2024 In Review: Surviving is Winning
“Surviving is winning, Franklin. Everything else is just noise — a fairy tale for people afraid to look life in the eye. Whatever it takes, kid. Survive!” - Michael De Santa
2024, what a year it has been for real. I have lived through it and a lot has happened as usual. I am typing this article after getting back to Port Harcourt after sleeping in my dad’s village (Ogwashi-Uku) for two days and having a detour to my late mum’s village (Amaimo), on our way back from my dad’s village. When I mentioned “late mum” a couple of people sent me condolence messages. For clarification to those who don’t know already, I lost my biological mother in 2009 to breast cancer. However, I have a stepmother who I call my mum. She is a very good and sweet woman. My dad has eyes for good women and I hope I inherited that too.
I usually like to start my year in review articles by reviewing my expectations for that year from the previous year's review article.
- Survive: Considering what I have been through this year, it seems my 2023 self had a revelation I was to see shege a lot. This is the expectation that was actually achieved. I survived 2024 and that is a big W to me.
- Swim 52 times: I failed woefully at this one. I didn’t even get to swim up to 5 times this year sadly. I hope this changes in this coming new year.
- Tone my body more: I failed at this too and it was (I know this doesn’t justify the sorry) majorly because I was fighting my demons at home.
- Increase my income: I didn’t achieve this at all. I do not have the numbers but I know my income took a dive this year.
- Start content creation: I won’t count the two unboxing videos I did as content creation. When I made this expectation, I wanted to start making web3 content. Maybe I will get to that next year.
Friendship
As always, I am grateful and proud of my friends. Friendship is something I do not take for granted. I value my friends and I try my best to be intentional and there for them, in ways I can be. It’s also a net positive because the quality of our thoughts and conversations also influences me. I met new people this year and I got to link up with old friends I haven’t seen in a while.
Relationship
This year is still my year of complications. It has been back-to-back since forever and I think I am loving the streets more and more. Well, last year I said if a dating relationship happened, I would be open to it. Well, I don’t know if such a chance came in. Also, this might sound cliche but I am quite afraid of labels and commitments. Why do we humans have to say, “Daniel is my boyfriend” before the feelings between both can be taken as something serious? Definitely not a good yardstick because that can be gamed. I did meet a lot of new women and a few did stand out and left a positive mark in my heart. However, there is one who I have been seeing, it’s complicated but I do love her.
Finance
This year has been an interesting year financially. I tried to get rich quick or fail trying. I ended up falling because I didn’t get rich in 2024. Like I said earlier, this was the year I made less money, in comparison with 2023. My savings from 2023 was literally what was saving me in 2024. I took a risky decision and embarked on a project that ended up having me liquidating all of my savings and eating money from a short-term role I had, just so I could finish it up. I didn’t get paid more than thrice and I had to make do with my savings, and some random little paying gigs that came my way.
I was good for January and February, then I started managing in March but things got so so worse in November. At one point I didn’t have more than $30 home and abroad. And trust me that’s a terrible place to be in for someone who doesn’t know when the next paycheck is coming in. During that period I randomly joked about my condition with one of my guys and he sent money to my wallet address. Another who knew what was happening randomly credited me. I am grateful for the kindness they showed to me. It’s really nice that we don’t look like what we are going through.
Career
My career this year has been uneventful to me (that’s how I currently feel). You may be wondering, “How is it that this guy was broke? It’s not possible.” Well, the answer lies here. The work I do is an interesting one. I do things in a niched sector (Decentralized Science with a Decentralized Autonomous Organization) in a niched field (Web3). So at times, when people ask me, “What do you do?” It’s really hard to explain and for them to understand the context unless they are already familiar with web3 and DAOs.
My work as a contributor is part-time because most DAOs don’t really have a lot they do and I get paid for those working hours. Unfortunately, my DAO went through restructuring and compensation was paused for contributors, so the last time I got paid was in February (then November). Now stuff came up which I did on behalf of the DAO. I tried reaching out to the new Lead and I literally spent 2 months going back and forth before I could get the funds (came in last week of November). The whole episode really didn’t make sense to me and it prompted me to dust my resume and go into the job market. So if you are reading this, I am seriously job hunting.
In June I got to join 2077 Collective as a core team member. As someone who is strongly passionate about the Ethereum community, it was a wonderful opportunity to do work that would push the Ethereum community much better. I did some work around the documentation, onboarding guides and a lot of content management with contributors as I was the writing guild master. However, after some weeks I decided to r̶e̶s̶i̶g̶n̶ leave due to reasons I can’t disclose publicly. This was quite a bold move because as you know, I was broke (not as broke as November) then and I didn’t have an income from my work at the DAO.
I struggle so much with personal branding (aka build in public) and I even wrote about it here. I have realized that being humble about what I do work-wise, won’t put food on my table at least. I have to learn to do the work and also toot my horn, if I am going to become rich. I hope I do learn how to soon. I have decided to spread my tentacles and get involved with other DAOs in the space. I have a valuable wealth of experience which would be of great service to most DAOs that care about Governance and Decentralization.
Ls
1. I almost lost it.
2. I haven’t gotten something stable and solid yet.
Ws
1. I survived.
2. I have solved my electricity issue and I now have 24/7 energy at home.
3. I visited Ghana for the first time thanks to muAccra.
4. I spoke at the Web3 Lagos Conference.
5. I spoke at ETHSafari in Kenya again.
6. I was a mentor at the ETHSafari hackathon.
7. Worked at 2077 Collective for a while.
8. I became a delegate at Scroll and Morpho protocol.
9. Pulled off DevFest Enugu together with the team members and volunteers.
10. I finished my NYSC programme in October.
11. I became a mentor for the writing guild of Base Onchain Builders Group — Africa.
12. I always wanted a smart home as a kid and I made mine, one.
13. Read 4 Dune books.
14. I became the Onboard City Champion for Port Harcourt.
Gadgets Acquired
1. Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 Classic
2. LG MH8265CIS Microwave Oven
3. Flint 2 (GL-MT6000) router (yet to receive this from Nipost)
Personal Top 5 Albums of the Year
1. Kcee Marzz — Replay value
2. Tyler The Creator — Chromakopia
3. Dwin The Stoic — Master of Ballads
4. Asake — Lungu Boys
5. Twenty One Pilots — Overcompensate
My expectations for next year
1. Land a new role.
2. Enter my DIY era properly.
3. Make enough money to fund my side projects.
4. Travel to more cities in Nigeria.
Conclusion
This year, I feel what kept me sane was the hobbies I had because I was in a very bad place in November. Me going outside in December was just me overcompensating for the shege I saw . Thanks to the Nigeria Solar DIY community, I have picked up on a lot of interesting things. As you can see in this article here, I run Home Assistant at home and I do a lot of tinkering with my smart home system and solar inverter setup. I got so much deeper into Dune lore and I ended up reading 4 (currently on the 5th) of the Dune books in 2024. As someone who reads a max of 2 books a year, that was a massive win for me.
I was so close to ordering a 3D printer but things happened and I ended up not getting it. Maybe 2025 is the year I finally get one. I think I have been too comfortable for a while and 2024 showed me how things can switch up quite suddenly. After that incident, I decided to pick up web3 development so I could be open to more opportunities. I started at the basics of the web, which is Javascript because I never got to learn that language due to my beef with it. I also started doing daily katas in Q4 so I can get better at it.
Looking back, would I still resign and take the financial gamble I did? Yes, I would 100%. I have my fingers crossed as always and I am ready to brace up any challenge that pops up this new year.
