16 Conclusions (again)-April 2023 Review
God is the greatest!
1. April is usually one of my favorite months. It feels like a really cool month. It kind of has like a step-down from the initial hustle that comes with starting the new year and doing initial gra-gra (IGG) in Q1. April is also my birth month and if you really deep it, you’d find that you know so many cool people who also have their birthdays in April. April also usually comes with the Easter holidays, giving everyone the opportunity to unwind from that Q1 madness. This year, April was extra generous, dishing out holidays for both Easter and Ramadan with the latter coming just one week before the worker’s day holiday on May 1. April too sabi. Sodiq. See why I love the month?
2. In a slightly weird twist of events, there was an explosion in my brother’s car during the month. I still can’t understand how the accident happened but I’m grateful for a couple of things and I learnt quite a bit from the incident. While I feel some empathy for the three people who were in the car when the accident happened, and particularly the two guys who had some significant degrees of burns, I’m extremely grateful that my brother was not in the car when it happened. It’s all conjecture to say that the accident may not have happened if he was in the car but assuming other factors were held constant, my brother would have been badly impacted given his usual sitting position in the car and where most of the damage happened. I’m also grateful there were no lives lost. It’s good to know that the three guys involved in the accident have now been discharged from hospital.
It was however a lesson in being more discerning when you’re responsible for supervising people. I always like to treat employees with some level of respect and freedom with the assumption that they’ll also be responsible but recently, I’ve observed more and more that they would likely be irresponsible. An example is learning that at the peak of the fuel scarcity, my security man filled a keg that was supposed to have fuel in it with water to deceive me from knowing that he was selling my fuel.
In this case, my brother’s driver essentially went on a joy ride with two other security men from his establishment and was driving around Lagos at high speed in the middle of night. This is someone that should have parked the car somewhere at the end of his assignments for the day. He had capitalized on the cash scarcity and created systems that made it difficult to confirm if, and when he parked the car. It was no longer a bug; it was now a feature. I hope he has learnt his lessons — only that in a weird twist of fate, he was the least affected from the accident and he was discharged after about 2 or 3 days. The guys who followed him on the ride would however never forget the accident. They are scarred for life.
3. Moving away from the gloom of accidents, I celebrated my birthday. I really didn’t have any expectations about how the day would go or anything like that. Something that helped was that I didn’t have any birthday blues. I didn’t feel any anxiety or sadness about getting older. I didn’t envy anyone’s achievements or wish I wasn’t where I am. I was grateful and I just was. My closest friends and family also showed me a lot of love, affection, and generosity during my birthday. I received the most money I’d ever received on my birthday this year, and I had a big lunch with family a few days after. I also engaged in some selfcare around my birthday. Overall, it was a fantastic day (and weekend). I’m especially grateful to my partner, my extended family and my closest friends who made me feel honored and special.
4. In appreciation of all the holidays April was loading us, we went on a family trip to IITA. Me and partner decided not to be stingy with some of the positive things we had enjoyed in Ibadan, so we tried to show them a bit of why we’re sometimes quick to run there. As usual, the drive was fun (and quick) and the experience was fabulous especially for our parents. They could hardly believe that such a place existed in Ibadan that’s just here. It was also fascinating for my dad who had done his NYSC in Ibadan. He hadn’t passed through most of the places we drove through in decades.
Taking them to see the lake at IITA and then to our favorite restaurant in Ibadan were the high points. My nieces also enjoyed swimming while I rode a bicycle for the first time since 2020. Being the host was however stressful, I’m not even going to lie. Overall, it was a 10/10 experience for them and 8/10 for me.
5. One of my best friends got married during my birthday weekend. It was beautiful to see them decked out for the celebration and I’m happy I was able to celebrate with them on their big day. The wedding was the first time I was inside the famous Cathedral church at Marina and it’s amazing to see how beautiful the church is on the inside. This was the first wedding I was attending this year and I was excited to see a few people I had not seen in a long time.
I however wish I was more involved and gave more help to my friend and just didn’t go as a guest but I’m thankful I was there as much as I could have been, even though I had a work event on the same day. By God’s grace, there will be many more celebrations soon.
6. I was able to have slight catch ups with quite a few my friends during the month. I was a bit intentional about closing them out in April as I intend to be unavailable for most of May. All considered, April was the most “social” month I’ve had so far this year. I even attended the naming ceremony of a friend’s baby. When you add that to the other social events, I think I got a fair fill in April. I’m glad that most of my friends are doing okay (at least that’s what they said). God will continue to keep all of us. One of my guys also came to my brother’s place for fish and beer. I’m looking forward to seeing him again in May.
7. I’m fairly on course with my studying as I completed my exam syllabus on April 29th. Of course, completing the syllabus doesn’t automatically translate to success but I think it’s a positive step. I have a base idea about every learning objective. The experience of studying itself still hasn’t been fun and it’s often tough to concentrate. Sometimes even getting to the first 5 minutes of a study video without prioritizing picking up my phone is tough but I’m glad I’ve gotten through that phase. The next phase now is having the courage to attack questions consistently and unashamedly. A lot of time, it’s tough to even just miss the questions when you consider the various reasons you might have missed the answer — sometimes it’s something really tricky in the question, sometimes it’s a complete lack of understanding that makes you feel like you have to go back to the syllabus and sometimes it’s just the feeling that you may actually not be good enough to get through the exam. In all the cases though, it’s important to remember that it’s better to miss the questions in the practice phase than on the exam day. There’s no shame in missing the questions anytime (whether it’s the practice phase or on the exam day) but especially in the practice phase. I’ll keep remembering that.
