Hey, I just made it to twenty-four!
“The important thing is not how long you live. It’s what you accomplish with your life.” - Grovyle
It’s my birthday today and what better way to spend it than with you all through my article? Here I am, a year older and as people would expect wiser perhaps? The human concept of time is one of my numerous human observations (there are a lot of things I randomly ponder about) that I find quite intriguing. The concept of time didn’t exist at some point. It wasn’t there, then it was created and now we can’t seem to do without it or even have enough of it now, lol. It’s pretty much an important part of every human day-to-day activity and it is why I know I am not growing any younger again.
Today makes it four years since I started writing actually but I still don’t call myself a writer, despite the beautiful comments I get often. Imposter syndrome this you? Why did I start? It was my birthday and I was feeling perhaps and so I wrote. You can read that here. Since then I have fallen in love with writing. I see my articles as a way of documenting history from my perspective. In years to come my descendants will ponder on my words and have an idea of who I, their ancestor was. Yeah, this can only happen if Medium is still running. If anything happens and Medium is closing shop, you have the go-ahead to transfer my articles to a new platform, of course, while crediting me.
I am 24 and broke. I have liquidated my savings to solve an important pain point for me, lack of electricity. Make no mistake, the electricity issue in Nigeria has always been bad despite the huge sum being pumped into solving it, yet it hasn’t been this bad. I have not gotten up to 1 hour of power supply from the grid in the last 7 days. I have been heavily relying on my solar inverter setup to get about 10 hours of light daily. Now I plan to upgrade and make it available 24 hours a day, all 7 days a week. I can think of many things that amount of money could get me. A new gaming PC rig packed with the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090, a flight simulator rig, a car race rig, a trip to Japan or even Sweden to see the aurora borealis (if my visa even gets accepted), or even a car. But one thing was clear, getting any of these items still meant I would be battling with electricity issues in big 2024.
So I took a bet and I have confidence I would regain the money and much more by the end of the month. I wonder how that would pan out though, as work with the DAO (my major source of income) this year has been shaky. I intend to upskill more and try freelancing this year. Send jobs/gigs my way and in case you stumble on this and you don’t know me personally, you can check out my portfolio website. It gives you an idea of what I can do and also how interesting I am. The clue is to check the ‘About’ section. I am actively looking for newer or more opportunities. Growing older is realising you have to pay more bills after all.
I am 24 and I am happy and grateful. I am happy about my family and my friends. I do not go a day without knowing how much they love me. I do not take it for granted. I am grateful for how my life has been going and I am grateful for everyone in it. If there’s anything, I might be poor when it comes to cash but I am unbelievably liquid when it comes to human assets. My people for real. I enjoy every time I get to spend with you all in person and virtually. I hope that all our dreams come true, so we can all meet at the top.
As I grow older the marriage talk which is prevalent in any Nigerian home with people who are now of age, has become more frequent. I fear my mum might be forced to step in due to my lack of interest in even a dating relationship. The thought of an arranged marriage sounds more appealing day by day. It’s not even only her that is interested in my love life or the lack of one. Just this week I have been asked by a male friend and a female friend. The genuine answer is that while it’s sweet and nice to have someone in that light, I do not have the bandwidth for that, at least now. No, I am not the busiest man on earth, in fact I do spend some of my days scrolling aimlessly online on different social media platforms. I am selfish and I am not ready to share my life with someone yet. Or maybe it’s just a skill issue and no babe wants me, who knows?
Birthdays are important social events thanks to society for conditioning us, or most of us, into seeing it as that. It is a good thing and as much as I try to hide, it is a day I feel the most good about myself, so I always look forward to it. Last year I was in Nsukka and I spent my birthday eve with some of my friends and it was fun. The hangout was fun and the night was even more fun. While I would love to recreate all that today, I would not be. I have been asked what I plan to do today and the only thing that comes to my mind is playing video games throughout. I plan to play Red Dead Redemption 2, which is a masterpiece in the gaming world.
I plan to continue winging life as I have always been. Facing each day as it comes, taking pride and solace in the everyday mundane things. Riding my highs and facing my lows too, knowing I am capable of so much much, which the world is yet to see.
