Including me. I am full of shit. I could tell you something right now and completely believe it, then wake up tomorrow with a different opinion and equal conviction.

You are also full of shit. And you know it. The crazy part is, the next person you’ll talk to today is also full of shit.

It's basically a factory setting for humans.

We say things for all kinds of reasons that have nothing to do with fact. We say things to sound smart, to fill silence, to get hired, and not to look like an idiot. I have done every single one of these. You have too. Most of what comes out of our mouths in a high-stakes situation is performance, not information. The mistake we all make is treating it like absolute information.

Let me give you some instances…

So, you hired someone. They came in radiating energy, answered every question with confidence, and had the right words for everything. You thought: this person is the bomb. Three weeks later, you realise they are in fact a bomb. Ticking time bomb. Or no, a bomb strapped to a missile like those big ones Iran has been shooting. The whole interview was a cinema production, and you bought front-row tickets. Job seekers are full of shit.

Someone you work with tells you they’ll send the thing by Friday. They say it with such calm certainty that you put it in your calendar, you colour-coded it too, because you have nothing better to do with time. Friday comes, nothing. You follow up on Saturday. “Oh yeah, sorry, got caught up”. Keep playing. They were never going to send it on Friday. Friday was just a word they picked to end the conversation. Coworkers are full of shit.

You ask your wannabee friend for a recommendation. They go: “Oh, you have to try this restaurant, it’s incredible, best food I’ve had in years”. You drive across the city, you get there, the food tastes like regret, and the chicken is not even well-cooked. That person has not thought about that restaurant in two years. They just needed something to say. Friends are full of shit.

The most concentrated population of full-of-shit people used to be LinkedIn. Those people who’d write paragraphs about how getting stuck in traffic taught them the importance of resilience. One founder once said he “failed forward” into a second round of funding; meanwhile, he got no funding. And there’s this weird recruiter that kept posting “We’re hiring! Only passionate people need apply!” for a job that pays less than an Uber driver earns, with unlimited unpaid overtime. LinkedIn was the world championship of shit.

Then, Twitter got jealous and raised the bar. The situation worsened when Elon started paying people to tweet.

Last weekend, I wasted three hours of my life on some AI tool that had been hyped so aggressively on my Twitter timeline, I genuinely thought I was about to witness fire being invented. “Revolutionary”, “Game-changing”, “Nothing will ever be the same”, I cloned the repo, I set it up, I gave it a real test. You know what it was? It was delusionary. This thing was so underwhelming, it actively set the AI world back. I lost three hours and a small piece of my soul because some goons on AI Twitter needed content, they probably never even tried what they were hyping. Social media people are full of shit.

Low expectations sound pessimistic until you realise it’s the easiest way to survive this full-of-shit world. Most signals are noise, especially the ones where someone looks you dead in the eye and swears on their mother.

The trick will be to calibrate slowly and hold expectations loosely. That way, when someone turns out to be full of shit, and they will, you haven’t lost anything because you already knew.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, it’s past 2 a.m., and I have a task to finish.

The Tujuwan Lounge is a small, low-key space in the middle of the terminal, the kind of lounge that begs you to sit still, lower your voice, and behave like a civilised adult. My daughter received this memo but immediately rejected it. She had decided that this was a racetrack and every stranger was an audience. She wouldn’t stop running and screaming.

I left her with her mother to battle with. Pulled out my laptop, found a corner, and tried to look like a man with important things to do.

At some point, I went to the toilet. And I was gone maybe fifteen minutes. When I came back, my wife seemed to have made a new friend. It was a woman, mid-thirties, Australian, passionate in the way that her hands moved faster than her words. She’d come to Bali for business and was developing some kind of gaming product in Australia.

She was fascinating, and it’s not even because of what she was saying, it’s how specifically she was saying it. She painted a very detailed picture. Where her new product is now, where it’ll be in five years, what the Australian gaming market looks like, and how she intends to be the number one woman in gaming in Australia within the next five years. She had timelines, milestones, and probably a Pinterest board for the company’s tenth anniversary.

I sat there for about forty-five minutes, genuinely amused. That level of specificity about the future felt almost alien to me.

After she left, I turned to Mimie.

“That was very specific”, I said. “I love that she has such a clear vision.”

