On Growth: Starting Over.
Except a corn of wheat is buried on the ground, it remains alone.
My last writing here was September 10th, 2020.
My last writing on my newsletter was 2 months ago.
Covid-19 hit the world in 2019/2020, and how the world operated changed.
The idea of sitting at home for months was the birth of most people and the great things they do today, including mine in a way, as almost everyone moved on quickly to the internet, especially those who seemed to have been preparing for it. I moved on with it too because honestly, I wanted something more. Being someone who loved new things and just loved to learn, I took on everything. I needed to have a community like I was taught, I needed to earn, I needed to get a life as we’d always hear.
What I did not know was that I could only do as much as I could. What I did not know was that everyone’s journey did differ. What I did not know was that the things I love to do weren’t necessarily meant to be earned from. What I did not know was that life will show up and showing up for myself could get hard. What I did not know was, myself and who God was to me.
So, I showed up based on the things I had learnt, which were in fact true and trustworthy, however evolved. I shared what I learnt not as a person but an idea of a person who had it figured out. Along the line, I lost the audience I was trying to build. After failed attempts to get them back had proved abortive, I lost the drive to continue, sinking into cycles and cycles of depression. I knew I wanted more and that more was connected to the pressure outside. The pressure to produce which can be godly(Gen 1:27) and also negative. I needed clarity on a lot of things, I needed help on the inside because what I knew and the reality of my environment weren’t the least adding up.
Watching people I started with, leave, grow, and become or at least are becoming everything they wanted or could dream of kept me grounded because, though I was genuinely happy for them, life was life for everyone and my failure felt like my fault. Times when I badly wanted to show up, my head and I would have conversations that told me I was still confused and not good enough. It was damn suffocating. If suicide was possible, I’d have taken the option, but nah, I knew too much already to think that ending my life was the way out, but trust me it looked appealing at some point.
It took 2 years actually.
At some point, the only option I had was to pray. Pray, always. I didn’t have a job, neither was I grooming any skill like the world advised correctly. I didn’t have the heart anyway. But I knew to pray because I couldn’t be carrying all that burden alone and if God really ever cared, He had got to find me.
The more I looked for him, the more I realized that I only had peace and identity in Him and anything outside Him will get as frustrating as it can get. We often create an illusion of ourselves because we assume our strengths are our strengths and not His. I realized that everyone does incredibly have a unique path and finding mine was all I needed.
I knew I loved learning, I knew I was one curious soul with a scout mind, I knew somewhere I was drawn to the arts and that incredible desire been matched with a strong organizational and planning skill ( a very weird matching if you ask me) was confusing, but I heard I must be known for one thing and I didn’t know what that one thing was for me. The more I stayed however, He made the path clearer.
I struggled with stepping out again because trust me failure greeted me handsomely and trusting myself to rise definitely wasn’t within my will or strength. But, in His light we see our own lives. I realized I was still on my journey to becoming and the worst thing I could do was make some milestone of what I wanted to be known for. I’m not a creative, I don’t have my life planned out, I don’t give the best career advice, I don’t know the most about the questions I’m asked though I do my best to answer from the things I’ve learnt, I in fact don’t read a book every month. I just make all the moves I can to always be in communication with God, I do my best to show up at my current job, I try to be consistent at learning.
What’s the point of all these? For someone who has tried to walk an influencer journey before (lol), it can get pretty hard to try again after failing, and most times it seems we have it all together, but nah, we are only as strong as how much we allow God to hold us together.
Personally, I figured that I’m still learning a lot of things and telling anyone that I’m an expert at anything or even trying to build anything that suggests that I’m the best at a thing right now, will be the dumbest thing I’ll ever do. So, here’s to new beginnings. A beginning where I’m at peace with just living and sharing the journey on every side.
Honestly, I hope you are at peace with where you are now in God because outside it is chaotic. If you aren’t, I always say, pray. Spend a lot of time praying and try speaking to someone. Most of the clarity we need are in people. I pray you find the right person to speak to.
I promised myself the gift of honesty and vulnerability on this one, and I did my best. Hahahaha!!!
Connect to my newsletter here after you read this letter. I write about my journey and lessons in the faith.
Expect to hear from me every week, hopefully. No pressure.
