flaws, their past, their limitations, their weaknesses, and everything else that might deter another person from them.

And it means you’ve chosen to care for them alongside their strengths, their dreams, their ambitions, their beauty, and everything else that will attract another person to them.

I don’t want to delve deeper, but this alone should tell you why it’s foolish for someone who claims to love you to always be the first person to remind you of your insecurities or tear down every ambition that you set for yourself.

Let’s keep that till another day.

According to the words of Jesus in the Bible, the greatest form of the expression of love is for one to “lay down their life” for someone else.

Now, this doesn’t have to be a literal or physical death; it could also be as simple as making sacrifices or character adjustments for the sake of the person you love.

I wrote about this extensively for Valentines Day last year on -

I highly recommend that you read it.

Now, with all this in mind, doesn’t it just become sensible for you to follow up your love for someone with faithfulness, loyalty, and fidelity?

If your answer is yes, then we can emphatically say that it’s practically impossible for you to cheat on someone you truly love.

You won’t embarrass someone you love by roping them into a cheating scandal.

You won’t be inconsiderate of someone you love by hurting their feelings and trampling on their commitment to you.

You won’t put your emotional and physical needs (or lusts) over the trust and expectations that your partner has of you.

If you’re willing to do all this once, and then multiple times over, to someone who you claim to “love,” then you’re either a certified asshole or your definition of that word is highly skewed.

You decide which it is.

Back to the flip side, there’s a lot that goes into remaining loyal and committed to a person that it’s premature to simply assume that cheating happens when there’s no “love”.

That’s a convenient excuse that can be used to mask some deeper deficiencies.

The first thing that goes into fidelity in a relationship is Choice.

You have to choose not to cheat on your partner no matter what, and this is a choice that you make way before the opportunity even arises.

Part of the tenets of this choice is you also ensuring that you never put yourself in that type of situation in the first place.

This is why I’ll never take people who say their infidelity was a “mistake” seriously.

Yes, mistakes happen, and careless, unguarded moments can occur, but the mental and physical process that goes into cheating is too progressive and intentional for it to be something that “just happened.”

You traveled by road for three hours to cheat, and you expect us to believe it was a mistake? Really?

And even if it was a mistake the first time, you still chose to repeat it again and again and again.

If you weren’t caught, you wouldn’t have stopped, so where exactly is the said “mistake”?

It’s ridiculous.

Your decision to constantly disregard their commitment to you shows that you don’t really love that person as you should.

Other factors that go into establishing loyalty in a relationship include discipline, consideration, and many others.

If I love you but I’m not sexually disciplined, there’s a good chance I will cheat on you.

If I love you but I’m not considerate of your feelings and the effect my actions have on you, then I can cheat on you.

But then again, can I really say I “love” you if I’m not considerate of your feelings?

I don’t think so.

And this is where that understanding of what love is has to be clear.

You have to decide what kind of “love” you’re willing to accept and the kind you’re willing to give.

“Love” as a feeling or as an expression is never going to be enough; it takes so much more to make these things work.

I’m not condoning infidelity; I’m just offering a mental reframe that you’re free to disagree with.

I believe that cheating, whether physically or emotionally (or both), is genuinely the worst thing you can do to someone who has committed their mind, body, and heart to you in a relationship.

And whilst I understand the place of forgiveness, restoration, and second chances… it’s still a very difficult thing to reconcile.

You genuinely have no right to give “advice” if you’ve not experienced the pain before.

I hate it when people try to make forgiving a cheating partner like this is a mandatory and straightforward thing that must happen by all means, especially in the context of marriage.

You can’t expect a partner to just forgive and accept a partner that broke the covenant and forsook their marriage vows because they are a “Christian” or because “God said so.”

It’s so dumb, tone-deaf, and highly inconsiderate.

And even if they will, it’s entirely their choice.

Can you forgive? Yes, you can.

Should you forgive? Yes, for your own sake.

Must you stay in that relationship? No, unless you decide to.

And if you decide to do so, you have to make sure that you’re doing the best thing for your life.

It’s possible for you to cheat on someone you love, but that’s if you rely only on the feeling of love to sustain you, especially on the days you feel ignored, lonely, or in dire need of physical intimacy.

There’s a difference between “love” as a verb, an expression, and “love” as a noun, which is the full package of commitment and loyalty that we discussed earlier.

Being in a healthy relationship demands that both are always present.

Your love can’t be true if it comes with words of affirmation and gifts but there’s no ounce of loyalty.

And your love can’t be true if there’s loyalty and commitment but no visible expression of said love.

Balance, balance, balance.

Before you choose to commit to a relationship with someone, you must be sure that you have what it takes to do more than express love through words and actions.

If you can’t, it’s best that you remain single, or at least end the relationship, and stop putting someone else through emotional turmoil.

You can and you should do better.

