Introduction
I listen to tweeps on Twitter complain about how messy 2018 has been for them. At first, I followed the herd and also felt 2018 was a tumultous year for me.
Truth be told 2018 has been one of the best years of my life.
2017, is the year that will go down in the history of my life as the worst year for me, a brief recap of it;
In 2017, i was seriously ill. An illness that had a toll on me. Every single thing I ever knew about life came to life, literally.
Away from school for about 2 months
At some point I thought I was going to be withdrawn from my beloved course; Medicine.
My family went through a lot because of my illness
I wasn’t in a comfortable environment at school and a lot more
as if that was not enough, i lost my aunt and uncle.
2018 was the light at the end of the tunnel for me. So many great things:
A year of so many realization it has been.
A year that i found myself.
Understood myself more.
No doubt i went through a lot of cathartic turmoils but they were nothing compared to what 2017 had done to me.
For this simple reason I refer to 2018 as “My Year of Evolution”.
From here on I shall give an award inspired by a Twiiter account name “Afroblog” titled “Best of the Year Award “(BOTY) in a categorised form. Some categories have more than one BOTY, whilst others are very short.
These BOTY contributed in making this year am evolutionary year for me.
ENTERTAINMENT
In terms of entertainment we have:
•BOTY Movie
•BOTY TV show series
•BOTY fictional book
•BOTY Non fiction book
•BOTY Movie
My favourite movie of this year has got to be “Wonder“. This is a movie that broke 2 personal records for me;
1. Cry. I do not cry because of movies, but i cried ugly for this movie.
2. I rewatched it, when I watch a movie, no matter how good I do not rewatch it again, but I did watch this movie once more, and I hope to again.
Wonder according to Google search:
“tells the incredibly inspiring and heartwarming story of August Pullman, a boy with facial differences who enters fifth grade, attending a mainstream elementary school.“
One thing that stood out for me in this particular movie is wonder’s family, particularly his parents.
I have always been a sucker for couples that play their parts in the lives of their children. Augustus’ parents were the perfect kind of parents.
I believe when you have battles to fight outside your home, it is always easier to fight that battle when your own home is at peace.
As part of my 2018 realizations, I came to understand why my imaginative writings, with only one posted on my blog, has a lot to do with family settings.
You see a family is the smalleest unit of a community as said by Mufti Menk. That being said, it makes it an easy target for one set out to ruin a community.
I have noticed an array of dysfunctionalities in our up bringing which i link to the way we were raised.
From not being able to express ourselves. Not able to make the right decisions. Not understanding our ownselves. Not realizing how the decisions we make at a young age affects us.
Augustus, did not have to deal with his parents being unsure of themselves or of wanting to be together.
His father, a role played marvelously well by Owen Wilson, he played his part so well in the life of his children and I respect him even more for that act.
•BOTY Series
My favourite series for this year, initailly it was 13 Reasons Why, but towards the end of this year, I watched Jack Ryan and boy was that series captivating.
13 Reasons Why season 2 was my favourite because it is a series that gave so much insight into an array of current social issues; Mental health, suicide, rape, bullying.
It is that kind of series you watch and you wish you were the writer, despite it contributing to a lot of depressive moods this year and increase in suicide in the US.
Hats off it is an enthralling series that started off on the surface, but we ended up being at the bottom of an ocean, needing a lot of saving from our own evil selves.
Jack Ryan
Tom clancy’s Jack Ryan, where do I begin? This meticulously acted series turned the table around for me, making it hard to choose between it and 13RW.
Jack Ryan, starring the leading actor of the movie: ‘a Quiet place’, took us all on a journey filled with so much suspense.
Every scene felt like it was acted right between your iris. Every scene was acted so well it sifted through your skin.
One thing stood out for me in Jack Ryan, which is the portrayal of Islam and muslim. The writer effortlessly highlighted two groups of muslims, despite the extremists being of larger group.
The portrayal of a single muslim, who despite having fallen off the wagon, still came back to the right path, upholding the teachings of Islam.
That specific attention to detail stood out for me.
