Hey. How are you?
I hope you are well. I send positive vibrations your way. Wishing you a life of daily bliss.
28 today. So here are five reflections from my past year.
1. Leaving it all behind
As most of you know already, I began a new life earlier this year. Decided to stop living in Lagos, sold all my stuff and set out on a journey to learn about different parts of the world and its people.
People often ask me why I did it. I’ve discussed it before but I’ll summarize again.
I’ve always been curious about what life was actually like in different countries of the world that I didn’t know anything of outside of content from media and the internet. This information as you can imagine is often biased.
Growing up, I had a crush on women from the Philippines and always wanted to visit. I heard stories about Thailand and my mind often wandered to imagine what walking on the streets of Thai towns felt like. I had a very active imagination for what life in these places might feel like.
At CcHUB, I had been privileged to visit 10+ countries across 3 continents on business trips. But short trips often left me with more questions and biases. I always felt that to truly visit somewhere, a significant amount of time needed to be spent there.
When I lost my eldest brother in October 2020, there was a trigger. He was full of life and we often spoke of how he’d like to travel. In early 2021, I switched jobs from CcHUB to MAGIC which was fully remote and had an international team. In those first few months of 2021, the idea started to form.
(Miss him a lot)
I was now fully remote. I had shelved my plans for going to business school/masters. I was earning something decent that could allow me to live in a different African country. So I bounced the idea off with my ex about a 1-year trip across Africa.
I laugh when I look back to that initial idea. As a Nigerian, we need visas to 40 African countries (of 52 countries). My original plan was to do the four regions of Africa in 1 year (spending 3 months in each region). So I’ll have a primary base in one country and then fly out/go on road trips for weekends in different neighbouring countries.
I later realized that wasn’t feasible passport-wise and cost-wise. So I decided to do 3-6month stays in different countries while also getting residency privileges that could make visa applications easier.
I was going to go for one year and come back home to be with my ex. But sadly, that relationship ended (I was at fault) in the first week of this year. So I started January with a plan to head to Ghana at the end of the month and unsure of what lay ahead.
7 months later (having spent 4 months in Ghana and 2 months so far in Dubai), I don’t have a time restriction on my sojourn anymore. I don’t know what lies ahead. I don’t even know which city I’ll live in next. I’ll likely decide in my last month here.
(Allysa and Alecka. My fam from Antigua that were in my fun crew in Accra)
But despite leaving almost everything behind and going on this uncertain path, my life and heart are filled with gratitude for the elevation the past 8 months have brought to my soul. Thailand. Indonesia. India. Japan. Portugal. Greece. Who knows? How many years? Who knows? Maybe God and Universe does.
2. In search of a deeper meaning
I’m walking on Aluguntugui street by 6:30 am one morning in my first week in Ghana. As I often feel when I get into a new environment, I was energetic and wanted to resume my morning walk routine.
So I grab my headset and step out the gates of my apartment with a beautiful view of the sunrise beyond the horizon. I typically listen to music on my walks but I wanted to switch it up. I am on a journey to discover the world. Why not listen to content that might be interesting/useful on this journey?
I recall that my brother, Lively, had been listening to some Indian guru that he had tried to get me to listen to multiple times. Why not? That guy sounded interesting.
Luckily, I remembered his name: Sadhguru. I type it on Youtube and click on the most interesting topic I find. And so my journey into the yogic way of life began.
As a curious person, you can imagine that I’m curious about religion and the validity of it all. During my trip to Israel in 2019 and in the year that followed, I dived deep into different religions alternate to Christianity to try to understand their ideologies.
(Enjoying roadside coconut on a trip to the Volta Region in Ghana)
Something was common with most of them. They were absolutists.
Absolute meaning: a value or principle which is regarded as universally valid
Most religions preach that X is the way to heaven (or whatever their version of the afterlife is) and the only way. Anyone who doesn’t identify with X (especially if someone preaching X has told them about it) is destined to suffer Y fate (often hell). And there’s no way around it.
There are almost 8 billion people in the world the most popular one (Christianity) has 2.3B people (even though most are divided). When I ask deeply religious folks what happens to those who don’t accept the faith.Especially those who were born in environments where an alternate religion is woven into their very social and survival fabric. They say that God will decide.
It’s interesting that living in the Middle East has made me understand how deeply this doesn’t hold water. Some of my closest new friends I’ve met on this trip so far are from Saudi Arabia. Let’s do a quick walkthrough of one quick Saudi law: "Every woman is required by law to have a male guardian" She can not even get married without this guardian (doesn’t have to be her father, could even be a boy younger than her if no other men are in the picture).
