The year was 2008 and I had just moved from the crazy bustling city of Lagos, to the tiny little island of St Kitts. A country I had never heard of before I started to process my admission to medical school there. The population of the entire country was around 50,000 people and you could cover the island in 2hrs or less. The weather was great and the people were lovely but also, very chill.
Life was lived at a very casual pace on the island. There was none of the hustlepreneur spirit I was used to as a Lagos girl. People were happy to do their simple jobs, close work early and be chilling at a beach bar by 5pm.
Coming from Lagos, this was strange to me. I was used to people wanting “more” out of life. Being more ambitious. Working hard, climbing the corporate ladder and so on.
My mindset at the time was that I need to work hard because hard work pays off and it’s the pay that counts. Right?
But as I continued to live amongst my island folks, I started to notice how happy and content the people appeared. There were no clubs to pop bottles in, but everyone could afford to buy a beer and whine the night away at a beach bar.
It felt like they already had all that they needed.
I of course, could not wait to complete my education and move to the big U.S of A where I would get into residency, complete my program, start making mega bucks and finally start living the life of my dreams.
Things didn’t quite pan out the way I’d hoped. My dreams of getting into residency never materialised and I ended up moving back to Nigeria.
I was disappointed in myself for not making the cut. I compared myself to all my friends and classmates who had matched successfully. Match day every year was torture because all I could think of was how I had missed out on the life of my dreams.
However, after three failed attempts at matching into a residency program, I finally accepted that maybe it wasn’t meant to be after all. I gradually started to embrace my life in Lagos. I found activities I enjoyed, made new friends and had a rather bubbling social life. I got to spend time with my friends and family and eventually settled into a life I actually enjoyed.
I can not say exactly when the flip switched in my brain, but I remember doing one of my life audits and realising that my life was actually alright. Maybe even better than alright.
I had clothes on my back, a roof over my head (that I wasn’t paying for), and most of my loved ones were within driving distance. I could afford to travel, (if I bought my ticket months in advance or paid in instalments) and buy myself cute items of decent quality.
The fact that I couldn’t afford to fly first or business class or buy designer items had no real impact on the things that mattered in my life.
I realised that I already had enough.
We live in a world that glorifies more. More money, more knowledge, more followers. More everything. Thanks to social media, we are now constantly bombarded with the highlight reel of other people’s lives, making it easier to compare ourselves against curated versions of other people’s lives.
We find ourselves coveting more things, pursuing more things, in the hopes that one day, when we have all the things, we can finally be happy, or worthy.
We put ourselves under pressure to achieve more, without acknowledging and appreciating how far we’ve come and how much we have achieved, and as a result we sometimes feel like we have failed, but by whose metrics?
Should we really be aspiring to things we detest in order to afford to buy things we don’t need to impress strangers?
Or keep waiting for everything to click before we start to enjoy this one life that we are given?
I know now that the pursuit of more can be endless and all consuming. Like my island people, I’ve learnt to bask in the things I do have because to be honest, I have enough.
I shall leave you with the quote that inspired this week’s newsletter via @jamievaron on Instagram.
How about you don’t have to build an empire? Or dominate an industry? Or be the number one at anything?
What if you simply built a lovely life that makes you feel happy, that bring you joy, that is generative and supportive?
What if you healed the parts of you that need more and more and more?
What if you decided enough is enough?
What if you felt satisfied in the right here, the right now?
What if you realised your life is likely a lot closer to your ideal than you ever thought?
What if changing the filter in which you view your life makes everything that much more vibrant?
How much more open space would be left for your joy if you stopped thinking you needed to earn it?
How much more time could you spend in the actual living your life if you let go of striving for more?
How much more beautiful would this moment right here, become for you.
This week I listened to
This episode of The Knowledge Project where I stole the title of this weeks newsletter from.
This week I am reading
The Guest List by Lucy Foley. It made the shortlist for this month’s book club read but did not win. Theme of the month is thriller/horror and this is giving me the right amount of thrill without delving into the fantasy realm. It is also based in England and narrated in various British accents. Naturally I am pleased by this.
This week I wrote
About my serendipitous meeting with an old Pakistani butcher named Mushtaq.
I also wrote something about fibroids.
I’ve just finished another block of nights and I can feel the bones in my feet. I have a couple of days off which shall be spent between my bed and couch.
Here’s wishing you a relaxed week because you deserve to chill too.
Chioma.
The timing is perfect, I literally had this exact conversation with a friend after receiving my September paycheck. Chioma this is really triggering but good...lol
I enjoyed reading today's newsletter. Keep at it :)
First class or economy, "Gbogbo wa la ma je breakfast"