Fortune And Gratitude

There is a proverb in Yoruba that goes:

Eda to ba mo nu ro a mope da (A person that knows how to reflect will know how to be grateful).

I had a dream a couple of days ago that Darth Vader was invading Abeokuta and we had to take AJ to my aunt’s house so Darth Vader's army won't find her, then I had to leave Tiwa with my Uncle so she could be safe as well. Then I woke up.

I have been in a weird place for a while now with everything that is happening in the world. Ukraine, Gaza, Lebanon...and those are just the mainstream conflicts. Every time I open sky news or bbc news the headline is fuckery, so you can see why I am dreaming about Darth Vader invading Abeokuta.

In Transcendence Meditation (TM) you have to repeat a word/phrase over and over again for 20 minutes. The word should be random and not have any meaning and somehow that will help you...transcend. I don't think I have been practicing TM because the phrase I repeat over and over again when meditating is “Thank you”, and saying thank you over and over again doesn’t make me transcend, what I find myself doing is reflecting. Reflecting up to the point where I can't even pray to God again, because what am I praying for that won't make me sound ungrateful?

Every time I close my eyes...(NO JODECI!! FUCK OFF). Every time I close my eyes...Fuck sake.

Whenever I try to pray to God now, all I can say is THANK YOU. Just THANK YOU. I feel like an ungrateful prick asking for anything apart from thanking God. I am hyper aware of how fortunate I am. Fortune. That is a word that stoics like to use a lot and it drives home the point really well.

Fortune is the reason you are not living in war zone right now, not because you are special, fortune. Refugees don't have two heads, as much as the tories would like you to believe otherwise, they are people like you and me, then one day BOOM! FUCKERY! They have to leave everything they have ever known behind to seek refuge somewhere else.

Fortune is the reason you are not in the hospital right now. People are dropping right, left and centre from health related fuckery. Fortune doesn’t give a fuck about how much money you have, it can puzzle you with your money. I read the story of Steve McQueen, the coolest actor of his time and his money could not save him because let me tell you, that brethren did not want to die. I mean, nobody wants to die but he got diagnosed with cancer this guy tried everything money could pay for. Fortune was like, nah, you are not too cool to die.

Fortune is the only reason you have not being in an accident, because people are actually mad on the road, and I should know, I am one of the mad ones! I know myself well enough now to manage my madness, I wake up 20 mins early and take a longer route to work just so I don't meet anyone on the road to trigger my madness. Fortune is the reason you have not met someone that is not in control of his madness! One of my colleague shared a “safety moment” at our team meeting: She was driving to a cornershop for lunch and some lunatic ran in front of her car and the only reason the person wasn’t injured was because she was driving extremely slow...the lunatic looked at and said sorry and ran off.

Everybody laughed and another of my colleague said “Thank God it wasn’t Ope”.

Oh he'd be dead. I didn’t even hesitate to reply. A lunatic running in front of a madman behind the wheel...he'd be dead and I would be in Jail.

Shit, fortune is the reason why I am not in jail. There is a very good reason why I take a specific route to work!!

The amount of times I have read a story on the news and thought, that could have been anybody! Some madman drove in the opposite direction on the motorway and deleted five people last week! Some madman went and stabbed 3 girls in a dance class! Mad people are everywhere and fortune has been keeping you away from their paths.

Is it fortune though, or the grace of God? Frankly I don't care. Do you know how many born again Christians that are unfortunate. Fortune...Grace...I don't care. All I know that when I reflect on my life, I have nothing else to say than to say THANK YOU!

Another great thing about being hyperaware of how fortunate I am is that I never take the present for granted. I like to use AJ as an example, every single day I pick her from nursery, she runs and jump with excitement (as if she didn’t see me in the morning)...

Daddy Daddy I missed you

...those days are numbered. She will grow and want to do her own thing, whatever that is. Everytime I hug her, and I hug her a lot! I squeeze and linger cos I want to experience every single second with her, because you know...death. I am going to die at some point. This has taken a dark turn, I know, but death is a reality of life, last last we are all going to die at some point. Fortune can't save you from death. The best it can do is let you know when you are going to go, or make it as peaceful as possible, but it is inescapable.

I could have used a different scenario apart from death, like she would grow and move out, and that will happen but I think about death a lot because it is the great equalizer, we will all go at some point and we have no idea of when. So while I am here and I have a beautiful family, each day is such a blessing that I never ever take for granted, you know.

The best I can hope for is growing old and grey with Tiwa and sweet as that sounds...I doubt being old and fray is lot of fun, I KNOW I will look back at this period in my life with fondness, thinking of the “good old days”. My favourite quote from The Office is from Andy Bernard: “I wish there was a way to know you are in the good old days”. Luckily for me, I am very aware that I am living in the good old days, and I pray the days stay good for a long, long time.