Everything in its right place.

Without the routine and rigour that comes with being a student, it is almost certain you float away into restless abyss untethered (terrifyingly) by rules and regulations. Your many years on earth have programmed you to live within some bounds and you’re one day expected to find meaning outside of it. Life merges into one continuous loop: sleep, wake, watch other people your age seem to have life figured out, sleep, wake, watch other people your age seem to have life figured out.

Soon enough, it is exhausting. Your eyes are tired of closing as they are of staying open, and the people your age who seem to have their life figured out have become dull and banal. You need to figure out something. Make money (because your savings are red), find meaning out of life (what does that mean?), get your spark back (you don’t think you ever ‘sparked’), make new friends (you live too far and you’re shy), get a job (you don’t think you’re ready to be capitalism’s newest slave). So you fill your day with journalling, reading, music, writing to-dos, drawing up vision boards, daydreaming, playing dressup, feeling shameful and guilty then promptly reading the Bible to exorcise those feelings, learning to drive, strategising and re-strategising, planning events, attempting to write a linkedin post but being turned off by all the AI slop that riddles the site, scrolling dangerously close to oblivion on TikTok/Reels, cooking dinner for your father, touching grass, teasing the dog, hour long calls with your friends.

You recently cleaned out your room and accidentally unearthed hidden, forgotten parts of your self: a report card from SS2 where you failed Chemistry and Further Maths so woefully, it brought tears to your eyes; a yearbook from 2015 where you were eleven, and also the class captain of your JSS2 arm (you have no memory of actually captaining this class). Your heart aches for the girl figuring her large yet little life and wish you could travel back in time so she’d be less alone; a birthday card from your parents grateful to God for giving you to them. You can’t remember the last time you got a birthday card or any card at all; an old Bible, the only one you own purchased with your money. It is small, black with sparse highlighting; old strung-up beads from the business you tried to start — and failed at, and restarted, and failed at again — at least thrice before you made peace with the fact that business was not for you; WASSCE and UTME past questions. Shivers run down your spine for this one. You never want to go through that arduous period of writing exams for months at stretch, anxiety and tired your best friends; and junk.

These hidden, forgotten parts of yourself were once your life. The life you slept and woke up to for years. It is marvellous that you have gone through so many phases on your short journey through earth and gathered such a rich, unruly archive of experience. Just a few weeks ago, you and a couple of your friends visited your primary school. Everything was half their remembered sizes, the few teachers you knew were older (of course!), and you were struck, almost winded, by a flood of nostalgia. Your friends trade stories but soon enough realise that nobody remembers the memories others do. It is almost as though each person conjures specific ‘memories’ that no one else does. It does not come as a surprise to you because you have learnt about this phenomenon in one of your psychology classes.

The idea that you are wasting time plagues you. This has been a burden you carry since you clocked fifteen. At that tender age, you gave yourself till eighteen to figure yourself out. Now, your naivety is laughable. Just three years to figure yourself? Eighteen was too young and besides, you spent most of it depressed in bed to figure anything out. At twenty two you haven’t even scratched the surface of this ‘figuring it out’, and you suspect you won’t until a while. Your philosophy is to find some semblance of joy and peace, and to do everything to keep it. This involves writing, reading, design, daydreaming and a host of other out-of-box activities.

The truth is that time passes quickly, and you have been absent for too much of it to make full sense of its passing. Your mother rings into your ears about phases and how important it is to be present and ‘enjoy the moment’. She is speaking from decades of experience so it is only wise to pay attention to her. You believe you enjoyed university to the best of your strength and that the memories made have turned you into this ambitious, take-the-world-by-its-horn, yet painfully laidback young person. The people you met- roommates, classmates, blockmates, clubmates, rantmates, walkaroundcampusmates, acquaintancemates, playmates, everythingelsemates- have all fired neurons in your brain so everything that you do is an extension of those connections.

Life is unraveling itself slowly. You have begun sitting with questions you once had the luxury of ignoring: Where do you want to start your career? How much should you be investing now? Should you leave your hometown now?

Your every day is made up of micro yet consequential decisions, for this reason, you are anxious about making decisions. You turn over every word and actions you take, hyper aware of the fact that they either make or mar you. They’re defining. You worry about ‘alignment’, about opportunities you may have missed because you weren’t paying enough attention, about the people you might have met had you not been too tired to leave the house that one evening. You worry that everything is out of place and that you’d regret the decisions you made. At this age, you already have minor regrets and they hurt. Living life as an adult dragging baggage of regrets would hurt even more.

Turning to the people your age that seem to have life figured out as a pattern to follow is ignoring the fact that they are only showcasing what seems digestible to the public eye. There are many complexities of humanity hidden under an Instagram post that you know nothing about. It is disastrous to make them your template or to, God forbid, compare yourself to them.

A little dose of overthinking, second-guessing, doubting, self-hating, self-sabotaging won’t hurt— you’re only human after all. They are signals to the fact that you need to change something. You label them ‘restless energy’ that needs to be channelled somewhere. You sleep and wake knowing that you’re made for something beyond your imaginations. Your daydreams aren’t mere wishes. They are blueprints, images, guides etched into your subconscious. You will reference these dreams as you make your way through life. Your sleeping and waking are building blocks for the beautiful cathedral your life is shaping up to be. It’s exciting to be young and free with a promise of a bright future ahead. You are in the right place.

Everything is in its right place. You are not slow or out of place. You’re right where you are meant to be. In your father’s house journalling, reading, writing, discovering new sounds, writing to-dos, drawing up vision boards, daydreaming, playing dressup, feeling shameful and guilty then promptly reading the Bible to exorcise those feelings, learning to drive, strategising and re-strategising, planning events, attempting to write a linkedin post but being turned off by all the AI slop that riddles the site, scrolling dangerously close to oblivion on TikTok/Reels, touching grass, cooking dinner for your father, teasing the dog, on hour long calls with your friends.