What does it take to build the life I want?

At this point in my life, there are a couple of things that I would like to discuss in this ‘essay’ that I believe are the answer to this question. I haven’t written in a while so if someone else other than me is reading this, I apologize if my writing is sloppy. I have failed to develop my writing ability these past five or perhaps six... years. This actually leads me to my first point of discussion.

To build the life I want, I must maintain and develop the skills I want to always have.

I have a poor habit of being unable to maintain skills. I could theorize on the various reasons why I think this has become the reality of my life, but that is for another write up (if I write another one). For instance, as a child, i loved to write and tell stories. I was so certain that I would have become an author by now and have a collection of published stories that people would read and attribute to my name. However, as I have grown older, I have failed to develop myself as a writer. I stopped writing long ago, can’t even pinpoint when or why. It was a very slow death. An unfinished piece here, a poor attempt at deep poetry there and then it was gone. Even now, I struggle to find a sense of flow with my words, my grammar probably reeks of secondary school, but I will persevere.

Something I didn’t realise as a child is that skills, like physical muscles, can only grow and get strong the more they are stretched, used and tested. I believe, as I look back on all the events that occurred in my life last year, that the life I want for myself, is a life where I exercise skills that I have not only maintained but built across the years of my life.

I want to be the mom who crochets her children little hats and outfits based solely on years of accumulated skill and not simply reliant on patterns as I am now. I can only do that if I give room to allow myself experiment with creating my own designs, to attempt making garments from memory, by dissecting the works of others mentally and figuring out how I can achieve the same thing, by knowing what different stitches can do and how they can be manipulated.

I want to be a scientist who can troubleshoot work problems based on a firm and solid understanding of how biological and computational systems work, I want it to come so naturally to me and for it to do that, I can’t simply gloss over lecture notes or watch educational content mindlessly on YouTube. I can’t even do a shoddy project or two every once in a blue moon, I have to actively and consistently apply my knowledge and test it for it to stick and then eventually, for it to flow.

This applies to so many other things, even my writing. If I want to have any hope of publishing my stories one day, I have to write as a habit, as a necessity for the future version of myself.

To build the life I want, I have to stop deceiving myself.

I find this point a bit interesting and even dicey. Self-deceit.

Deceiving myself simply means not being honest with myself. It is so easy to lie to myself which is interesting because in as much as I am aware that I am lying to myself, I still act as though I am not aware of that fact.

I believe the version of myself that I see in my mind can only exist when I agree to be true, to admit when habits no longer serve me, to notice when I hold on to labels I no longer identify with in a bid to to have a semblance of stability, to remove the long-ignored yet damaging log in my eye.

Have I really tried as hard as I can or am I just comforting myself? Did I really put in the work for that graduate school application or did I slap a pink bow tie on mediocrity and call it effort? Am I really in the right or am I defending my own wrongs to save face?

Because the thing with self-deceit is that it restrains from real change. You can’t try harder if you tell yourself that you already tried your best. You can’t research deeper when you have concluded within yourself that you simply can’t find the resources you are looking for. You can’t make amends if you are persuaded that you are not in the wrong. And if you cannot change, then you cannot grow and growth is the goal.

To build the life I want, I have to know myself and stand by it.

There is this popular quote that says something along the lines of ‘if you do not stand for anything then you can fall for anything’, something like that, I am really not in the mood to fact-check it right now. Something that I have always known but became more apparent to me this year, is that, I have no strong sense of self.

I observed both within myself and by actions, that I was easy to mould, malleable to my own detriment. I quickly absorb people’s opinions on subject matters, situations and myself. And do you know what? I realised it made me sad, but beyond sad, it made me jealous.

Jealous to see and hear people, even those I disagreed with wholeheartedly, have such a strong sense of self, such a strong sense of what they believed. And do you know the thing I noticed? I noticed so many of these people, didn’t even have persuasive reasons to defend their beliefs, all that mattered was that they were fully persuaded and that persuasion in their person made all the difference. And I wanted that. To be persuaded beyond doubt of my opinions on myself, and my opinions on my opinions (hope that makes sense).

To build the life I want, I recognise that I need to own my beliefs. They need to be mine in the way romantic partners profess that they are owned by each other. Beyond reasonable doubt and dare I say, beyond reason. ‘Beyond reason’ because I observed so many people with strong beliefs that were not rooted or defendable by any real logic or reason but their persuasion served as a reason enough. It is admirable to witness as someone who needs things to make sense. I always want everything to make sense and in as much as that is good, and serves a purpose, perhaps to build the life I want, I have to relinquish the desire for full understanding.

To build the life I want, I have to stop trying to control how the world perceives me.

I am getting a bit tired so this will be my last point. I have a tendency to avoid so many conversations because of fear. I am so afraid of so many things, things I do not even have names for.

