2024: Gratefulness and Values

2024 is about 99% done, the irony is it seemed like it was two years in one at the same time very fast. When I think on my experiences that made up my year two things stand out a profound sense of gratefulness and a deepened understanding of the power of personal values.

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"To bear trials with a calm mind robs misfortune of its strength and burden."

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This quote became my lived experience in 2024, a year that paradoxically felt both endless and fleeting. The first quarter presented numerous challenges, but I faced them with a calm mind, staying patient while working on solutions. The presence of friends during this period proved invaluable, their support a steady anchor in turbulent times.

As I reflected on my life, I began to see how the values my parents taught me have quietly influenced every part of my journey - from my choices and reactions to my successes and challenges. C.S. Lewis once spoke about the nature of temptation and moral strength, and I've come to understand that shared values form the basis of all meaningful connections - be they friendships, romantic relationships, or partnerships. Our innate values stand the test of time, and guide our responses to life's multitudes challenges.

A sobering realization this year was how limited time can be and how life wasn't about grand moments, but in the quiet spaces between them - those lingering conversations at crossroads when but we have somewhere to not that we can't leave, but we want not need want to just spend more time(just a minute more, please). It's in catching up over drinks after long weeks, in those unplanned visits that stretch from minutes into hours, in the casual 'I'll just stop by' that turns into dinner. Time, as I've learned, isn't measured in hours but in these moments of connection. The journey wasn't about the destination, it was about the company. 24 hours make a day, but the true measure of this time lies in those extra five minutes at doorways, in shared laughter over inside jokes, in comfortable silences between friends. These aren't just moments - they're the threads that weave the tapestry of our relationships. So linger longer, share one more story, forget your scarf in my life and come back for it. Because these seemingly small moments are actually the big ones, the ones we'll remember when we look back.

Nature offered it's lessons in its quiet way. I found myself remebering the long at that time pointless debate I had four years ago with my friends about the color of the sun. It seemed like a pointless squabble four years ago but in retrospect now I am remebering how long it's been and how life moves so fast that we have to sometimes stop and look around. All these feeling from watching the sun setting over Lagos-Ibadan expressway - 'so round, so white, so beautiful', I said to myself. The gloomy, grey "London weather" in Lagos reminding me about embracing all seasons of life. These moments in nature became metaphors for my own journey - sometimes bright and clear, sometimes clouded but always moving forward.

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Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it. -Ferris Bueller

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This year, I learned the delicate balance between solitude and loneliness. As Friedrich Nietzsche said, 'Don't rob me of my solitude if you cannot offer me true companionship.' There's that constant wrestling between isolation and connection, that void in your heart and the constant yearning that keeps you questioning when it will end. As Raymond Reddington said, "It would be the first thing in your mind when you wake up, but after a while, it becomes the second." Sometimes, we give people chances time and time again, only to be repaid with betrayal. The onus is on us to remove the "Brutus" from our lives, to trust those gut feelings that warn us about someone's true nature.

Just as I've traveled 606.3 kilometers fifteen times, totaling 9094.5 kilometers - more than twice the moon's radius - this year has been a journey of immeasurable emotional distance. Each kilometer represents not just physical space or tarred road filled with potholes, but lessons learned, relationships deepened, and wisdom gained. As the sun sets on 2024, I find myself not at an ending, but at a continuing point in an ongoing journey, carrying forward the gratitude for every step that brought me here, every person who walked beside me, and every lesson that shaped my path forward.
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As we close this year in gratitude, I say to you my friends in this New Year, forget about the new year, new me rave. But rather focus on being 'same me, better habits', remembering what Bryan Johnson said 'remember that you will rise to the level of your systems, not the wants of your goals'. Instead of focusing on starting all over again and focusing solely on the end result, remember that we have all it takes to be better within us. All it takes it to refine ourselves, be more consistent improve the systems and processes that will lead us there. If you fail and fall, stand up and try again and again and again.

⁠Remember that as long as you still have a spark of life within you, you are worthy of the best things life has to offer.

⁠Per Aspera, Ad Astra

Tuesday, December,31st 2024. 1:30pm