Cheers to 2025

New Year, New day; What is the difference?

The MindShift

Happy New Year dear folks!

This greeting could easily be a perfunctory gesture simply because everyone seems to jazz up opening compliments in emails, conversations in person and online chats with those three words.

“Happy New Year”

Yes, indeed it is a new calendar year whose history is deeply rooted in humanity’s effort to measure and organize time based astronomical observations.

The concept of the New Year has ancient roots, but its timing and significance have evolved over centuries to align with different calendars, cultures and astronomical events.

The Gregorian calendar, which is the current 365-day calendar evolved from ancient observations of the solar year and has been in use for many decades.

The Gregorian calendar keeps the calendar year aligned with the Earth’s revolution around the sun, ensuring that seasonal events occur consistently over time.

This invariably ensures that Spring (March, April, May), Summer (June, July, August), Autumn (September, October, November), Winter (December, January, February) seasons occur fairly at the same period within the year as defined by weather patterns rather than celestial events.

Astronomy also claims its seasonal events in Equinoxes and Solstices, but this post is not about the weather or astronomical events. Afterall, I cannot lay claim to knowing a lot about these things anyway. I scored the lowest grade in my WASCE that year in Geography (C5), simply because of all the confusion that these vague explanations caused.

If you think about this deeply, what then is all the hullabaloo about the new year. 

Trivia: While the new year typically starts on the first day of January, the Chinese New Year (also known as the Spring festival) doesn’t even have a fixed date!

It depends on the  mood phases of the moon.

The background to the Chinese New Year though, holds an exciting historical story that is tied to mythology. Go read about Nian!

In the end, the New Year is all about the turn of a new season? Symbolic? Perhaps!

Does it serve as a sort of reset where all the evil and bad things we have done in the previous season simply just disappears? No, I don’t believe so!

 What then changes? I dare say it is a Mindshift!

The shift is a change in one’s mindset and perspective that the new season offers a positive outlook and therefore one has to reorder priorities, break free from habitual thoughts patterns or preconceived notions to adopt new beliefs and attitudes.

It is a powerful shift considering that it spurs us to rebase our thoughts, reflect on the past season and commit to changes in lifestyle. We then make promises to ourselves to save more money, ending lifelong habits like smoking, drinking, womanizing, gambling, stealing, lying, laziness, envy, covetousness etc. The list is endless!

To what end, you may ask.

For personal growth, increased adaptability, to become a better person, for career advancement, to become a better parent, to become a catalyst for growth, to fulfil one’s lifelong passion, for a better-quality life, to become more responsible etc. Once again, this list is endless.

The start of the New Year is therefore like a bus-stop in the journey of life, where we reassess our position (increased awareness), catch our breaths, rebase our plans and commit to a change (behavioral or lifestyle changes) in order to achieve new heights and success.

Whether we do this religiously or personally, it is a worthwhile activity because the Mindshift will require us to break mental barriers and overcome limiting beliefs and biases that may have held many of us back.

Despite the commitment to lofty goals and strict schedule, 2024 was a mix bag of experiences for me. The commitment to find a balance in my passion, family and career demanded more than I had anticipated. 24hours was no longer enough to meet the demands from these three important facets of my life, upsetting the delicate balance I enjoyed in yesteryears.

At some period in the year, one part suffered for the other.

There were triumphs and learnings, expectedly! Life is about ups and downs! There were difficult learnings and tough decisions in many cases. I will share some of these learnings in this posts as I try to rediscover my writing consistency. Trust me, they mostly had good endings!

Despite the ups and downs, I must admit it was a great year that laid the foundation for an even greater year in 2025!

Ups

Surprisingly, I completed the manuscripts for two new fiction stories, which will be published this year and the next.

Exciting times ahead!

I spent the first nine months of 2024 writing dark tales which I hope will someday be added to the collections of stories on your bookshelves wherever you are reading from.

Afterwards, I struggled to write anything for three straight months!

I simply had no interest in any form of writing, whether fantasy, fiction or non-fiction! There was no desire whatsoever!

Downs

The desire died after I had some scathing remarks and feedback from a potential publisher about the two manuscripts.

The feedback had nothing constructive about it. It felt like the reviewers took turns to shove a dagger into my body of work, twisting and turning it to satisfy the insane cravings of downing a promising author.

Criticism can be tough.

Every word, every sentence will resonate so intensely, casting doubt on one’s ability. It tested my mental resilience and made me even better.

I spent the next three months taking courses in fiction storytelling and on improving the quality of my writing.

I turned lemons to lemonades when I started taking online learning courses based on the feedback to improve my God-given talent.

Something had to give, in order to step up to the next level.

Ups

In sharp contrast to the listless feedback from this unnamed publisher, my collection of short stories, Dreams from yesterday (2023) earned an outstanding award for the “Most Engaging Collection of Short Stories” at the Classic FM 97.3 Book on Review with Benj! Awards night in October at the Eko Hotel & Suites in September!

