This year, I’m grateful for all the long calls and the people who pushed me to be better. I lived alone in a different city and while I enjoyed the solitude, it was stressful (among many things). I would like to lay 2023 to rest and get started with 2024 already. Uh, how exactly did 2023 go? Lemme show you:
Risking It All
Go Big or Go Home
Publishing Breaks
Books
Internet Goodies
risking it all
I started the year with two goals: know God and create value at work. By ‘know God’, I meant to push past assured inconveniences to pursue the knowledge of God. When I set this goal, I was thinking about a quote by C. S. Lewis that says,
“You never know how much you really believe anything until its truth or falsehood becomes a matter of life and death to you. It is easy to say you believe a rope to be strong and sound as long as you are merely using it to cord a box. But suppose you had to hang by that rope over a precipice, wouldn’t you then first discover how much you really trusted it? […] Only a real risk tests the reality of a belief.”
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the story of how I made up my mind to travel, by road, almost every two weeks from Ilorin, where I served, to Ibadan, where my church and community was1. Did I do it? Yes.
So many questions I will not answer on the internet, I’m afraid, but this experience shocked even me, the doer. On some days, I describe myself as daring, but this experience made me a tad scared of myself because I realized how far I could go once I made up my mind about something. And on contending, all I want to say is in the post, Take a Stand, Listen.
This experience, though, made me dislike the phrase ‘youthful exuberance’ because it sounded too much like foolishness and hit too close to home. But let me have the time and strength of youth and use it for something lasting, right?
go big or go home
Again, at the beginning of the year, I wanted to get an arm tattoo that said ‘Go big or go home’ because I was ready to devote all of myself to work and other personal tasks. Err, I did not get the tattoo, but I drove myself hard. So hard that I landed in the hospital twice, endured the worst episode of dysmenorrhea, and lost 6 kg. Basically, I threw my health in the dustbin for goals :)
2023 was a big exercise in answering the question, “What am I willing to give up my comfort for?” I can debate whether I went overboard, but one thing’s for sure: I did not do so in the wisest ways. From negative experiences, I now value rest, my health, and food. Let’s just say no one needs to remind me to eat in 2024.
Notwithstanding, did I enjoy the process of learning this year? Yes. A yes so strong that I wrote about it in a post called Adventures in Learning. One key thing I realized about learning is to simply get curious enough to identify learning gaps, and then interested enough to close them. Turns out that discipline is easier when interest exists.
publishing breaks
Eventually, the stresses from taking on more work than I could manage, debating with God and people on the life I wanted, frequently travelling, and just poor health got to me. By September, I was properly burnt out. I wrote about it but never published that because, no, lol.
Later on, I took another break because I was going through “it” and didn’t want to rush my learning process. God forbid I reflect and take away the wrong things, right?
books
I read some books but didn’t finish even more. The best things I completed were top-tier: The Almanack of Naval Ravikant by Eric Jorgenson and 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos by Jordan B. Peterson. So, I wrote a review + notes on the first here and a review on the second here.
The sweetest thing I read was Letters of Note: Love by Shaun Usher (duh!), and the best fiction I read this year was Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin. I actually wrote a thread on the best letters in a Twitter Circle thread, and now that Circle is gone, I guess it will forever remain buried.
Among those I haven’t completed, the best are The Joys of Compounding: The Passionate Pursuit of Lifelong Learning by Gautam Baid and Pebbles of Perception: How a Few Good Choices Make All the Difference by Laurence Endersen.
And I am currently reading Unleash by Topsy Kola-Oyeneyin. All premium things, I tell you.
internet goodies
For record purposes, I listened to a lot of energy transition podcasts, including Redefining Energy, hosted by Laurent Segalen and Gerard Reid. In addition, the two podcasts I discovered and love are You Can Rest Here by Mazino Malaka and Faith Driven Investors, hosted by John Coleman and Luke Roush. There was one episode of You Can Rest Here that honestly felt peace; that was the day I locked in.
And to close this year’s review, here’s my song of the year🫶🏾:
I hope your 2024 is blessed and healthy :) 💞
I now know the road from Ibadan to Ilorin. How sick is that!
You’re such a stunner, Dayo. Thank you for 2023
Cheers to 2023, Dayo! Subscribed and looking forward to more "The Mind Palace" in 2024.