Another point worthy of note is how meticulously smart Jack Ryan is, his samrtness, ability to pay attention to every single detail is an awe inspirimg trait every person, i feel should possess.
•BOTY Fictional Book
My favourite fictional book of 2018 has to be anthology series by a great friend i met on Twitter: Ibrahim Oga (I just realised I don’t even know his surname).
Either way, Ibrahim Oga, is the most talented writer I have ever met. His anthologies are out of this world.
His insight, wisdom, on different aspect of life is absolutely superb.
One of the few gems I have met in 2018, one of the most underrated tweeps on Twitter.
I hope his works get to be recognized for the masterpiece that they are one day.
•BOTY Non Fiction Book
This category award goes to two books.
One is a book that was written to my heart: “Reclaim Your Heart” by Yasmin Mogahed.
Yasmin Mogahed, took us all on a beautiful journey of love and self discovery. We dived into the deepest parts of our hearts, to save ourselves from drowning from our own mistakes.
For this, Yasmin Mogahed became my BOTY writer of 2018.
The second book in this category is “The power of Habits” by Charles Duhigg. The review of this book will soon be uploaded on my blog.
The power of Habits took me on a jounery deep into my mind.
The most special thing about this book os the fact that it was a gift given to me by yet another tweep on Twitter
Which takes us to our next award category:
BOTY Online Personality that changed my life.
3 people fall into this category.
1. Usman Shamaki, who gifted me a book. He contributed so much to my reading journey. Reading is something that I have always struggled with.
When he gave me this book, it was like a center had been ignited in my brain, I fell instantly in love with the book.
Hopefully, a blogpost will be coming up about this particular book.
The second person in this category is Ahmed Yahya, an iconic, outstanding character I met who gave me an insight into things that are of A grade. The things that truely matter.The things that I should focus more on. Ahmed Yahya is a winsome character full of life, which he fails to see in himself.
Abubakar Abdurrahman, this is a very special person in my life, and I hope he continues to be.
He stands out amongst all the personalities I met online. My year long dream, he made it come true. Most times I begin to fall short of words to describe him. He is just amazing.
BOTY Experience
I experienced so much this year. I cannot pick out a favourite tbvh, I will try to highlight the key experiences that stood out
1. Blogging
A dream that came true despite me not harnessing it for so long. The creation of my website came as a birthday gift, which felt a lot like my dad gifting me a car.
Blogging made me aware of how lazy I am. Despite having so much to write, i just cannot bring myself to write it.
How hard writing is. That the easiest part about writing is thinking about what to write. The act of writing it down, is the hardest.
Even though most atimes I have written what I want to write about in my mind first before putting it into words.
All in all, blogging has been a worthwhile experience.
2. NGO
My shortlived experience with an NGO, which goes by the name Invictus Mentalia, has been a journey to remember.
Invictus Mentalia has already been explained in brief in my last post (Graffiti post link of my last tweet)
3. Poetry Community
My experience in a poetic group has been one to remember. I got to understand the importance of working in group.
I meant I met so many awe inspiring people that have helped reshaped my ideology of poetry in its entrirety.
Other minor noteworthy experiences include
• Running
• Tutoring.
All this has helped me in an insurmountable amount of ways which I am truely grateful for all these experiences
BOTY Purchase
My best purchase of 2018 has to be the book that I bought to be read in January 2019, which I started reading in December.
BOTY Achievement
•Passing my MB resit exams
•Blogging
•Being more outspoken on and off social media: this is has to be my most iconic achievement.
•Being more aware of my emotions
•Making new friends.
BOTY lessons learnt
I learnt so many lessons in 2018 the few lessons that I have learnt are as follows
The first is that there is so many things out there which I have no knowledge of, and I would so much love to go out there and learn about different things out of the scope of the things I am used to.
Second, the importance of family, at every step where I found my self in utter despair in 2018, each time i came back and reunite with my family, things became much easoer by the grace of God.
Friends, friendship are very much important. I had no idea about its worth prior to this year. I am begining to udnerstand that having friends makes life worthwhile.
There are so many social issues around me which i thought were farther away from me. As I thought deeper, I found so many things going on closer than I thought of them to be.
