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How Far, How Well?

 


This piece is short, precise and straight to the point. Issues raised therein may be obvious and simple, but their implications have far reaching consequences. I will be asking few questions that you can relate with, and answering them honestly will grant you clarity and direction for the New Year.

A brief about 2020

I was conversing with a friend yesterday before I started this piece. I asked her about this year and all she could tell me was: "This year was Omoh... E be things" (A Nigerian will know and relate with this phrase). What is your perfect description for the year 2020?

P

personally, the year 2020 has been life-defining for me. Has it been a tough year? Yes, it has. Has it been challenging? OF course. I strongly believe we all can look back and see milestones and watersheds we have used to marked out experiences of the year 2020.

It will be said that 2020 was the year that the world was plunged by a pandemic, setting the whole of humanity against a common enemy. As Nigerians, we can relate to basic variables that defined the year 2020. Not only COVID-19, but we also had the #ENDSARS Movement that saw the youths uniting against everything that is wrong with this nation. Corollary to this was the palliative looting that led to most citizens taking their destiny in their hands. (As to whether that was legal and justifiable, only posterity will judge us).

The year 2020 can be to use the lenses to see through the past as we chart our course into the future we desire. Wherever we go from here, will largely be determined by how we see and relate with the realities of the past year.

How far, and how well?

A

pa art from the common challenges we had faced this year collectively, we all have individually experienced tough and hard times. To some, it broke them, to others, it left them at the cliff of giving up and unfortunately, it swallowed others. Regardless of the word you have chosen to describe the year 2020, I want to congratulate you for making it this far with few days into the New Year.

Take a quick scan through the year, can you write down a list of all the challenging moments and experiences of the year 2020? Can you say it was all negative? I strongly doubt that. Were there take away lessons for us to carry into 2021? Definitely. Things may have not turned out the way you had envisioned them, the plans you have might have gone through or fallen through, and your life may have been frustrated by the turns of event. The good thing is you are still here.

What were the things you did well? What were the things you flopped at? What were the wrong turns you made? Are there bridges you might have burnt? Name your achievements, celebrate them and build on them. Identify your failures, learned from them and move on knowing you can do better next time. If we have survived this one of a kind tough year with our head held high, we should be men and women fully equipped for the years ahead. For the lessons learned in the year, 2020 will be the arsenals in our armoury as we fight through the coming years.

What next?

A

s we count down into the New Year, be strong and courageous. We may have expectations for things to be better in the New Year as we did 2020, that is a good thing. But resolve in your mind that no matter what the year 2021 throws at you, and how things turn out, the experiences of the year 2020 had prepared you for them. Have some faith, take baby steps, never relent, keep pushing and holding on. You are more than a conqueror. See you in 2021

Thank you for reading

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