The Pain of Living and Choosing to Grow.

If 2019 had a theme, it’d be “Shut up, listen and learn”.

While the plan had been to live my life to the fullest in 2019, I had no idea what was coming. I had imagined meeting more people, traveling, having fun and living my best life, you know?

Straight face, It was a mad year!

I’m glad I can write about it now.

I love this quote by Anais Nin ,

“And the time came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”

That time was 2019 for me.

You know that feeling you get when you take alcohol to a point where you’re slightly above tipsy but not really drunk, that’s the metaphor for what happened every time I tried to use other experiences to distract myself from the pain of deciding to grow and actually growing.

You’d just feel slightly alive, for a while.

Deception aye! It was fun though.

So when the distraction wears off, the struggles were there staring at me dead in the face asking , “Where did we stop?”

More than anything, it was a painful experience. It felt like my life was turned inside-out revealing the faces of my demons.

Boy, those things are ugly and mean.

The daunting part is that you’d have to face them alone.

This brings me to the kind of people you have around you. Please, na beg I dey beg, have friends who have your interest at heart and who’d want to know what’s up with you.

This is very important because the connection you have with your friends and the people you listen to would go a long way in influencing your subconscious which would help or not in fighting your internal battles.

The part that’s not funny at all is the unlearning part of the process. The exposure to so many strange, sane and insane ideas and thoughts can paralyze one.

But you’ve got to decide as an architect of your life what building materials you want to use to build your life, bearing in mind that it’s not so much about the ideas and knowledge but the application and execution.

The result of the process is paradigm shifts and clarity rooted in self awareness, which is very expensive.

Mid year,I listened to a lot of people; family, friends, mentors, people I’ve never heard of especially from podcasts, etc. I read books and articles, I listened to lots of people from different fields and to what end?

I wanted to blossom but didn’t know how and my environment couldn’t afford it so I had to accept that I was clueless. Well, I still am relatively.

Accepting myself as I am was the most painful of all because I had to destroy the identity I had of myself and build a new perspective.

Omo, growing up is hard!

In going through that phase, I realized we need stories of people who have been through these phases. And being fascinated with storytelling, I took up the challenge to tell or present such stories hence, the “Note to younger self” series, which was paused due to some reasons. It would continue in few days.

I must say that other people’s stories helped me so much through my quarter life crisis that I wonder what would have happened if I didn’t go out of my way to get those stories. I observed that in listening to other people’s experiences and philosophies, you’d begin to have ideas on how to chart your own path and live your life progressively.

This year, I will be going round to interview people and we’d have conversations about their life trajectories.

I hope the stories help you through your life’s journey.

It’s great to be back!

Love,

Tobi Adeoye