So please tell me what the likelihood of a Saudi woman born in Saudi. Indoctrinated in Islam and bound by law to have a male guardian. What's the likelihood she'll convert to another religion? Sure, there’ll be outliers but it’s almost impossible at scale. This tends to apply to most religions.
(Met this lovely Saudi couple at the club. All my Saudi friends keep asking me when I’m coming to town)
By my amateurish estimate, 60%-70% of religious people practise the religion of their parents or the closest societal group they were born into till they die! Yes, religion has spread greatly in the past centuries but it’s often scaled not by preaching but by institutions and people in the corridors of power.
So as I dived into the teachings of the Yogic culture and the lack of a restricted ‘identity’ and ‘absolutism’, I got intrigued. If anything, the process of understanding myself and my connection with the universe has deepened my love and adoration for the creator of the universe.
We call this power by different names depending on which geography we’re born in. But it’s the same God. The same entity.
(PS - I tell my friends nowadays that Christians and other religious folks should do less preaching and more 'practice' of their faith. There are way too many hypocrites. The world will be so much better if we all just lived with unconditional love as our central guideline which is the summary of most religious texts)
3. Loneliness/Isolation vs Self-Sufficiency
One of the biggest issues solo nomads complain about is loneliness. It’s even worse when you’re in a place for a short period (6 months or less). We are intrinsically social beings. It’s easier when you have someone you’re travelling with. Travelling solo can be brutal.
Luckily for me, I’ll say I’ve not experienced that as much. Perhaps my time in Ghana was a fluke. I knew a few people in town that I could go to places with. Even though I eventually spent 70%+ of my time with new people I met, those initial ties helped me settle in.
(Grace from Sierra-Leone but who is a Nigerian at heart. She’s been one of the blessings I’ve received this year)
Dubai has been tricky. As the nice guy that I am, I’ve been privileged to make many good friends and I’ve started building my crew. As a major transit city though, I’m finding that some of the strongest connections I build can only last a few days/weeks because people have to go back to their bases.
As a metropolitan city with very little community culture too, it’s been a bit of a culture shock but an interesting one regardless.
I rarely ever feel lonely. I feel like there’s always so much to do and learn about the world that I rarely get a free minute to feel bored. However, the feeling of being isolated is one that has been rearing its head.
I have a high bar for people that I spend time with and who align my energies with. These are not always easy to find so it’s common nowadays to walk into a bar and not have the motivation to make a new friend which might be fleeting.
One other major thing I’ve struggled with is keeping up with connections back home. As a nomad working full-time across multiple timezones. It’s very common for the bulk of my day to go towards work. When you try to balance that out with experiencing and learning as much as possible of a city you’re in for a short time, it’s hard to mentally keep up with much else.
(Dropping a pic of my hair here just because I can. Almost two years now)
My response time on WhatsApp has been terrible. I have 3,000+ contacts on my phone, so even when I try to respond, it’s a never-ending rollercoaster that sometimes its best left to be done in bulk.
I wonder how this journey over the next couple of years (presumably) will affect my relationships back home. I guess time will tell.
4. Authenticity & Execution
As you grow older. You get clarity on what you like and what you don’t like. What brings you energy and what takes it away. The kind of environments you want to be in and those you don’t.
As a rebel at heart, I’ve always tried to be authentic. It’s not been easy. In secondary school, as a poor boy without much to offer, I often had to do things to blend in and be worthy of being counted as a part of the group.
As I grew older and my self-awareness deepened, I've gained a much clearer sense of what the ‘true and natural Francis’ is. I try as much as possible to always be that authentic self where I’m most at peace. I can adapt when required to different situations but I’ve found that my authenticity attracts what is right for me.
Impostor syndrome & self-criticism. I tell my brother and friends that self-criticism is a symbol of greatness/ambition. I believe that if we do not constantly question our outputs, we wouldn’t go far in life. What took me a long time to learn though is that self-criticism should be limited to outputs only and shouldn’t apply to the ‘self’.
All my career, I’ve struggled with feeling like a fraud. Despite the obvious growth, it’s incredibly hard for my inner critic to not find a fault and pile on the blame. This in turn increases the feeling of impostor syndrome.
(Some members of my MAGIC fam. One of my highlights this year has been bringing on 5 new excellent people into the family. Rockstars!)
In the past year, I’ve battled this in different ways. Firstly, I’m learning to clearly distinguish who I am from my outputs. My outputs do not define me or my capabilities. If I let it do, it’ll ironically reduce my belief in myself and hence my abilities.
I’ve also learned to execute. I used to be big on motivation to get work done. Then a friend told me a quote I hold dear to this day: “Action breeds motivation, not the other way around”. By learning to break things down into small tasks and consistently executing them, I’m finding that LARGE projects can get done really quickly.
