YOU MAY BE NEXT

It’s the final day of 2015, some people are excited and some people don’t see any difference. But I wish you a memorable 2016.

My cousin Aderonke Adeniyan (she wrote the Father's day story here) is going to be telling us what she learnt in 2015 and its a lovely piece.

Enjoy it.

Sometimes you give yourself expectations for the New Year and within the first three months, your dreams, visions, goals and ambitions are usually in line with how well you have planned and prepared; but then you realize that circumstances and situations find a way to redefine the expectations you highly wanted to achieve. 

You have this dejected feeling that all you wanted to do isn’t happening as you planned because the direction in which you have started out has been completely shifted, rearranged or readjusted and you wonder why in the first place you bother at all.

I wouldn’t say 2015 was how I wanted it to turn out to be, because for me, it was a continuation of 2014… Like I said earlier, 2015 found its way to readjust itself in my life. I found myself in different situations that either changed my life or that gave me a different opinion about life. I grew a little older by the experiences and lessons I had… I realised that I should never take for granted whatever comes my way. 

It is very easy to ignore the little things that happen in your life; like the way you have a very specific number of people that you know always has your back no matter what happens to you. It is important to stay close to them because you don’t know when you might need them or when they might need you.

Another 2015 lesson was that life is too short to be handled carelessly. It is easy to go through the motions of living each day as it comes or following the plans that one sets out at the beginning of the year but the truth is that sometimes life hits you so hard with disappointing blows that you just might not come out of it. 

Remember I said 2015 is a continuation of the year 2014; my dad was diagnosed with Cancer at the later part of 2014 and was given between six months and  two and a half years for his survival rate. This was something my family needed to accept but hoped that he might spend at least two years. 

That gives us time to prepare, right? But the truth is he was given only six months to live. Although it was a hard blow to swallow, the good thing was that we made him our focus and as comfortable as he needed to be without regrets. Each day needs to be taken seriously not carelessly; you have only chance to live it.

If life gives you lemons, make lemonades; and if it gives you apples, bake an apple pie! That’s the only way you can survive. Circumstances change like the world rotates. The world moves in a circular motion, so do circumstances. 

I have understood that my present situation can turn with a blink of an eye. I realised that whatever my circumstances, I have to make the best of whatever comes my way. I find a way not to dwell on disappointments because it doesn’t allow me prepare for whatever is coming my way; whether good or bad.

I have learnt that mistakes made are not something to bring you down or beat yourself about, but mistakes are made, first because we are not perfect, but because we have to learn from them. This has taken me a while to understand but I realised this when I noticed that no matter how many times I play the scene of my mistakes, I can’t change what can’t be undone. 

So why beat yourself about, when you can hope for a better chance at correcting that mistake or by moving on? But understand that mistakes made more than once becomes a problem.

It is disappointing to note that one of the greatest lessons I learnt in this year is that family are those who you hold dear to your heart, not necessarily your blood relations. This was a shocking revelation. And you know what? Money seems to be a factor in knowing who your family are

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Finally, you may be next! Yes, you! You may find this offensive or hard to accept but it is the undiluted truth. My sister got a text on Christmas day from one of our Aunties to send condolences to an Aunt of ours. Only to for to find out she had been deceased just that day. 

Our Aunt was a member of the burial committee (trust me, I only heard about of “burial committees” for the first time during my Dad’s funeral), and I had spoken to her a few weeks earlier when she called to tell me she had a dream about my dad concerning me. Who would have thought that she would be the next?

 

#RonQuesChronicles