The importance of gifts, this is something I understood quite at a later point in time, but all hope is not lost.
Gifts are of utmost importance so much so that the Prophet said: we should share gifts amongst ourselves for it increases love between us.
Parenting is hard. I am not a parent yet, but parenting is really hard.
With regards to my studies, i learnt the most important thing is to be smart not work hard.
This is one of the few lessons i learnt from the aforementioned book i read, “Willpower”.
I lack sufficient willpower.
BOTY Person You Met
I met so many people online and offline.
But the one that stands out is meeting my what felt like a lifelong friend in person.
Someone i met on 2go, it took us 8 years to meet each other in person… Ahmad Gidado, Graffiti.
Other magnanimous personalities I have met in person include:
Salisu Ahmad, Hard guy **tongue out***
Abdulmajid Imran who yet again i talked about in my previous post.
BOTY Business/Services I Started Using
This category award has to go to my family business: which goes by the name Himam Rentals.
Himam Rentals is a business Organisation that deals in renting of canopies, chairs, party utensils, etc.
It has been a lucrative business, that seeks to yield positive results both in the present and future.
BOTY Apps
This category has sub categories because the APPS are innumerous;
•BOTY social media App:
Quora is the best of the year app for me.
It’s intricate preseverance of knowledge is one to die for. Introduced to me by Ahmed Yahya as I earlier talked about him.
•BOTY must have app
This award surely goes to Google Map, it is sad that i got to know of the great potential of this App in 2018.
This is a great app that has spot on geographical Map of every location you need to go to.
I think it is underrated.
Other Apps. Include; Duolingo, Podcasts, WordPress app, etc.
BOTY Travel experience
I did not travel much just within Kano,
My best travel experience had to be when i went to Wudil, to spend the weekend at my friend’s hostel.
Quite a memorable experience.
BOTY function/showz/festival
Kaduna Entrepreneurship Summit has to be the one to take this award. Truely a motivational function, i enjoyed every bit of it.
I look forward to going to more of these shows in future.
Fashion/style/trend
I would like to give this award to my sister who is our family tailor.
Her creativity and passion for her art comes to the spotlight in an array of ways.
It shows in the way she pays so much attention to detail.
She is my BOTY for Tailoring, for the time and effort she puts into it could move mountains.
Another point of note:
In future, I wish to embrace the different forms of modest dressing out there. Not limit myself to a specific fashion style.
BOTY Compliment of the Year
When someone who presumed himself to suffer from a writer’s hubris referred to me as their very own “Word Artist”.
It came from the last person, i expected to give me that compliment.
BOTY Best and Worst Decision
Decision
Lol. The best decision I have made this year was to choose myself at some point. To not put myself in harm’s way.
Worst decision
Giving love a chance after 3years of taking a break.
BOTY people I met online:
This is more or less like a shout out to all the wonderful people I met online:
Usman S Ahmad takes the lead, a wonderful person, with so much understanding.
Hadiyya Tilde follows, the only female I met and I am glad to have met, a fellow writer.
Sulaiman Jaafar, my personal online scholar and go to guy for islamic confirmations. This guy has been through so much this year, i only hope that God gives him the strength to take it all in good faith.
Osama Uthman, my own personal word artist.
Abdulbaseet, wordsmith, getting to know you has been one hell of a wonderful experience.
Abubakar Abdurrahman, I have talked about him already.
Rabi’u kabeer, my ardent blog follower.
Ibrahim Oga, my writing Muse.
Salisu Ahmad, the guy that loves pun more than anything in the world.
Ahmad Musa, my new found fellow book lover
You have all helped in making this year an amazing and memorable year for me.
That brings us to the end of the BOTY award.
What would i like to see/do more of in 2019?
Impact! Impact! Impact!
2019, I would love to be about impact, how I can make other people’s life better. The littlest way that I can.
I would love to motivate others to also make an impact in the lives of others.
What is the essence of life if we are not making an impact in the lives of others?
The unlikeliest places I found love in 2018
I found love in:
In my parent’s smile
In my family’s echo of laughter
In Tea
In Books
In sleep. Sleep is such a beautiful act of nature. Often atimes underrated.
