2020: The Little Things

 

Discomfort and inconveniences are megaphones to the soul of man - C.S Lewis

I remember feeling like I had achieved nothing towards the ending of 2019. I started 2020 with the ‘new year’s motivation’/spirit to get things right. Did the new year spirit last long? Even though confused, I pretended not to be. I wrote my goals for the year at the beginning of January and putting them down brought clarity in some way. 

After writing the goals, I came up with this:

Intentionality in my relationship with Jesus

In 2019, I had experienced instability in my relationship with Jesus. I was more or less on and off without a working personal relationship with Jesus. I had known God for a large part of my life, but never understood in depth what it meant to have a relationship with Jesus. I wanted to get things right.

Academic

My goal was to do better in 2020, and put all the challenges have had as regards my academic behind. 

Write more

My love for writing spans through the years. I made plans to write and blog more. Also, I had a short story I was working on I planned to go back to it. 

Building meaningful relationships

For a long time in my life, I had been a lone ranger. Had so many lonely moments in 2019 and I wanted better. A few underdeveloped ‘friendships’ which now looking at it with the new understanding I have were more or less, acquaintances. Also, friends I barely knew. I made plans to work on them.

Healthy Living

I made plans to eat and live healthily. I fell sick a lot in 2019 and wanted good health in 2020.

With this, I kicked off this year.

2020

January

I started January pumped. I put out my first blog post after a long time hiatus. January was fruitful to an extent. I had a growing relationship with God, or so I thought, even though on some days it still felt like a struggle. I picked up the short story I had dumped and after going through afresh I saw the need to explore the characters a bit to improve the storyline and also work on the dialogue. I began work on that but never finalized it. 

 I started IT in January. This came with sitting down in an office space from 9 to 5. It was a mix of fun and on some days I hated it there. One of the scenarios that still sticks to my head from the experiences I had in court was the regularity with which they called divorce cases in court. I wished I could do something about it.

February 

I started in February, still focused a bit. At a point in February, I remember craving deep conversations; February 6th precisely which was my birthday. It felt like I had a lot on my chest that I wanted to let out. I tried to make plans with a few persons, but it didn’t work out. 

Towards the ending of February, I was in a place where it was like everyone had their lives figured out, but I didn’t. Coupled with the fact that I feared vulnerability so I really couldn’t ask questions. I barely knew people to trust them with much detail. I tried to cover things up, but it wasn’t long before I lost focus.

March

I carried the anxiety in February into this month. School had resumed, and I was to go back to school when a lockdown was declared because of the COVID-19 pandemic. This kept everyone at home. While this was on, ASUU went on strike, which seemed harmless until after the lockdown.

Still, in my confused state, a friend reached out. During our discussion, she brought up the idea of us starting a Bible study. We started. It was a beautiful experience. This was one of the highlights of my 2020 amongst many others. I would talk a bit about it towards the end.

Lockdown

The lockdown was a time for reflection and uncovering hidden traits. I saw myself in a new light. 2020 uncovered a lot of toxic traits that had contributed to my confused state and boxed me.  As an overthinker that I was, my thoughts overwhelmed me. I felt underachieved. I blogged consistently for a while. However, at a time it felt like my write-ups were not good enough and I considered putting the writing thing aside. I shared more on this in my last blog post on my 2nd year as a blogger. Read it herehttps://ayomidebayo.blogspot.com/2020/11/the-journey-and-lessons.html

Academics

I couldn’t do much as regards my academic goals. ASUU strike that seemed benign during the lockdown became a pain in the neck post lockdown. However, through the lockdown, I figured out several things as regards my academics during this time. The lockdown was a blessing in guise.

Meaningful relationships

I went from a loner to having a few friends I could have deep conversations with. I also let some ‘friendships’ go. They were more of acquaintances that I had converted to friends in my head for lack of understanding between the two. They are better off as acquaintances.

I recorded a bit of success as regards eating healthy. I tried to do no soda but alas the mantra ‘try to dey enjoy problem no dey finish’ no gree. We go again.

I enjoyed kindness as a person. A colleague of mine offered to help with the final editing of some of my blog posts. This helped me personally when it came to editing articles that didn't make it to the blog myself. You read my articles here and dropped beautiful comments. Thankful!

Now, looking back at my goal to be intentional in my relationship with God, the process goals I had in place to achieve them and the goals in themselves were superficial. At the time I wrote them down, my understanding of what it meant to have a personal relationship with God was still a bit shallow.

The study helped reveal a lot as concerns my relationship with God. It also helped kickstart the journey to building a beautiful personal relationship with God. With the study and everything that came with it, I got to see how I had followed and served God religiously. Although the unlearning process of some things I unconsciously absorbed while serving religiously could be difficult a few times, it keeps getting better with a new level of knowledge unlocked daily.

"The distance between you and God is not measured in meters, but consciousness."

 It might help someone. God isn’t far from us, he is as close as your consciousness allows you. Get rid of walls that make him seem far off.

Few lessons

Your works didn’t earn you salvation, and they can’t keep you saved. You are saved by grace through faith.

Aside from having goals, have workable plans/process goals, and put structures in place to help achieve them. Beyond the new year spirit, you need 'discipline' to achieve your goals. Invest in accountability this year.

2020 was intense I left the year a better person. This year, I’m committed to putting out content here. Cheers to more growth. If you read up to this point, I’m grateful.

Happy new year!