Mimie looked at me, then asked in a cheeky way, “What’s your vision?”.

And just like that, in a small airport lounge in Bali, with my daughter trying to climb a stranger’s luggage in the background, I was ambushed by a question I had the wrong answer to.

“I don’t really have a vision.”

Which is, I’ll admit, a ‘huh?’ thing to say when you lead people. If I don’t have a vision, what exactly am I pointing at when I say “this way”? What do I want them to believe in? And what’s on the whiteboard?

I sat with it for a while.

Let me add some context...

I have an easily distracted excited brain. Not in the trendy, “oh, I’m so ADHD” way people say on Twitter. I mean, I genuinely struggle to care about the same thing for a long period before getting drawn into another fantasy. My priorities shift week to week. I find different things fun at different times. I have a constant itch to start something new or difficult, and then, once I’ve figured it out and the puzzle is solved, I lose interest. On to the next.

Monotony is where my enthusiasm goes to die.

I probably have 10 different things I’m involved in whenever you see me, and by the time you see me next month, I might have added 2 more things… and a new weird obsession.

I could start a farm in Kigali next Tuesday because the people there are nice. I could take up tailoring because robots will need clothes in the future and someone has to be ready. I once stayed up all night because I found an AI tool that lets you design houses, and I needed to see what mine would look like on the moon. And I’ve not had a good sleep for like two weeks just because I found an interesting nextjs boilerplate to build a fun directory.

So, unlike that lady, I find it practically impossible to pick one thing and stay loyal to the course for five years. Which makes it difficult to define a “vision“.

And… as it seems, this apparent chaos has made me weirdly competent at a lot of things.

There’s hardly a niche on the internet I don’t have at least a working theory about. There’s no single tag you could pin on me that would be accurate. No role that could hold me without sounding incorrect. Which is why, when people ask “what do you do?”, I genuinely don’t know where to start.

All of the above. None of the above.

Maybe I’m just a directionless fool?

But I’m a happy one, though. A happy directionless kid who just wants to have some fun and gather as much knowledge as possible from this vast world.

And whatever this chaotic, curiosity-driven, slightly unhinged approach to life is, it seems to have worked well for me so far.

So I say this with my full chest: being easily distracted is an underrated superpower. It’s just terrible for investor decks.

But what about the people I lead? Fair question. If I don’t have a grand five-year destination pinned to the wall, how’d they be motivated?

My school of thought leans towards the idea that I’d rather inspire people to seek knowledge than inspire them to follow my vision. Because if a vision is truly that important, and maybe it is, then everyone should have one, independently.

I know that’s not how the world works. We need north stars. But I also think there’s something quietly powerful in saying, “I don’t know exactly where we’re going, I don’t even know where I am going, but if you follow me, you’ll likely be better than not.”

Maybe that’s naive. But it’s honest.

So, do I need a vision?

I thought about this on the flight home. Mimie was asleep. The kid was miraculously asleep as well. The cabin was dark. And I had that rare stretch of silence where you can actually hear yourself think.

I think having a vision that specifically dictates what you want to be doing in five years is a beautiful idea, but is it actually realistic? Considering AI will displace all of us next week.

And maybe it’s fine, for people whose brains work that way. Mine doesn’t.

But I also think “I don’t have a vision” isn’t entirely true. It’s just that my vision doesn’t look like a destination. It's more like a standard.

Wherever I am, whatever the game looks like, whatever strange thing I’ve wandered into next, I will do it well. I will be excellent at it. I will bring energy, ideas, and an embarrassing amount of enthusiasm.

And when I look up five years from now, wherever I’m standing, I know three things will be true:

1. I’ll have a lot of money,

2. a lot of knowledge,

3. and a lot of stories to tell.

And conventionally, that might not pass for a vision because it’s not a compass pointing north. But it’s a promise to myself that I’ll be interesting no matter which direction I walk.

Oh… and I want a farm one day. A big one. Lots of animals. About fifty dogs, some horses, and a few robots to help run the place. It’s the one thing that stays constant, no matter how many new obsession cycles I’ve been through.

So maybe that’s my vision. Maybe the whole time, it was just a farm with fifty dogs and a robot named something ridiculous like Abidoshaker.