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It’s nothing but a reckless statement that aims to absolve someone completely of the consequences of behaviours and decisions that they once made in the past.

Whilst I agree that one’s past decisions don’t always reflect their present state or determine their future, attempting to divorce it completely from the picture is very ill-advised.

The common scenario when this phrase is used, and the one that pisses me off the most, is when people try to use it to gaslight potential life partners into settling with them regardless of whatever they had done previously.

I have two real-life scenarios that perfectly exemplify this point.

The first one is about a Black-American woman who met a man and dated him for a few years. One day, the man proposed to her and she agreed to marry him, they even set a wedding date and all.

Suddenly, like a week before the wedding, she showed up with two young boys around the ages of 7 and 8, and she started to explain how they were her kids from a previous relationship.

The man rightly got angry and he immediately called off the wedding and cancelled his proposal.

The woman begged and pleaded and tried to explain, but he wouldn’t listen to her. Not only was he hurt that she had kept something like that from him for so long, essentially lying to him for years, he was adamant that he would never be the man to raise another man’s kids.

After failing repeatedly to convince him to carry on with the marriage, the said woman went on Facebook and started to rant and throw jabs in a series of posts.

She was saying things like the man never loved her and that he wasn’t a “real man” (lmaooo), and that her boys deserved a real man as a father, and how society is “unfair” toward single mothers, and how she can’t wait for a man who will “focus on building a future with her”, amongst many others.

Now, whilst you can classify all these as the tears of a bitter woman, I’m sure you can also spot the pattern of thinking.

There’s nothing wrong with being a single mother, but there’s also absolutely nothing wrong with a man not wanting to take on the responsibility of your children.

Tell me:

Do you think it’s fair or reasonable for her to say that the man who proposed to her never loved her in the first place?

Do you think his refusal to raise the children of another man, children he wasn’t aware of, by the way, means that he’s not a “real man” (whatever that means)?

Is he justified in his stance, or was he obligated to continue with a marriage proposal he made when he was still ignorant?

Ponder your answers.

The second scenario is also similar, except that the roles are sort of reversed now.

This time another Black American woman got a new job, and she started talking regularly to one of her co-workers, a nice guy, who seemed to be reserved.

She took an interest in him, even though he was always very cautious around her, and she took the bold step of asking him to eat dinner with her after their shifts one day.

They both got to talking, and eventually, they started dating. Things were going really well until after a few months when the guy suddenly became distant, and he insisted on having an important conversation with her.

As he talked, he told her how much he really loved her, which was why he had to come completely clean to her about his past, since things were getting serious.

He told her that he was an ex-convict and that he had been in prison before. She was shocked, but she took it gracefully because she felt like she knew him enough to know that he didn’t act like a criminal, and also because it was kind of a common thing for many young men in that area.

However, the shocker of her life came when she asked him what he was imprisoned for, and he replied, with a very pained and broken look on his face, “I sexually assaulted a minor.”

He rambled as he tried to explain how it happened when he was still in college, and how he had been really foolish, and that he was now a changed man, and that he had served his time - basically every single, desperate explanation that he could offer.

He was still talking with tears in his eyes when she stood up and walked away. The next day she resigned, and he never saw her again.

The only thing she left was a text message, pleading with him not to try to find her, and saying that as much as she felt with him, she didn’t think she could ever feel safe with him around their daughter, if they were to have one, and around her little sisters.

Tell me, is she justified or not?

Even if he had truly changed and was truly remorseful for his past actions, does it mean that she still had to accept what he had done and continue the relationship with him?

Would she have been a “real woman” if she decided to go against the refusal in her heart in order to keep moving forward?

Ponder the answer to yourself.

The point I’m making is that your past, no matter how much you regret it or attempt to deny it, will always matter because it played a role in getting you to where you are today.

And as much as it might hurt, nobody is obligated to accept you with either your past or the consequences of said past.

If they decide to, that’s good, but that choice is completely up to them to make.

It’s up to them as a choice and not a responsibility.

That job is not obligated to give you the role after reviewing your social media history.

That person is not obligated to continue in a relationship with you after discovering some of your past actions from your ex.

Your health is not obligated to always be good to you especially since you spend all day doing things that are harmful to it.

It’s that simple.

If you were to think deeply, you’ll also realise that there are certain people and certain things that you will not accept if they come with a certain history.

You won’t invest in a business that has gone bankrupt multiple times in the past.

You won’t buy from a vendor that has had bad reviews from previous customers.

You definitely won’t live with a roommate that has a history of manslaughter or extreme violence.

With all these in mind, we can both agree that someone’s past or the history/reputation that’s attached to them matters a lot.

A whole lot.

Globacom has been memed and termed as the slowest network in Nigeria for years, and believe me, no matter what they do, that reputation is not leaving them anytime soon.

This is why governments and organisations spend millions in public relations and propaganda pushing just so they ensure that their reputations remain clean and they always appear in the right light.

