I missed out on posting my annual birthday blog this year cos I was too busy living life and having fun 😅 But, without a doubt, chapter 23 or 2023 was my best year yet; I call it the happiest year of my life thus far. As I said in Chapter 22, I maintain that my biggest "flex" is I've never had a better previous year. My life just keeps getting better and better. God abeg, this is not a challenge to do a 'Job test' on me. I'm not one of your strongest soldiers, I dey beg.
So what happened last year that made it my happiest year yet.
As always, before I write these "birthday blogs", I read through the previous ones just to refresh my memory on what I was thinking about when I was writing the previous one and, I guess, to reminisce on the time I was having then.
For example, in chapter 23, I talked about how little I was writing on LinkedIn and Twitter because I was writing elsewhere. Well, I stopped writing "elsewhere" by the end of last year (cos I was terminated 👻) and STILL didn't write more on Twitter and LinkedIn 😅 Proving the age-old theory that you will make all the excuses for not doing things you don't want to do and even if all the obstacles are taken out of the way, you still wouldn't do those things.
In fact, I wrote even less on LinkedIn and on Twitter in 2023. I posted the LEAST ever on my LinkedIn newsletter last year. Get this: between August 2020 and December 2020, I posted almost 4 times the number of posts I did in the WHOLE of 2023! I.e. in 2023, I only uploaded 5 articles. Between Aug 2020 and Dec 2020, I uploaded TWENTY! 😂 That is both sad and laughable.
What's my excuse this time, though? Believe me, I have one. I was busy living life and having fun 🤭
- Greece
- Scotland (yes, this is a country within the UK)
- Northern Ireland (yes, I also learned that there are 4 countries in the UK, and this is 1 of them)
- Gibraltar
- USA
- Singapore (I only did a layover there, but I'm definitely counting it. Come and fight me 😏)
- Australia (you could technically count England as well, but travelling to and from home counts but also doesn't count, so let's leave it. Depending on how strict you are, you can substitute England for Singapore or vice versa. Anyone that tickles your fancy 😅 me I dun sha talk my own, you talk your own)
Across 4 continents
- Europe
- North America
- Asia
- Oceania/Australia (depending on who you ask)
which increased the total number of continents I have been to from 2 at the start of the year to 5 by the end of the year (the 5th one being Africa, of course). I'm quietly plotting my way to South America and Antarctica. So, in case you see me on a plane sometime soon, somewhere on those continents could be a good guess of my destination 🤭
In the 1st half of the year, when I wasn't travelling as much, I studied for, wrote and passed the CFA Level 2 exam and performed even better than I did in Level 1. If you know about the CFA (Chartered Financial Analyst) exams, you'd have heard that level 2 is by far the hardest. And I found that to be the case. So that kept me pretty busy cos the problem with the CFA exam is if you fail any stage, you have to study everything again cos by the next exam cycle, you'd likely have forgotten most things cos the content is so vast. E.g. even while actively studying for the same cycle, the things I studied in January start looking foreign by May. So it's a tough one.
So, are my excuses for doing a woeful job of posting on LinkedIn and Twitter this year justified? To me, the answer is yes and no. Yes, cos this life is only one. Live it! But no, cos I could have found the time if I wanted to. This is a mindset I'm taking into this year: if you want to do something, find the time to do it.
While I posted less on Twitter, I did manage to grow my following by over 2,000 in 2023 from 2 threads talking about my moving to Australia while mentioning I had also worked in the UK and Egypt 🤭 (i.e. working experience spanning 3 continents). I sure know how to express wins on Twitter to get attention from people 😅
Here's a moment of vulnerability for y'all
At the start of 2023, I was TIRED! Which is a weird energy to start the year with cos how? I had taken like 2 weeks off work, travelled home, and did ZERO cooking for 3 weeks. I just ate, rested, and saw some visitors, and that was it. But I was mentally exhausted.
This made my 1st trip of 2023 to Greece (a solo trip, btw) what the doctor ordered. I needed to spend that time with myself, doing things at my own pace, taking solo walks, not listening to any podcast or music, just sitting with my thoughts (that I claimed I did so well in this blog 😏 but was slowly failing to do) and unpacking why I was tired.
One of my favourite things about myself is I'm never afraid, or I'll never shy away from doing things alone. People say things like I could never go to the cinema alone, walk to class alone, or eat in the cafeteria alone. But those are not problems or thoughts I've ever had. I've comfortably done all these and more alone.
For example, I remember in secondary school, there was this path between the girls' hostel and the shared dining hall. On this path, there's this area to the left where SS2/SS3 boys (the most senior boys in school at any given time) sit and talk amongst themselves. The general theory is that any time girls walk past, the boys make jokes about their looks, call them "funny" names, or just say things that make it look like they are talking about them. So, to protect ourselves, girls would walk in large groups so no one was an easy target for "ridicule", but sometimes, that wasn't enough. Anyway, if no one was around, I didn't shy away from walking out there alone. I'd simply tune out the noise with my thoughts and sometimes laugh.
