Christmas and Sober Reflections

Ah, Christmas.

Winter, the cold wind, the snow, the snowmen and snowballs. The jingle bells, the decorations, the kisses under the mistletoe, the trees and the gifts on the ground, the fires in the fireplace, the filled socks and the songs and stories.

All that stuff that Hollywood confused us into thinking that things were like that all the world over. But in Nigeria, where I live, we all characterized Christmas with the dust that comes with harmattan, some illness, cold, and long travels to the village to see extended family members that you cannot recognize talk about how they carried you as a baby.

Well, for a while my family hasn't gone to the village, so that's a good thing. To be honest, I hate road trips. The idea of spending about eight hours cramped up in a minivan just to go to the rural areas where there is hardly light and there are new species of stinging insects ready to try out their attacks on my far from clear skin.

Either way, December, and Christmas itself in particular, reminds me that the end of the year has come, and it is time to reminisce and think about how the year was for me in general, what moves I made, how mnay of them were right or wrong, and how I will approach the new year.

Well, first of all, like the sentiments most people shared about this year, 2021 was a bittersweet year for me. In general, I took more losses thannI scored wins, losses that were honestly disheartening because I felt that I put all the effort I could into certain projects and endeavours, and things didn't work out.

Within the past week, I've been quite depressed, thinking about a lot of things, experiencing a wave of emotions that are beyond my age and quite tasking on my mental health. The simplest way to say it is that my good old days subscription must have expired. The earlier, carefree period of some people's life where it seems like whatever you put your hands into turns out okay? I have been on that high for a long time, and now it is apparent to me that those times are over.

I can finally join others to say that life isn't a bed of roses, since I had a taste of just how hard, unfruitful and unfair life could be this year, in experiences that I just cannot reveal. Rude awakenings can be most painful of the bunch because I've heard of and seen these things happen to other people, but I just thought it was other people because I did not think that such could happen to me until it happened.

I was not prepared for it at all.

Hard work, effort invested, all of that, and yield was so little.

I could dwell on my losses like that was the summary of my year, but not so. I set out to do many things this year, one of which was to become more rooted and knowledgeable in the cryptocurrency world.

Well, I'm happy to say that this part of the mission was a success. I entered the cryptocurrency sphere as a broke student forced home and out of a means of living or regular monthly allowance by COVID last year. For me, it was just read.cash and blogging and finding a means of survival.

Today, I'm much more invested, and in the know about crypto. Yes, this year was a bloody year for the market, and myself was not exempted from a few dips, dumps, and one particularly painful rugpull. But still, I'm not as ignorant as I was when I came in, and I surely believe that I can learn trading in 2022 and make a living from it.

Addressing my wins, one of the biggest wins I secured this year was being able to pay off my school fees and live independently from my parents input, or lack thereof, thanks to Read.Cash. When the worst life had to offer hit me back in August, I could not continue with Read.Cash, but when I was down to mynlast resort and came back, it has been a successful time on this platform ever since, and I'm grateful for that.

Those are just a few experiences I can talk about, before I move on to what is really important. 2021 is over, and as much as there were pains and triumphs to think about, I'd be foolish to continue to dwell on the events of this year all the time.

There's another 365 days ahead of me to make up for all the disappointments this year brough, but only if I can maximize on the opportunity.

I'm not one to make new year resolutions, because I cannot even keep them, but I do know one or two things I intend to focus on doing in 2022.

• Time management. One reason why I fell this year was because I always felt overwhelmed, burdened with many tasks, some of which were not priorities as I thought they were. Next year I'll be focused on managing time doing the things that are important and just that.

• Re-evaluate my friendships. There are 'friends' I kept this year which did not add anything positive to my life, and neither did I to theirs. We had nothing to offer except empty discussions, and in 2022, I don't think that's what I want to do.

• Healthier lifestyle. More sleep, less junk, more living on a balanced diet. That's my mantra for 2021.

This is just a brief summary. There's a lot on my plate, and a lot to think about, but then I'll survive, and do better next year.