What are the things that I hope to do more in the future?
I hope to dedicate time to know more about my religion.
I hope to give out more and more gifts.
I hope to not gratify laziness.
I hope to invest my time in learning new languages.
Meeting new friends.
Travel more.
Experience different culture.
Love in a more satisfying way.
To be able to keep up promises
To be on time more often
To be able to accept that i am wrong and others are right even if it is in the middle of a heated conversation.
This isn’t really something to be proud of, but I would like to keep things to myself a little more. I feel i am too much of an open person, which could be both a curse and a blessing.
Less show off.
Read more books.
Write everyday.
Have more confidence in myself
Invest more in reading psychology books
“Love in a satisfying way” what do you mean by that?
Well over the years my philosophy of love has been in constant change.
Having experienced different forms of love this year; love where we were both in love with each other.
Unrequited love where I was being loved
And other unrequited love where I was doing the loving.
All has been an experience that I shall carry along, having not been in the Love venture for about 3 years.
I stepped out and gave it a chance in 2018, and it has been the worst decision this year.
I gave love a chance because i thought i was ready turned out i wasn’t.
One thing love taught me this year, is the very fact that no matter how good you think you are, you can be toxic to your significant other.
Being toxic means you hurting someone emotionally or mentally, or just not bringing about positive change in someon’s life.
To love differently, an idea I got from Yasmin Mogahed’s book is to love in such a way that it does not consume you but rather uplift you.
To love someone whereby in their presence you are able to breathe, and in their absence you are still able to breathe.
Love is not that which weakens you, but rather strengthens you.
Love is not that which keeps you emotionally or mentally unsure, but it is thay which relieves you of stress.
And a quote that i absolutely love says “love in such a way that whom you love feels free”.
And I think that is amazing.
Any group of people you wish you had a closer relationship with or people you lost contact with:
There are so many people I wish I developed a closer relationship to.
The likes of Fatimah Yamel, Ibrahim Isah Magaji, Abduljabbar Lere, Alamin Maikudi, Muhammad Auwal and the likes hereon
People i have lost a connection with have to be the likes of Alibabs, Jaybee, etc.
My motivation towards greatness:
A very good friend of mine, Aliyu Salisu, popularly known as Chillar narrates to me about a dream he had, in the dream he said he saw i was being praised, like i had achieved something great, he couldn’t understand what it was clearly.
The details of that dream have been my sole motivation for days when i feel engulfed ny darkness.
Someone you look forward to working with in future:
Salisu Ahmad, the programmer, my coursemate who lately turned into a friend and my dream realization partner, is someone i look forward to worling with.
Right now, we have a project on ground which we are working on.
Salisu Ahmad, has to be the person that inspired me the most through out this year.
Only the Lord knows how many people i have told his story.
“You know Salisu Ahmad, the programmer that won that Google thing…”
He has achieved so much this year.
His future is very bright by the grace of God, our very own Medical Engineer.
What was the worst experience you face in 2018?
My friend being withdrawn from Medicince was the worst thing that happened to me this year.
This is a heartache that i shall carry along with me throughtout this journey.
Who was/is the smartest person you met this year?
As clichè as this may sound but my mum is the smartest person I have ever known in my life.
I wish that one day, i get to be half as smart as she is.
An address to myself:
There is so much i have not forgiven myself for, and i hope that one day i find the strength to forgive myself.
To understand that the past is simply what it is, the past. No amount of worrying can bring it back.
Hold on to gratitude, gratitude is the most important trait.
What do you wish to ask from your readers?
I wish to ask that you pray for the 300L MBBS student resitting, for the level 200 students yet to write their exams.
Pray for us so we may pass with flying colours and move on with our journey with this being the last hiccup we face.
Pray for us so we may pass with flying colours and move on with our journey with this being the last hiccup we face.
I hope that people allow themselves to be the best version of themselves, to be kind, generous, try and make an impact.
Go out there and make new friends.
Be nice. Be Owlsome!
2018, is finally a wrap 365/365, we did it guys.
What was the highlighy of your 2018?