And honestly, if that’s the most specific I ever get, I think I’ll be just fine.

Jing was our hotel liaison. A not-too-tall-not-too-short lady in her late thirties. Originally from China. Went to college to study English. Two kids back home, one is 7, and the other is 5. Moved to Singapore three years ago for greener pastures. And I learned all of these within the first ten minutes of meeting her without asking a single question.

She’s fast-spoken and quite energetic… overly excited, too, as if she had been waiting two years for us to arrive.

Her vibe was good overall. But for someone like me, who values silence, it was too much. She spent over 30 minutes walking us through the hotel. The amenities, the facilities, and the room. At some point, I stopped processing her words and just started nodding strategically, hoping my rhythm of agreement would speed things up.

Then she said something that would haunt me for the next few days.

“And the casino is right there”, she said, gesturing towards a random escalator that goes down from the lobby into what looks like an underground cave.

“Casino?” I said.

I had never seen one in real life.

Welcome to Singapore…

Our room was on the 52nd floor of Marina Bay Sands. Ocean view on one side, city skyline on the same side. The kind of view that makes you stand still and forget you’re holding a baby.

“You guys need to hire a better photographer”, I said. “This is way better than the photos on your website”.

“Oh, we just renovated, and in fact, you’re the first guest to check in to this particular room after the renovation”, Jing explained.

We were in Singapore for seven days. And the mission was simple: celebrate Mimie’s birthday.

The 1st Attempt…

The Singapore timezone hit me like a truck.

I couldn’t tell what time or day it was. My body was on Dubai time, my mind was in Nigerian time, and my brain had apparently decided to split the difference by refusing to function at all.

That first night, I was up until 6 am, staring at my laptop.

Somewhere in the haze of the next day, after eating one badass noodles, around 4 pm, I made my first move.

“Let’s check out the casino”, I said to Mimie.

She looked at me like I had suggested we should go rob the place.

“What do we want to do at a casino?” she asked. “Do they allow kids there?”

“Why would they allow kids at a casino? It’s 18 and above”, I replied.

“So you want us to dump our baby in the room and go gamble away like irresponsible adults?”

“We’re not dumping her”, I said. “She’s with the nanny.”

“It’s still irresponsible.” She denied the request. We live to live another day.

Another Day…

On the third day, we decided to step outside and roam around the city. And while at that, I concluded within me, that… Singapore is the most beautiful country I’ve been to.

I mean… There is green everywhere. Trees, plants, gardens, and walls covered in vegetation. Everywhere you look, something is growing. It takes an absurd amount of effort to maintain that much green in a city, and Singapore has clearly decided it’s worth it.

Coming from Dubai, I understood the contrast. Dubai is flashy-beautiful, a city that says look what we built. Singapore is nature-beautiful, a city that says look what we grew.

If I had to describe Singapore in three words, it would be: the green city.

We didn’t spend more than a few hours on the streets before heading back to the hotel. Mind you, the timezone was still winning. And the world felt like a simulation running on the wrong settings.

But this casino was still on my mind.

“I’ll be done with work around 1 am,” I said. “The baby will be asleep. We just sneak out, take a look at the Casino, and sneak back in. Nobody has to know.”

Mimie stared at me.

“When did you become an addicted gambler?” she asked. “Being this persistent about gambling for two days straight is giving addict vibes.”

“It’s not gambling,” I said. “It’s called gaming. It’s entertainment.”

“But it involves money,” she said. “What if we lose?”

I replied, “What if we win?”

She was unmoved.

Request denied. Again. I can lose a battle, but I must win the war.

The War…

The day before Mimie’s birthday, we went to Universal Studios, which was one of the places Jing wouldn’t stop yapping about.

Before going, we had purchased an $88 fast-track pass online. The promise was that it’d help skip the queues and maximise our time. Smart thinking and strategic investment, you’d say?

We arrived at Universal Studios. There were no queues.

The entrance was practically free of humans. The $88 fast-track pass was the most useless purchase of the trip. “They don scam us”, I said. But the game is the game. You win some, you lose some.

We went on a ride, not a roller coaster, because I hate roller coasters, just something that lifted us gently into the air and moved us around. Enough thrill to say we did something.