I tend to avoid the mere appearance of conflict because I am afraid of sounding stupid, sounding weak, sounding uneducated, sounding arrogant, sounding different from how I want to sound.

I spent a lot of 2025 trying to control narratives and it was exhausting and do you know the worst part? It did not help! I was still perceived wrongly in several instances, however something else happened. In situations where I thought I was being perceived poorly, I had people literally go out of their way to praise my personality/behavior. Is that not wild?

I am definitely too much of a first born daughter to fully disregard perception control, but I know that moving forward, I want to be conscious of how I behave in a bid to control how people receive me. People are not mine to control, manipulate or even worry about. I believe I restrict myself so much when I am too conscious of being thought of negatively that I miss out on opportunities to have clarifying conversations.

In essence, I cannot and do not have to please everyone and I have to stop acting like it is the end of the world if someone is not pleased with me. I will do good by others as often as I can, but not at the expense of myself.

So help me God.

I love bicycles. Let’s start with that. I love them a lot.

Growing up, I never played any form of sports, except running counts and to be honest, I stopped running when I became out of shape, but that’s not what this is about, this is about bicycles and how much I love them.

As a child, I had a tricycle, she was pink or purple (I can’t remember) and she had a globe in between the handle bars, with a little girl on a tricycle in it. I do not remember what happened to my tricycle but I know for a huge chunk of my life I wasn’t riding anymore.

Then in senior secondary school, my dad bought bicycles for my siblings and I. And at first we all ignored the bicycles because none of us could remember how to ride one or balance on one. Then my dad, being the wonderful dad he is, put money on it and challenged us to learn how to ride within a week. He said he’d gift the winner ten thousand naira to their account.

My brother and I immediately pounced on this challenge, after all, what little child didn’t want money?

Long story made short, I won. I won the ten thousand naira (which I don’t believe ever entered my account if we’re being honest), and I also won a newfound love.

I rode as many times as I could. My brother eventually got over his fear of crashing and soon joined me to ride the bicycles round our estate.

I am not a daring rider, let me say that first of all, I don’t bother with tricks and stunts because I very much value my life and I already have lots of permanent scars already to last me a lifetime, but I do love riding.

It’s so calming and so exhilarating at the same time. I love that about it, how one thing can calm me and also make my heart feel delicious thrills.

So for a date, take me riding, do not be stupid and get one of those jointed abominations, get your own bike and tell me to bring mine. Let’s go to a park and ride round and round. Let’s take a picnic blanket with us too and lie down on grass and talk and when no more words can be said, let’s get back on our bikes and ride.

I would love to race you downhill and I would like to see your muscles(if you have any) defined when we struggle up hill. If you can do tricks, do them and make my heart leap with both admiration and worry for you.

Let’s wear matching T-shirts on the day this happens, let strangers look at us and think, “God when?”. And even if no one else is around to stare at us, let’s still do it.

Let’s go for a ride.

While watching this film, I found myself asking, ‘What can be done?’ or better yet, ‘What can be done that hasn’t already been done?’ I believe firstly that the disconnect between the Nigerian youths and the history of our ancestors has to be fixed. The examples of strong and bold women I saw in this film was nothing short of encouraging and empowering. Why isn’t this taught to everyone? As much as it is everyone’s responsibility to educate themselves, how can you educate yourself on something you didn’t know existed?

This film encouraged me to read up a bit on the Nigerian political system and I discovered that in our Senate, the one shown in the film, where the bill for gender equality was not passed, out of 109 members, less than 10 are female.Seeing that piece of information caused me to ask myself two things. Are there not enough women running for these positions? Or are they simply not being voted into these positions? If the case is the latter, then the problem isn’t solely with the government and the authorities no matter how patriarchal they may be, but with the people as a whole. Why? Because this government comes from the people and these people have grown up in a nation where women are rarely seen in places of power, if at all. In the battle for the equality of the genders, there should be a close ratio of the women and men in places of power if not completely equal amount of both genders. The voices of the females should be heard in issues that pertain to them.

In regards to the issue of. sexual harassment and violence against women, it hurts to know that in the midst of the numerous cases we hear, there are thousands of stories not yet heard and voices of women that have been silenced in this nation. We shouldn’t have to beg to be protected in our country, we shouldn’t have to die and be raped and abused and traumatized before you acknowledge the fact that we have rights too. Where are the punishments for the injustices? Where is the protection against the inhumane acts done against women on the daily?

Gender inequality is a real problem that affects women everyday. Shrinking them and suffocating them and putting them in a box, never allowing them to fulfill their potentials. I strongly believe that if women had the equality and the rights they deserve, we would be much more along in our journey as a developing country, not because women are better than men, but because women can bring and offer what men can’t bring. Human beings aren’t meant to exist independent of each other but rather to coexist and combine our individual strengths.

This battle against inequality will be won. Females won’t stop fighting and we won’t stop doing our best to make a change just like the women before us.