I didn’t see that coming but it was a nervy and extremely pleasing evening!

The year also had a well-attended book reading for “Dreams from Yesterday” at the Roving heights bookstore in Landmark Oniru. But this was not without a crazy drama.

Downs

The book reading event was hurriedly organized on Independence Day (October 1^st) after the Gothe institute had cancelled their unsolicited offer to host an all-expense paid book reading event at the same venue for the same day!

I was by myself (jejely)when they called on phone (following up with emails too) offering to host a book reading event for one of my books at the upscale bookstore in Oniru, at no cost. I was to be the only author on the day!

The cancellation came barely three days to October 1^st, the scheduled date of the event, and after I had shared dozens of invites to guests!

The institute’s action suggested that they would rather put a gag order on the plethora of society issue beleaguering Nigeria that “Dreams from Yesterday” highlighted, than discuss them at a public event.

Their Hypocrisy stank to high heavens!

Their action stirred immense anger in me after the Libarian went off, trying to explain how terrorism, rape, mental health and other themes were issues they would rather not discuss, during our phone conversation, as though someone put a gun on his head.

I re-booked the same venue, for the same day and at the same time before sending an email invite to the institute for the same event they cancelled!

They haven’t met a madder person!

The event was a huge success in the end, without them- they didn’t dare attend.

Ups

I published my second investigative thriller novella “Damaged Goods” in 2024. I completed the manuscript far back in September 2023. The book was also published as a mid-size pocketbook that can be slipped into a small bag with ease. This was part of my innovative approach to creating a reading experience that was different from the popular alternatives.

The published work has garnered impressive feedback and there is more to come in 2025!

 Downs

In the midst of the whole drama, I lost a good chunk of backup versions of my manuscripts and blogpost after my laptop crashed. The hard disc could not be recovered and all 6years worth of manuscripts dissolved into nothingness.

That one hurt really bad. There is no recovering from that very soon. No sweet ending here.

Ups

I started work on a personal goal and idea that I had tinkered with for the last 5years when I met two young and brilliant individuals with amazing skills in software development.

Enter “PROPEL”

PROPEL is an acronym for Professional MENTORSHIP Program for emerging leaders. It will be a platform for a community of young and ambitious career-oriented individuals connecting with experienced, seasoned and carefully selected and committed mentors. The community through a set of curated programs will foster the growth of these young individuals in their chosen careers. The platform will be launched this year, and I am hoping to welcome volunteers to build this ambitious project on a budget.

More Ups

One of the stories in Dreams from yesterday has now been produced into a short film. I was a co-producer thanks to the support from an amazing friend who wrote the script for the movie and worked with young talented individuals in Abuja to turn my thoughts into motion pictures.

The feeling is a really good one, I dare say.

The movie is billed for its premier this year and hopefully can feature in international film festivals as we strive to bring light on salient societal issues and of course recognition.

Downs

I have sold out all the published copies of my first two works, Prisoner of Fate and Waste of Sin. While the dream of every author is to have copies of your books in more customers hands, it was a downer to see that I didn’t have copies to give away during the yuletide season. Now I would have to go publish more copies. Money Out. Sad!

Ups

Aside from my first work, Prisoner of Fate, Dreams from Yesterday effortlessly garnered attention simply because of the nature of the stories and its ability to evoke emotions from the readers. It was pleasing to read reactions from many readers on more than one of the fourteen stories in the book.

The book was also the most difficult pre-published work. It was edited several times by no less than 5 seasoned editors with revisions that felt like writing grammar examinations. Thankfully, it all paid off in the end. Thanks to my editors- DJ Irawo, Femi Oluokun, Gabbie, Hanson and Noirledge.

Ups

Another exciting and defining moment in 2024 was in September when I featured as one of the 8 speakers at the TEDx NUTM event, with its theme “Africa for Africa” resonating strongly with my presentation titled “Storytelling for Impact“

I remember fondly how I started off the presentation with one of the stories from “Dreams from Yesterday” and how spellbound the audience looked throughout the 12minutes that I graced that stage.

This was truly an important moment in the year. Although it wasn’t the biggest stage or audience I ever stood before, it was perhaps the largest brand affiliation where I showcased my craft till date. Amazing!

To think that 6years ago, while sitting in the audience at one of the Tedtalk event and listening to the proponent of the chess-to-slum project, I promptly applied to join the organizers in a bid to get a chance in the future to speak on a passionate topic. At the time, I hadn’t started my writing projects nor dreamed of starting a blog.

My application effort yielded nothing. There was no response to the it nor a reject email. Nothing! Zilch!

But I started preparation for the big event in front of the bathroom mirror in earnest. It was a preparation for whenever the event would be. I only needed to wait it out.

This effort through a twist of fate and a stroke of good fortune was presented with the opportunity last year.

Memories of this event will remain evergreen as I look forward to grander stages to conquer and to showcase my works.

*******

That’s all for now. I will share more insights in subsequent posts.

Cheers.