One of the main reasons I am comfortable doing these alone and even enjoy and seek solitude is it allows me to think and talk to myself, which allows for a lot of self-reflection and planning. It improves my communication because I sometimes rehearse my ideas before sharing them with anyone. Also helps me get so many things to write about on this blog 😉
But in the age of new podcasts every week, music libraries spanning hundreds/thousands of songs where at least 1 is interesting to listen to per time, I find that even when I do things alone, I don't spend as much time with my thoughts as I used to, definitely not as much time as I need or would like. This solo trip gave me time with my thoughts.
And BOY, did that help! 3 days into the trip, I unpacked my concerns and recognised sad situations from the past that I hadn't fully processed, e.g. the ending of my "elsewhere writing" that I spoke about earlier on the blog and how that was affecting my attitude and making me tired. It was like that scene in Legend of the Seeker where Zeddicus Zul Zorander kept asking Richard, "What are you angry at?" and "Who are you angry at?" till he revealed what was truly bothering him and calmed his rage.
I think that trip really set up my year for what it came to be cos if I didn't have those honest, clear conversations with myself, I doubt I'd be where I am today. Plus, the remaining 4 days of the trip, I met a lot of interesting strangers, including these 2 German guys who were best friends and had dated the same girl 😅 and explored their stories.
It was such a fun trip to start the year.
Phew, that was a really long moment of vulnerability 😪 Let's talk about something else.
One of the things I was proudest/happiest I completed in 2023 was my Invisalign treatment to achieve my dream smile.
For the longest time, I've been insecure about my dentition. It's why I rarely ever showed teeth in my pictures. I mean, check my IG from this picture to all earlier posts. You'd never really see a full teeth smile. My pout poses weren't just cos I thought they were cute 😅 it was cos I was hiding my teeth, like this emoji (🤭), but with less cheer.
And a lot of people didn't help with this insecurity. I remember a day in uni when someone made a joke that 3 of us laughed at. And for one stupid moment, I let my guard down and laughed without covering my mouth. Then the lecturer specifically picked on me, saying (and I remember this verbatim) "I don't want to see your teeth in this class again". And that... 😪. I mean, I still remember it today, so that tells you all it needs to say to you.
My dentition has been defined by words like window, rabbit, etc. Words I knew were not complimentary in any way. When I was younger, I didn't really think anything was wrong with my teeth, but the older I became, the more people raised subjects like "you should get braces" and the more I paid attention to people who had braces.
Cut to 2019, I heard Billie Eilish say on the 1st track of her debut album, "I have taken off my Invisalign, and this is the album". Then I started looking into "invisible braces" and knew that the moment I had enough money to do it, I was going to get the treatment. And surely, in April 2022, I started the process that finished 15 months later in July 2023.
I remember the 1st day after I got the aligners, I flashed my teeth at myself in the mirror. Compared to what I had before, the aligners looked like a step up.
The 1st trays were incredibly painful to take off; if not that I had just spent A LOT of money on the treatment, I would have stopped after the 1st day! I guess that's why people advocate that service providers charge for their service so the users can attach more value to it. I know if the treatment was free, I would have strongly considered quitting cos the pain was immense.
After I completed the treatment and the whitening process (which was an add-on to the aligners cos your teeth get a few shades yellow after the treatment), I couldn't stop shining my 32 everywhere I went.
To this day, every time I walk past a mirror, I flash my teeth at myself and feel just a few notches happier. BEST DECISION EVER! And just looking at the outcome every day makes me so happy.
I guess that sums up 2023. I travelled a lot more than I have ever done in any one year. Saw more places. Rested a bit more cos I wasn't working and doing the newsletter and Twitter, and I got my dream smile. A few REALLY sad, annoying things happened, but as I mentioned in chapter 22, I weigh the good significantly higher than the bad, so all in all, best year thus far!
Oh, did I mention I moved to Australia as well 😅 I'm loving it here. I'm walking on sunshine! Literally! It gets so hot here sometimes, like 44 degrees HOT. That's hell. But there's a/c everywhere, so it's manageable.
I LOVE the apartment I rented. It's so spacious with lovely furniture. It has a balcony as well, which is so cool! I get 2 bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms, which is more than I've ever had in London or even the whole UK, and it's much cheaper 😃
So, what more do I need to happen in 2024?
I have a few things I want. It's a pretty short but absolutely achievable list of things I want. I'm reasonably confident that this year will be my best one yet (as all other years have been before now). Looking forward to it! Tell me about your 2023 in the comments and what you're looking forward to in 2024, would ya?
See you in my next one! Bye!
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