Unlike the average man that’s without lofty dreams, billion-dollar organisations and influential people understand that a good past and present image will, more often than not, help you secure a good image in the future.

Now, there are obviously outliers to this case.

But unless you’re a multi-millionaire or come from an extremely wealthy family, your negative past actions will most likely haunt you in the future.

Even those guys aren’t safe; just look at Diddy.

Once again, I’m not berating the place of forgiveness, redemption, and second chances.

And I’m not trying to sound insensitive toward people with troubled pasts or who have actions that they regret.

I genuinely believe that people have the ability to change, pick themselves up, and decide to do better with their lives.

Nobody’s past has to define their future, so long as they have decided to change their actions in the present.

Sometimes, we act out of fear or ignorance or recklessness, so when we come to that point where we know better, we have to do better.

If you have truly adjusted your present mind and actions in a way that’s completely different from who you once were, you can rest assured that your future pays no attention to the past, just the present.

Like I said, that past (and the consequences of it) will probably haunt you every now and then, but it doesn’t have to hold you back.

Nobody is perfect, and everybody has things that they’re not proud of.

It’s just up to you to take responsibility for what you’ve done, admit that there are repercussions, and then face them as boldly as you can.

Attempting to gaslight yourself or the people around you into believing that the things you once did no longer matter because you’ve now changed is you doing more harm to yourself than good.

It’s also you just being a shitty person.

Our actions of today shape the outlook of our future, so it’s up to us not to do things today that we’ll regret tomorrow.

We’re all conscious of the actions that we make every single day, and whilst we can always make mistakes or act out of ignorance, it still doesn’t absolve us of all responsibility.

The good thing is that we don’t always have to suffer the future consequences of an action before we learn from it.

If you look around you, you’ll find countless people who once did exactly what you’re currently doing.

Look at where they are today and how they ended up.

Do you like it? Would you like to be like them? Is their life an example of the future you dream for yourself?

If yes, then good for you.

If not, then well, good for you still.

At least whichever way your life ends up, you can’t say you didn’t see it coming.

As unpredictable as life can be, we should live our lives in a way that, barring all the unforeseen circumstances that we pray against, the outcome of our lives can be easily predictable.

Meaning that you or the people around you can gauge through your actions and your words that this is where you’ll end up in 10, 15 or 20 years.

The future is not just some reality pre-ordained by God that will happen no matter what.

I can determine my future by myself with the actions I take today.

And regardless of whatever I face, the full responsibility of how it turns out rests on me.

Life has different variables to it, but consistent actions = predictable future.

Whether good or bad.

Unless you make a change along the way, those things you’re doing today have a definite result that is coming for you soon.

For your own sake, pay attention to them.

Be mindful of them so that in the future you won’t have to be gaslighting yourself, or a potential life partner, or potential job recruiters, or anybody/anything else with “my past doesn’t matter”.

When in reality, it inherently does.

(I wrote this post a few weeks ago, but I must add this part before I post it.)

There’s currently a “challenge” going on TikTok, using a viral song from one of Nigeria’s top artists that was released in 2017.

I’m guessing it was meant to be just a harmless dance routine, but as expected, my people have done what they do best by pushing the limits to near nakedness.

Many of such videos have been pouring in under the challenge, and whilst I’ve not seen any of them (thank God), I saw a post that spoke extensively about it.

Honestly, I’m not really surprised that the “challenge” is blowing up, it’s just insane that things like this are still happen in 2026.

Then again, this is Nigeria, and we tend to glorify bottom-barrel behaviour as the 3rd world nation that we are.

Even the “leaders of tomorrow” are never exempt from the fooling.

As always, while some people are (rightly) criticising the participants of this “challenge”, others (as expected) are encouraging them with phrases like, “They won’t be young forever”, “Mind your business”, and “Leave people to do whatever they want.”

All three of these perspectives are completely valid, so my argument is not against them.

I don’t even have an argument, to be honest.

It’s just funny how most of the people “defending” this whole thing will never be found participating in such actions.

I saw someone that I know participate in the “challenge”, and I just laughed out loud to myself before shaking my head.

Personally, I don’t judge, I just observe and go.

The only time I’ll ever speak is when you’re someone close to me.

We can all do whatever we want, both in public and private, and that’s the truth. We can choose to damn the consequences and forget that actions always bring about reactions.

I mean, what else is the essence of our freewill?

However, in the future, if or when the repercussions of these actions come around, we should also be ready to face them with the same confidence that we used to execute the actions.

Simple as that.

Peace be unto you o.

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Side note - I have never seen anybody defend bad behaviour like Nigerians before, it’s so crazy.

We seem to be unable to ever put aside gender, religious, ethnic, political, and moral biases to call a spade a spade and to call a shovel a shovel.

I really don’t get it. I don’t.

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