Then this rain started, proper rain. The kind that sends everyone scrambling. We ran in a random direction, and the strategy was simple: enter the first door you see.

Luckily, the first door we saw led to a 3D cinema. We sat in there, 3D glasses on, watching some animation I can’t remember the name of, dry and entertained while the storm raged outside. I didn’t know 3D movies could be that fun. The rain had accidentally given us one of the highlights of the trip, now I’ve been searching for how to watch 3D movies on my laptop.

By the time we got back to the hotel, it was evening. Mimie was in a good mood. Extra hyper, the way people get the night before their birthday, well, some people.

I saw a window of opportunity.

“Let’s go to the casino now”, I said.

She didn’t immediately say no. That was new.

“Baby is sleeping anyway”, I continued. “Let’s just see what they do there. Just a look. We don’t have to play.”

She paused. Considered it. Three days of rejection had led to this moment.

“Fine”, she said. “Let’s go see.”

It was already 11 pm, and off we went.

The Marina Bay Sands casino was massive.

Multiple floors, and what looked like a thousand screens and machines spread across a space that seemed to have no end.

The sound was a low hum of electronic beeps and the murmur of people either winning or losing money, mostly losing 😂

The KYC to get in was serious. Facial ID, passport scan, and multiple checkpoints. They also said no pictures or videos allowed inside, which I understood. Because if I’m losing money, the last thing I want is some rando capturing my down-bad moment.

Mimie had been expecting the movie version of a casino, serious men in expensive suits sitting around a table, faces unreadable, pushing chips toward the centre with the gravity of people deciding the fate of nations.

Those tables were there. We saw them. We even saw one where the betting pot said $502,000. Those were the big dons.

But mostly, it was regular people sitting in front of slot machines, pressing buttons, hoping. And, funnily enough, a lot of old people. It seemed casino nights were just a normal Tuesday activity for the elderly there.

Once Mimie saw we could just sit at a machine and play casually, no serious dons involved, she relaxed. This wasn’t so intimidating.

I found a machine that looked almost like an ATM with a seat. Something on the screen looked like Monopoly. I sat down. I thought casinos used chips. This one used real cash.

“Let’s get the gaming started”, I said.

I fed the machine $100. It chopped it.

Note: ‘Chop’ means the machine ‘ate’ it. Like, I LOST it.

Within three seconds. Maybe less. The money was just gone. I stared at the screen, waiting for something else to happen, some continuation, or some second chance. Nothing. Just a prompt asking if I wanted to insert more money.

Is that it? I thought.

I could see the “I told you” look forming on Mimie’s face.

“Give me another $100”, I said.

She handed it over. I fed the machine. It chopped that one as well.

The “I told you” look on Mimie’s face upgraded to “what an idiot”.

“Another $100”, I said.

She almost refused. I could see the hesitation, the part of her that wanted to say “absolutely not, we are leaving right now”. But she handed it over., reluctantly.

“You are just wasting this money”, she said.

I knew this was it. The last attempt. If this failed, I would not hear the last of it.

I fed the machine the third $100. This time, I pressed every button I could find. I had no idea what I was doing. There was no strategy, just desperation and fingers moving across the interface like a possessed stupid man that’s owing rent.

The numbers on the screen started going up.

Up.

Up.

Up.

Then, suddenly stopped at $1,095.

I thought it was a glitch or a mistake. Something the casino would correct any second.

I quickly pressed a button that says COLLECT before THEY could change their mind. By THEY, I mean the big casino bosses in the control room trying to make sure no one was winning.

The machine spat out a ticket with the amount printed on it. We rushed to the counter, gave them the ticket, and they gave us real cash.

We had only been inside the casino for less than 15 minutes. And we ran out immediately.

“I can’t believe we won,” Mimie said.

I looked at her.

“Who is WE? I won”.

She ignored me.

On the walk back to the room, she started making those weird Snapchat videos. “We won!” she kept saying. The same woman who had called me an addicted gambler forty-eight hours ago was now documenting the victory like she had been there all along believing in the vision.

I thought about going back to the casino. Riding the hot streak. But I am a reasonable adult, and I understand how gambling works. In the long run, the house always wins. The only real strategy is to take your money and run the moment you’re ahead.

