16 Conclusions — February 2023
I’ve decided to come and bang out my February review as I’m doing rubbish with what I’m supposed to be working on right now.
1. INEC has just declared a winner in the 2023 presidential elections in Nigeria and understandably, a lot of people are upset. I’m largely upset too but I’m calm. Once I’m not having conversations with BAT supporters, I’m actually genuinely calm. It’s tough to understand the rationale for supporting and voting what someone described on twitter today as the Pablo Escobar & Osama combo, but hey, here we are in Nigeria. I’m usually guilty of making excuses and finding reason for other people or trying to see things from other’s perspectives but this one, I can’t quite understand. It’s not like I expected the outcome to be different, but yes, I am calm. I don’t think this is the end of this episode. Surely God cannot but answer so many cries for help and mercy.
2. The run up to the elections came with cash and petrol shortages. Interestingly, the petrol shortages somewhat receded as the elections approached but the cash shortages have remained. It is almost impossible to get into the banking halls in Nigeria. Maybe I feel this way because the banks around me are mostly in a residential area and it would be easier if I was working around somewhere like Awolowo road Ikoyi, but it’s been an absolute mess trying to do anything banking related. I’m unable to renew my expired ATM cards or open additional accounts. Regular banking transactions have also become like Russian roulette. I was delayed at an eatery for over 30 mins because I couldn’t log into any of my banking apps and their POS machine didn’t have network. Thank God and the good people at Piggyvest for PocketApp. That’s the best place to do transfers now. I’ve been at the airport and had to use my last N1k at the time to get out of the car park as the airport’s POS machine wasn’t working. People who didn’t have any cash couldn’t leave. It’s been a crazy couple of weeks living in Nigeria. And the country isn’t at war.
3. Enough of Nigeria and now about me. I finally went out to have drinks with a friend for the first time this year at The Good Beach. There are a couple of restaurants there and it was just fascinating to see the real estate investments still happening in Lagos. I wasn’t out at all in January except for that one work brunch so it was good to see a little bit of Lagos in the evening.
4. Nigeria again — The days leading up to the elections also had everyone going to every shopping mall to stock up for supplies like the apocalypse was coming. It was reminiscent of pre-covid lockdowns. There was traffic trying to get into malls and the company I work for even paid an extra relief allowance. Speaking of pay, I’m yet to receive a bonus at my workplace. It must come soon, or I’ll be a bit worried. Bonuses are typically paid quarterly and given that I’ve been there for 9 months now, surely, I should have collected something. But no, it hasn’t happened yet. On a more positive note, I think for the first time since April 2022, I was able to start saving money again. It’s been a weird road in the last two years when I used to have a lot of disposable cash till now. You can talk about inflation and exchange rate and changing jobs and all that but having more money is always better than not having more money.
5. In more outing news, I also had one of my Netherlands people in Lagos for about two weeks. He was doing his annual Lagos trip and we were able to hang out a couple of times. It’s fascinating how some people go forward and seem like they never look back — or they never need to look back. While some people travel out and never really have the need to visit Nigeria and can stay away from “home” or where they grew up, some others, like me, tend to give in to nostalgia and check back on places (and people) who we have memories with. I’ve started classifying people like that. Do I think this is someone who “looks back”? Or are they a “bye bitch” type of person? I’ll document my findings. As a good man that he is, he did well to bring me some goodies from Amsterdam. We also went for Sunday brunch at Vertigo sometime during the month alongside my partner— and that was the end of my outings for February.
6. Work specifically, was half and half. I feel like this was one of the busiest months I’ve had at work since I joined about 9 months ago. Every day now comes with a request for one report or presentation or update, MFJPM. My team was also always busy with one investment analysis or the other. And I think I started really well, with a lot of mental and physical energy. But as the second week went into the third, I think I got burnt out. I was tired of having engaging conversations on every review I had to review. It didn’t help that I wasn’t feeling great emotionally. And it took a while to realize that I was probably actually just burnt out. All I knew was that I didn’t feel like working on most days, even though there was a lot of work. Thankfully, I didn’t fall into the trap of doing shoddy work. And by the final week of the month, I was able to get back into the groove.
7. As the month wore on, I started to feel more and more disappointed about the traction I was getting on my personal goals and projects. After a fast start in January, I have to say that I was piss poor in February. The workload in the first couple of days provided a mental excuse but there wasn’t any real improvement. They say that when you wake up is your morning so yeah, it’s time to wake up and let light in and make this my morning and make the best use of the season. Studying happened in a similar pattern. I however also understand that there was probably some fatigue involved. Thankfully, there’s still a bit of time to make up the “lost” time, and I’m learning way more than I used it.
8. There was one week, and particularly one weekend where I felt a lot of despair. For those couple of days, I didn’t feel upbeat about anything. Truly, it wasn’t even about feeling upbeat. I understand it may not always be possible to feel upbeat and happy and giddy, but I wasn’t even feeling flat. I was feeling really low. While a combination of rest and Vitamin D has somewhat helped, I sometimes feel like I’m not too far away from those feelings. Like one of my friends suggested, maybe my serotonin levels were just lower than my usual average.
