Life is a set of objectives. You pick a battle and go attempt to win it, unfortunately, you win some and lose some, at least that’s what I’ve realized about life. Optionality creates a perception of options when in reality, most times there’s only two outcomes; yes or no, true or false, tall or short, rich or poor, good or bad, cooked or not cooked, alive or not alive, happy or unhappy, open or close, healthy or sick, and the list goes on. Knowing this, I’m trying to live a life of process and habits. Don’t get me wrong, I will set objectives and achieve them, I’ll just ensure my happiness is not tied to the objective because when you achieve objective number 1, you automatically start looking for objective number 2. It’s an insatiable hunger for winning and everyone wants something different.
Joan Obasi, my sweet cousin, was recently in the news after being awarded the female pilot of the year and I am super proud of her and this huge achievement. That’s an example of a really good objective that has been achieved, now it’s on to the next one! I’ll be celebrating my birthday soon and it felt like a good time to reflect on life and everything in between. Over the past half a decade, I spent most of my time immigrating to a new Country, one that I now call home, and when people ask me what the most difficult part of immigrating is, I tell them that leaving family behind in my Country of birth would always be the most difficult thing for me and that answer hasn’t changed.
After so many life experiences, a common trend that doesn’t go away is that people are the price. This can be tied to objectives or just random events but the truth is that the people in our lives make everything we go through worth it. I remember a conversation with my retired friends and how they confirmed that after over 6 decades on earth, it still doesn’t get any easier. You just learn to live with your experiences.
I think one of the toughest experiences we get to deal with it would be the loss of people we care about. In the past few decades, I’ve lost Faustina Amadi, Angela Amadi, Prisca Oguguo, Mary Amadi, Vitus Obasi, Clementina Obasi, and a handful of relatives. I’m hoping the souls of the departed, rests in peace – know you are loved my dearest family members. This is probably one of the hardest articles I’ve had to write in my decade-old writing career and it’s because of this paragraph. We sometimes find ourselves in the unending hustle of life and trying to win the next big thing that it’s almost like we don’t want to slow down so we don’t think of the circle of life.
Purpose – If I’m asked to define purpose without looking up the dictionary meaning, I would say purpose is what drives you to keep going. From time to time, it’s very important to take a break from the hard work but one thing that’s vital in this race to success is consistency. You have to keep going. There is no way around this, which is why defining your purpose is the first step. Some people go through life without a clear purpose and they end up chasing objectives until the end.
I’ve been very fortunate to visit 8 different countries and if there’s a constant in all these places, it’s people. Regardless of where you find yourself, people will always be there, which is what makes it very important that you learn to communicate your thoughts and opinions very clearly to help you navigate the uncertainty that surrounds the environment. In searching for ones purpose, we must keep ourselves in front of everything we think about because the material things of this world will come and go.
My family has been dealing with some illness and the biggest lesson for me as we navigate all of this is the fact that these situations can be draining on everyone involved and it’s very important that there’s a constant reminder to face the problem and not go after individual faults that may or may not already exist within the family. God first, Family next, that’s how I navigate life.
I started writing this article 30 days ago and I just kept coming back to add bits and pieces of my thoughts. I guess in this age of artificial intelligence, it’s very important that story tellers continue telling their stories when they have the time. This is a glimpse into a chapter of my story; a story of life, immigration, and purpose.