At this point, I began to imagine things…

What if the big casino bosses were eating some spicy Chilli Crab while we were playing, and didn’t noticed we had won and disappeared. And by the time their system alerted them, we were several minutes gone. They scrambled through their CCTV footage, only to realise it was two black kids from across the world. Damn, I must have pissed off the big casino bosses.

“Who are those two kids? How did they just come in, win $1,095 by mashing buttons randomly, and disappear into the night? That’s not how it’s supposed to work. Who let them in? Who let them out? Scorpion, take the crew, go and find them and bring them back”.

I imagine that’d be their conversation 😂

“If they leave the country, they might not come back. We can’t lose that money, we might go bankrupt, find them!!!”

Bye Bye…

A few days passed, and it was time to leave.

However, the Singapore airport deserves its own mention.

The immigration was fully automated. No humans. Just machines scanning your passport. The whole process took less than a few minutes. I cannot overstate how much I value having no human interaction to get something done.

At the currency exchange counter within the airport departure terminal, we converted our winnings from Singapore dollars to UAE dirhams. It was about 3,100 AED.

When the cashier handed over the money, Mimie snatched it from my hand before I could even count it.

And then, I remembered the universal law called the ‘girl math’.

If you lose, it’s “you lost the money”.

If you win, it’s “we won the money”.

Three days of “irresponsible”, “addicted gambler” and “you’re just wasting this money”, but now the winnings were in her bag, claimed without hesitation.

I didn’t argue. Because you can’t argue with girl math.

We’ll be back in Singapore.

Hopefully, by then, the casino bosses we pissed off would have moved on.

OAU was a strange place, slow-paced and fast-paced at the same time, depending on who you were. For most students, life revolved around CGPAs and carryovers. For me, life revolved around making money and trying to grab a C in every course.

I lived off-campus, in a place called Cooperative Hostel. A tiny room with two floor beds and two other guys. Three grown men sharing a space sounds absurd now, but it was big boy living back then.

I was in my early twenties, confident in ways that only twenty-somethings can be, and absolutely certain that I understood how the world worked.

I did not.

There was this other girl…

She was in year one. Nineteen years old, maybe. As fresh as they come. The kind of fresh that year-four guys like me assumed we had automatic jurisdiction over.

Her birthday was coming up. Around mid-July. And I had a plan.

I bought her a pair of shoes. A black Adidas.

It was fake Adidas.

I mean, I didn’t know it was fake. Or maybe I knew but chose not to care. It looked exactly like the original, or at least it looked like what I imagined the original looked like. It was around 30K naira. A significant investment for a young blood like me.

The plan was simple: give her the shoe, and somewhere in the flow of her gratitude, smoothly transition into asking her out. Sharp guy.

Her birthday arrived.

I sent her a message. Something smooth and creative, cos’ you know, I’m a god when it comes to writing.

“She will love it”, I said to myself. I don’t remember the exact words. But I know the message was bait. I was waiting for her to respond so we could “link up” and I could execute my plan.

I was lying on my bed in that tiny room, refreshing WhatsApp.

Then I checked her status.

She was at a restaurant. Someone was filming her; that much was clear from the camera angles. She was smiling, laughing, and giving the kind of vibe that suggested someone else had gotten there first. I didn’t see the guy. But in one of the videos, just for a second, I spotted a hand. A male hand. The fingernails confirmed it.

I studied that video for almost two hours, analysing every frame. By the end of my investigation, the verdict was clear.

A guy had carried her out for her birthday.

It was 4 pm on what was supposed to be my day of triumph, and instead, I was lying on my bed, pissed off, staring at the ceiling, thirty thousand naira poorer and no closer to having a ‘babe’.

My ego had been touched. I had lost to the ops.

I stayed angry for some days. Then, slowly, I forgot about her.

The abandoned Adidas shoe…

A few weeks passed. Life moved on. But the shoe remained.

It sat at the top of that worn-out wardrobe, in a position where I had to stand on my toes just to reach it.

Every now and then, I’d catch a glimpse of it up there, gathering dust, and I’d feel a small sense of embarrassment, or just the particular sadness of wasted intention.

Then… I had a random idea.