8. Despite spending a lot of money in April, I left the month with a feeling of comfort at being able to stretch my feet a bit more and flex my financial muscles slightly more. I’m starting to expand the amounts I save and invest monthly while having the confidence that money will come. God will provide.
Many of April’s expenses were one-off. Birthday treats, auto and home maintenance expenses. It did seem weird how some of those expenses started coming out of nowhere — like the ABS of my car malfunctioning out of nowhere. Overall, I think I comfortably handled all my bills as they fell due, and money wasn’t the main reason I didn’t do anything I genuinely desired. And that’s one definition of having sufficiency.
9. There was slow progress in terms of my personal goals in April as most of my energy and focus was on my exams. I however also think that I’ve come to a natural point of suspension and that’s okay too. We resume in June.
10. Media consumption in April was also peak for a month with active studying. I was at the cinemas for the first time since taking my dad to see Ayinla in 2021 to see John Wick. I still don’t believe my mans was killed. I also made time to see both Brotherhood and Gangs of Lagos. It does help that I mostly watch these Tv series as I’m trying to fall asleep. That way, it doesn’t feel like I’m wasting time. I also listened to a couple of episodes of Loose Talk and had my weekly dose of the Elevation church podcast. I didn’t consume a lot of new music (sorry to Davido) and I’m only anticipating T.Y Bello’s new album.
11. Work was mostly flat in April. I tried to be as efficient as possible by providing guidance on big tasks while staying away from operational stuff as much as possible. I’ve also been spending quite a lot of time evaluating SSA Eurobonds and examining the risk of default — na God go help us. I also attended the anniversary celebrations at the company I work for. It was a decent bonding event and I’m looking forward to the company retreat coming up at the end of June. Job interview offers (let me not say job offers) keep coming on LinkedIn but I haven’t seen any one that’s interesting enough to make my head turn. I’m also slightly now getting to that point where I feel like I’m underpaid. I understand from economic theory that there are certain levels of reward beyond which productivity and satisfaction do not rise — until there is another big bump in reward. I think I’m getting there.
12. I’m still learning to walk with God, hear his voice, his promises and know more about his character. I understand that this is a never-ending process and I’m not putting myself under any pressure. I’m also understanding the importance of doing this journey for myself and not relying on some spiritual leader. Of course, I understand (and don’t discount) the importance of listening to sermons from fathers in the faith but my journey is mine and so I must do a lot of the searching myself, taking the things that speak to me the most.
13. I didn’t do too shabbily with exercising. The time spent was okay, but the effort wasn’t that great as I did more walking than running. I feel like I need to bulk up and build strength but I’m happy that I’m even doing some form of exercising. I want to do more in May but I’m going to be taking it slow especially in the first couple of days. I also did some cycling while at IITA and boy did I almost regret it. The roads were sometimes hilly so for example, it was really easy riding down to the lake, but the ride back was really tough. My heart rate even hit 182! I don’t think I’ve ever gone on a run where my heart rate was that high. I also wonder how the guys in the old days used to cycle on those hilly roads. I’m guessing they mostly just cycled through farmlands that were largely flat.
I also ended the month with having difficulty falling asleep. I know I’m somewhat at fault due to the volume of caffeine I take daily but it’s a bit frustrating just lying in bed and trying to fall asleep for 2 hours.
14. Contrary to how I was feeling at the end of March, I’m looking forward to writing more in the coming months. These last few months have taught me to always try to just enjoy every moment and every circumstance. Enjoy the friends you have now, you never know how long they’ll be around for. Enjoy the freedoms and even the challenges you experience now, you don’t know what the next day and what the next phase will come with. I want to write about how I haven’t felt any significant differences between my thoughts, my physical health, and my mental health in the period when I was taking alcohol for example and these months when I’ve abstained. How the depth and breadth of my thoughts haven’t really changed. How you must also take some of the boring parts of life.
15. Overall, April was a fun month. I enjoyed it. Apart from EKEDC who were mental, I think everything else went well. It was really balanced. I went to the movies, attended a naming ceremony, celebrated me & mine’s birthdays, went to my friend’s wedding, saw even more friends (and acquaintances), travelled to Ibadan with family, witnessed even more family relocate to the UK. Lots of good stuff.
16. I’m hoping May is even better. It probably won’t be as exciting and have as many activities but I’m hopeful that when I think back to May 2023, I’ll think of it as a solid month, as fun times, the way I look back at December 2019. I’m also looking forward to my post-exam weekend. In the immediate term, if I were to give a dictionary definition for freedom, that would probably be it. I have to keep reminding myself to keep calm and just focus on the next few weeks.
Godspeed.