9. I also stopped running quite early in the month. I’ve heard on the Knowledge podcast how it’s important to make personal rules — and I generally apply that principle. Rules help you reduce the need to make a decision, especially if you’re an indecisive person. An example of a rule is that you go to the gym at 7 a.m. every weekday. And you actively work to make sure external factors don’t disturb that rule i.e you have a permanent alarm set, and you don’t have any meetings till maybe 9 a.m every day. This helps you not have to decide every day if you should go to the gym or not. And the rule is not that you work out every morning. You can get to the gym and turn around and head back home but just obey the rule of heading to the gym every morning at 7. That’s how I used to run. And then one morning, I didn’t go for my run. I went that evening, but then the next morning, I didn’t go again, saying I could go in the evening. I haven’t gone for a run since that day.
10. I found time to see Shanty town. I blame my brother, he pressured me. But yeah, I saw the series everyone had been raving about. And frankly, it had a little too much violence for me. I try to be careful about what I feed my mind, so I wasn’t too pleased about how gory it was. For me, Chidi Mokeme’s acting carried the show and I won’t be pressuring anyone to see it.
I also spent quite a bit more time than usual playing FIFA 23 — blame my brother again. Loose Talk podcast is back so I listened to their comeback episode. That was pretty much it for entertainment. Truly, the FIFA was a lot. Blame my brother.
Duolingo is somewhere in-between learning and games, so I’ll drop progress on that here. I’m still learning new words in French and learning how to piece sentences together but at some point, I got tired of how much Duolingo requires you to feed it. The app became like this insatiable beast that wanted you to keep gathering XPs to get promoted to higher leagues and stuff like that. Don’t practice enough in a week and you’re getting demoted. After some time, I just got tired of having to do 1-hour lessons and didn’t care about getting demoted. I can’t come and kill myself on top of French.
11. The fast I’ve been on was also slightly tougher this month. I wouldn’t say it’s because I feel a need to drink or anything like that, I think it’s more about my mind rejecting the restriction. So yeah, sometimes I wish I could just open a can of beer and take a gulp and pour out the rest but I’m going to try to stay the course. I’ve also been wondering, do these feelings emphasize that there might have actually been a problem? Or is it just the mind and the body reverting to wanting what it’s been used to? Time will tell.
12. It’s been a slight balancing act — trying to lay low and stay focused on all the work I’m doing and managing my relationships more prudently. I’m a people person and I tend to care deeply about my people so even though it was low-touch, I tried to stay in touch with some of my friends. I keep saying that I feel like God is reshaping my friend’s list and how I manage my friendships and the value I place on them. I’m trying to follow the book of Proverbs and not The Godfather, even though I’m reading both simultaneously.
13. Over the last few years, I’ve been in Christian circles quite a bit and I’ve joined prayer sessions and seen people talk about their miracles but this month, I witnessed a miracle happen in a friend’s life. Said friend is in the UK so “witnessed” there shouldn’t be taken to mean that I was in proximity. No, it’s not that type of blind-now-seeing type of miracle, but it was a miracle of divine provision. After we spoke about the issue she had, I just went and worshipped God. I listened to songs that reminded me about his grace for provision and God’s riches in glory. Interestingly, I think shortly before that period as well, I saw a video of Bishop Oyedepo saying he’d seen an article where it had been written that he was worth $150m and the writers were mistaken. He said something along the lines of being worth as much as God was able to provide through his riches in glory. I just encouraged my friend and prayed that God would show up as Abba, father. And that’s what happened for her. And it wasn’t just about the money. What was required was money (urgently) and favor through advocacy — the kinds of things that a father would provide. And that’s what she received. Long may God’s hands be evident in our lives.
14. As I am wont to do, I spent quite a bit of time this month wondering about many things. Is this fast worth it? Is the exam I’m prepping for worth it? Why do I keep losing my friends? Why am I still here? Where is this money I’m supposed to have by now? And on and on and on. But I was able to get some perspective from drawing parallels between Big Brother and real life. Weird right?
The way I see it, God is like Big Brother, and he’s put us on earth like the housemates and what we do with that experience is up to us. You can decide to get be true to yourself and make genuine connections and be happy whatever the circumstances may be. Or you can sulk whenever you’re up for evictions or when you lose tasks or when the person, you’re loving this week doesn’t love you back. The best strategy is to just be yourself and understand that you’re having a once in a lifetime experience and enjoy it to the fullest. Most often, the people who win the grand prize and not often the most “successful” after the show — and after all, success is relative.
Long story short, enjoy every season, as much as possible. Yes, tough moments will come, but when you have a long outlook and you realize that in 5 years, you’ll barely remember the way you felt in those tough seasons, it’s best not to dwell on those circumstances.
15. In summary, February was grey. Election results were wonky, streets were tough ad I felt down a lot but like point 13 above says, it’s to look for the positives and keep moving forward.
16. In my heart, I feel like March will be better. Whether it be marginally or significantly better than February, I’ll try to be grateful and not be sad and just enjoy the experience of life while putting in the work to do move forward with my personal projects. This life na once. Enjoy it.