At the time, I was doing some informal marketing for a restaurant called Foodie (I think that’s the name), an online food ordering and delivery app that also had a small spot in New Buka, inside the school. It wasn’t paid work, not really. Just me helping out and being supportive of a friend.

One day, I looked up at that dusty shoe and thought: “How can I get rid of this thing?”

Then a more interesting thought came: “Can I get rid of it AND get something out of it?”

Now… because I’m a genius, or at least I was convinced of this at the time, I came up with a plan. A marketing activation. A way to turn my romantic failure into brand awareness.

I created a promotional design for the restaurant. And I posted on my WhatsApp status: “Post this promotional flyer on your WhatsApp status. Whoever gets the highest views within 24 hours wins this shoe.”

Funny how back then, having a lot of WhatsApp status views was a flex.

Before I knew it, FOODIE flyers were everywhere. People I didn’t know were posting. The challenge had taken on a life of its own.

I had no idea that somewhere in that chaos, a stranger was about to enter my life.

Her Separate World…

In the same universe, but on the other end of the university (haha, see what I did there? 😂), there was this random girl named Mimiejay.

She was also a year-four student studying Agricultural Economics. A degree I considered ‘weird’. Why would anyone go to school to study farming? 😂

While I was skipping classes and posting flyers, she was doing weird stuff like going to an actual farm, daily, for practicals, they called it “farm year“. I’m still not entirely sure what they were planting on that farm, but she would show up every day, like farming was her calling 🤣

She was quiet. Laid-back. The kind of person who observed more than she spoke. She wore glasses, the serious type, and had a face that seemed to default to smiling.

She was a church girl. That was “word on the street”, as they say. The type who probably had many contacts on WhatsApp because she had preached the gospel from coast to coast, saving souls and their corresponding phone numbers along the way.

She had an older brother named Yhemolee, who was popular on campus. He and I had crossed paths before, and ended up on each other’s WhatsApp, but we didn’t really know each other.

And that was about to change.

Then… Yhemolee saw my WhatsApp status.

The one about the shoe challenge.

As heaven would have it, he forwarded my story to his sister.

Maybe she needed a new shoe. Maybe she thought it was original Adidas, lord knows I had thought the same thing when I bought it. Maybe she was just bored between farming activities. Whatever the reason, Mimie saw the challenge, and something about it caught her attention.

She posted the flyer.

The next day, a message appeared in my DMs from a number I didn’t recognise. The profile said Mimie_Jay.

I recognised the name instantly.

First thing I did, before reading the message, was check her profile picture.

She’s cute, I said to myself.

Then I read the message:

“Hi, my brother forwarded this to me. I heard you’re doing a challenge. I got 424 views.”

She had attached a screenshot as proof.

My first thought, genuinely, was: How do you have 424 people on your WhatsApp? You have the energy to save 424 contacts? It seemed like a lot of admin for one person.

Sadly, she was too late. Plus, someone else had already won, a random guy who ran a WhatsApp TV with over 700 views. I have no idea what he did with a female shoe, but there was no gender restriction in the rules, so technically, he won fair and square.

But I was not about to let a fine girl slide into my DM and slide back out.

So I pivoted.

“I don’t have the shoe anymore,” I typed, “but guess what? I can do you something better. How about I send you some food from the restaurant that’s being promoted?”

Her response was immediate and unromantic:

“Sure, I don’t mind.”

I asked what she wanted, which further made the conversation more nonchalant:

“Beans and plantain”, she said.

I sent her the beans and plantain.

She got her beans and plantain.

Funny enough, she doesn’t even eat beans anymore. I’m not sure what she was going through in 2017 that had her craving beans, but whatever it was, I’m grateful for it.

And that was it…

We didn’t meet immediately after the beans. What followed were days of chatting. Then calls.

She had has a sense of humour that matched mine. That was the thing that got me. I even called her a “farmer” and she counter-called me a “computer repairer”, because I was studying computer science; the score was 1-1.

Now, how she went from eating beans to becoming my wife is a longer story for another day.

But here’s what I think about sometimes, when I’m feeling philosophical:

A ridiculous number of things had to align for this to happen.

