Lock and Unlock

Photo credit: Erin Schroeder

After being stranded in Manila since March because of the COVID-19 lockdown, I finally flew home. This period has brought my mind into sorting out some things in my emotional ship and - in a good way - without abandoning it. One thing I realised is that I have been trapped into this kind of personal gridlocks.

First, I think that I have been trying too much to be the independent person I wanted to be - stable, happy, and fine. I have always wanted to live by my own and so I have lived by my own in the last years. Little did I know that in the process I was locking myself into my selfish world and away from the persons that matter in my life - family, friends, and colleagues.

I have successfully reduced my world into a smaller circle of people that matters most but what I missed all these years is to have a bigger heart. I want to rediscover my simple, kind, and generous self. I want to stay more understandingly with my family, talk more empathetically with my friends, and connect more meaningfully with my colleagues.

Moreover, I have always kept unworthy emotions against people I had different perspectives and for things that went off my way. I guess I have been too much passionate about what my own perspectives to the point that I take people and things personally. I burned bridges and denied paving some roads. I locked myself into the grease traps of contempt, hatred and disdain.

I have decided to unlock myself by releasing such bad personal sentiments and accepting circumstances as they are than as what I think they are. The important thing is I have forgiven people and most importantly myself. I now just want to live with no emotional baggages, just a grateful heart and peaceful mind. I want to be a calm and graceful lake than a swelling and chaotic sea.

Lastly, while I graduated from too much showing off, I was mad to some extent at being proud of myself. I have tamed myself from brandishing my gains around like accessories around my neck. However, I seemed to have missed one thing in the process: to not get things through my head. Yes, it is such a shame but I admit I lost my feet on the ground.

I realised that achievements are only footnotes to the barometer of life fulfilment. I need to learn to get off my high horse because at the end of the day it is not the medals that count but the kind of my heart. One of my mantras should be to always be sincerely humble. Continue to celebrate in private but always keep the humility in place. Keep some pride when it matters but exercise with caution.

God, thank you for the continual guidance. “Human strength plus intelligence cannot unlock the door that God is hiding its key” -Bamigboye Olurotimi. I believe this.