Yesterday, as I was reading on my laptop, I decided to take a look at a document where I had written my plans for 2020 to see how I have fared so far. Ladies and gentlemen, it ended in tears; everywhere was red. Top of that list was about me developing a closer relationship with God, and telling more people about the Christian faith. Now, guess who is a skeptic/agnostic that needs to be evangelised to about that matters of faith. Also on that list, I had planned to learn about the financial market/stock market and have at least ₦500k invested before December. Brothers and sisters, I could literally hear my bank account balance mocking at me for having made such a grandiose plan. Also, on that list, I had learning how to read music, learning French and a whole lot of other stuff I ended up not doing. Ọmọ, that thing ended in real tears.
You see, all the plans I made revolved around me being in Lagos, living in a place with stable power supply. And indeed at the beginning, everything was going according to plan until COVID struck and I scampered back to Èkìtì in fear. Party scattered, plans drowned. Not wanting to make my stay at home a waste, I decided to learn front-end web design and videography. The grit and resilience I put into learning those skills despite having access to only 6 hours of power supply weekly, perhaps should have being my biggest takeaway from the year. But as I journeyed on, I learnt a very great lesson. You see, as the pandemic raged, I began to undergo a paradigm shift away from the spiritual side of life which opened up the pandora box of questions, as someone who has developed less sympathy for religion, I started looking for answers to numerous questions that I've had stifled in the past. This process opened my eyes to a lot of things I had been blinded to before, things I would rather have classified as mundane. While soul searching, It dawned on me that in all our pursuit, the one thing humans are constantly seeking but rarely ever getting is genuine happiness. We lack it, we try to fill that void with activities and attentions but we still don't get it, and that's because we have overlooked the best source of it, the time spent with loved ones. Those times of hearty and big smile, those moments when we laugh so hard that tears roll down our eyes. Those instances of intense happiness, it's what make life worth living. Though this might be as profound as your usual "aspire to perspire", it was my greatest lesson from the year 2020.
Come 2021, I am going to be creating these moments and immersing myself in them. Although 2020 plans went up in flames, my happiness in 2021 is guaranteed, I have discovered the best way to get it.