I am a collector of
memories, as I assume every living human being is. The recently passed week added
to my collection very interesting stock to treasure. It was particularly
enlightening because it offered me the opportunity to reflect on memories. Like
a photo album, I tirelessly watched the floating memories of time in my mind
and my words. The best part of the
reflections was that, I had to share the accumulated snapshots for the last
twenty-seven years. Yes, share with a group of curious creative people who will
not wait but eagerly gulp on every memory, sip every word, analyse every life’s
screenshot and perhaps categorise you into any lot they find fit. For whatever
it is worth, I enjoyed the mirroring exercise with very little concern for the
category I fitted in if any at all.
Permit me to digress, only
for a paragraph, for the sake of the overall objective of this article. In my
professional career, I have had the opportunity of taking some of the most
advanced personality test intending to aid career progression and succession
planning. The last one I took was the Myers Briggs Personality Test. This test
as much as many others have something in common, to profile the subject. As a
Risk Analyst, I appreciate the concept of profiling thoroughly. Categorisation
offers the bases from which complex decision are made and I am sure the enquiry
helped guide others as to what their opinions will be if I ever came to the
picture. The profiling was however not done by others only, I got the
opportunity to re-examine if at all I could fit somewhere.
Before I share the three
key lessons from the exercise let me be quick to say Myers Briggs gave me the
same score for introversion as much as extroversion, this results is not unique
to Myers Briggs, other tests I have had suggests similar things. I do not find
these results surprising after all, I love Neil Burger’s film, ‘Divergent’. In
my mind I am ‘Four- Tobias Eaton’ or even better, Beatrice Prior, 100%
divergent!
- All things are possible is not a mere rhetoric: As I went through the stories of strength and weakness, good and bad, happy and sad, regrets and lessons, one key lesson which stands out is the possibility of time. From a humble background in Duayaw Nkwanta Local Authority Junior Secondary all through to a Masters degree and an ongoing legal education, that can only point to possibility. No one needs emphasise, we are the sum total of our experiences, knowledge and summarily our exposures. The hard truth however lurks, our future is in our mind, howbeit subject to what we can imagine from the past we have had. Whatever the past has being for whoever, my life tells a story of possibility if only one will be focused enough.
- Fear is made of nothing: People are often afraid to open up to new ideas, people, places and challenges. Interestingly the rule of nature is, adaptation. Tides and times are ever evolving and survivors have the best adaptability. I have seen worlds in my few years and I intend to see many more. I have seen the handwork of poverty and have equally seen the testimony of wealth, I have seen righteousness as much as sin and I have tested knowledge and stupidity. I do not suggest what I have seen is anything close to a percent of what there is to know but from what I know, I have learnt shedding fear is key to living fully. A challenge to confront one's fear at a time leads to discovery of purpose. We all love to be secretive because we are afraid of confronting the past fully, I dare to confront every dark and light within me without fear, I hope that inspires somebody to at least embrace life as an adventure from which we must tell a story of legacy
- Be limitless: I do not fit into any categorisation. Since I was a child, I have never fitted and I have stopped struggling to. It is good to have people place you in a bracket but that’s just not me. I thought I was wrong till I heard Jesus suggest same in John’s epistle, third chapter and eighth verse. As a wind, my promise to myself, refusing to be categorised by anybody under the sun.
I conclude only with the
hope that somebody finds the courage to know themselves thoroughly beyond any impossibility,
fear or limitation. I was once asked to find a title for a book, song, movie
which will adequately summarise my life’s story. After a long stretch of
thought, all I could agree on was ‘Adventure’, a life not defined or relapsed
to a model or rules but one leading the course of life to find a new path. I hope
this helps somebody embrace their race to pursue their own adventure.