5. Controlling the mind & Living 10,000 days
There’s a night from my childhood that I remember occasionally. I was 12 years old and was responsible for parboiling fish ahead of dinner that night. As I sat in the smokey kitchen that evening, I got lost in thought asking myself who I was. Why was I here? What was the purpose of life? To what end?
Transcendence and achieving the optimal state possible for a human has always been an interest of mine. So whenever I find something/someone that allows me to understand myself and the universe a bit more, I’m always intrigued.
(Transcending gravity with my PBN fam at Olumo Rock)
In the past couple of months learning the yogic way of life, I have made the most progress in understanding myself and controlling my life experience than ever before.
I had always known that I feel much better and more in control after I do a reflection. The issue was that with work and my so-called busy life, it was easy to go a week or weeks without reflection and that often made me feel like I was in a simulation. I had tried different meditation techniques previously but none has been as simple and effective as Isha Kriya.
The simplicity and the profound experience of internal bliss that I experience during the meditation allows me to reset every day (or every time I'm not to lazy to do it). This has been incredibly useful in helping me focus on things that truly matter to me and optimizing my experience of life for every 24 hours I’m privileged to have.
I had been on the search of happiness and fulfilment for a long time but my perspective on these has changed. While I still have an over-arching idea of what a fulfilled life looks like, I’ve become more interested in a fulfilled 24 hours every day.
I was speaking with some friends at work last week and I asked them some questions: Where were we before we were born and how long were we there for? Where will we be after we leave here and how long will we be there for?
People had different answers but we all came to an agreement. We do not know as an ABSOLUTE fact where we were or where we’ll go. We can have different beliefs but there’s no proven fact about either. I’ll prefer we don’t focus on the before and after because it’s often a sensitive religious topic.
What we can all agree on though is that what we know as an ABSOLUTE fact is that we’re alive today. On the average, most humans live for 50-70 years. So before we came here, we were somewhere else (or didn’t exist) for an immeasurable amount of time (we can call that eternity). And when we leave, we’ll not be alive (at least in this form) for another immeasurable amount of time.
So what we have are these 50-70 years. Split across 365 days. That’s actually just 18,250 - 25,500 days. Lol.
Most of us spend a third of that sleeping. So that’s down to 12,775 - 17,850. For most of us, our first 20 years are not directly controlled by us. So if we remove those, we have on average 5,475 - 10,550 days to fully experience life.
Let’s round it up to 10,000 days. Think about it. This life that you’re so worried about. It’s the only thing you’re sure of. And you have about just 10,000 individual days here. Doesn’t look like a lot of days. What would you rather spend those days doing?
Worry about the future? Worrying about the past. Thinking about eternity? Or simply living?
What does ‘simply living’ look like to me (I expect it to be different for everyone because we’re unique beings)? I’m learning that living to me is achieving a near-constant state of internal bliss/pleasantness.
(Zen)
In books I've read and words from wise people, they always mentioned that happiness comes from within. I’m not sure about you but I’ve always tried to understand/find a practical way to create that internal happiness.
I’ve not figured it out yet but I’m glad about the path I’m on.
Most of the suffering we experience comes from within. And are driven by two main things: Memory and Imagination (or both many times). You worry about something stored in your subconscious. Or your brain is racing about imaginative scenarios. Or both at once.
Learning not only to meditate but also to be meditative is helping me overcome this. I now have the ability to detach myself from my thoughts and just be. This allows me to go into mini-trancelike states while awake which is incredibly blissful.
Then when the thoughts come, I acknowledge them. I even categorize them (memory, imagination or both). I’ll often laugh at/talk to myself for putting unnecessary worries on myself and it’s gone. It’s still early days for me. I’m just a few months in and there’s years of deeper exploration ahead.
If you can find a way to gain control of your mind, I’ll highly recommend it.
To conclude this letter that I feel is too long already.
It’s easy to focus on the trivial things of life. Society has sadly been designed that way. Very often though, this distorts our experience of life and many of us just glide through life. What experiencing life means would differ for each of us. But I definitely feel that it should be our utmost priority to experience as much as possible of this life that we have and know while we’re here.
As I enter a new year, that is my priority. To continue to deepen my experience of life. To attain near-constant internal bliss. To live each 24 hours as it comes because I know not which will be my last. To share the resulting kindness and joy with people I come in contact with.
Cheers to my 28th revolution.
Wanna give me a birthday gift? Share my newsletter with your friends and ask them to subscribe. It’s my retirement plan :).
This letter was written while listening to the greatest Bob Marley.
We are a product of our environment and experiences - Francis Sani.
Love always.
Good read. 🇳🇬
Thank you