I had to buy a shoe for a girl. That girl had to break my heart by posting a WhatsApp status she forgot to hide from me. I had to be petty enough to let the shoe gather dust for weeks instead of just giving it to someone else. I had to be doing free marketing for a restaurant. I had to have the idea to turn my failure into a promotion. Yhemolee had to see my status. He had to decide, for no particular reason, to forward it to his sister. She had to care enough about a shoe to participate. She had to lose the challenge but message me anyway. I had to be smooth enough, or desperate enough, to offer her food as a consolation. She had to want beans.

If any single one of those things hadn’t happened, I might be single today.

Today is Mimie’s birthday, and this is one way for me to reminisce about how we met, because, to be honest, she’s actually the best thing to have happened to me.

Happy birthday, Mimie.

This was roughly fifteen years ago. The kind of memory that sits somewhere between your chest and your throat, refusing to dissolve. I was in SS2 (Senior Secondary 2), final term, just weeks away from becoming an SS3 student, which was a big deal.

In Nigeria, SS3 is when you become the senior.

There was this girl I was eyeing. An SS1 girl. We took the same school bus every morning, and during that hour-long ride to school, we would attempt to talk. Not about anything profound, just the unnecessary conversation of young kids who hadn’t yet learnt that silence is golden.

I wanted to ask her out, but I didn’t have the ginger (courage), so I kept postponing it. I no wan fall my hand, as we say. I didn’t want to embarrass myself.

Then came the big announcement…

A debate was announced.

SS2 Art Class versus SS2 Science Class. I was a science student. Word on the street was that this debate would decide the senior prefect (head boy in SS3), though I’m not sure whether that was true or just the kind of rumour that builds around any high-stakes school event.

“Give us your best student”, they said, and my classmates pushed me forward. Because, to them, I was “that guy”.

This was my chance. Not just to win. This was my chance to impress my crush.

I wrote my points with the intensity of someone drafting a love letter disguised as an argument. Then I crammed every word. I recited them in the bathroom, bedroom, in my sleep. In fact, I remember my brothers went to play football in the streets one evening, and I followed them, not to play, but to sit at the edge of the pavement and recite the entire debate, word for word, staring at nothing.

Someone said, “Your brother doesn’t play ball? He’s weird, just talking to himself since.”

I didn’t care. I had bars to memorise.

The D Day Came…

The morning of the debate, I woke up before any cockcrow. I remember standing in front of the mirror while getting dressed, watching my own lips form the words I’d practiced a hundred times.

I got to the bus stop early for the first time in my life, waiting with a restlessness that made my fingers tap against my thighs.

The bus came. I stepped on. I looked around.

She wasn’t there.

“Oh damn”, I thought. “This can’t be happening”. She was never absent. And why would she choose today of all days to not show up? The universe had terrible timing.

I sat there, pissed, for the entire one-hour ride.

At every bus stop, I would look up, hoping she would appear with some explanation, like, “Oh, I changed bus stops today”, but she never came. The door of the bus would open, all these other annoying students would board, and the small flame of hope in my chest would reset.

We arrived at school around 7:50. Assembly was at 8, which meant the debate started at 8. I jumped down from the bus and forced myself to shake her out of my head. I had work to do.

By the time I entered the school compound, she had faded from my thoughts. Friends surrounded me, asking for preview lines and hyping me up. Bad guy, they called me. I started to believe it.

The T Time Came…

It’s strange how precisely I can remember the details. We, the debaters, sat at the front, facing each other, our sides facing the school. The entire student body was seated to my right. I looked across at my opponent, a guy named Akin-something Femi, and I remember thinking, “This poor guy doesn’t know what’s about to hit him”.

After the whole prep talk by the principal. It was my turn to go first.

I stood up. Grabbed the microphone, a wired one, the kind I don’t think they use anymore. I remember stepping over the wires, carefully pulling them out from under my legs before moving forward. In the audience, my boys were hailing me.

FATU! FATU!! FATU!!! FATU!!!!

Fatu is short for Faturoti, my surname. That’s what they called me in secondary school. (Please don’t start calling me that now.)

I began spitting. And it was going good. Word for word, bar for bar, exactly as rehearsed. Twenty seconds of beautiful, flowing argument. I was in the zone.

Then, out of nowhere, my eyes found her in the audience.

What the helly…

She was there. Sitting in the crowd, staring at me.

“How did she get here? Did she miss the bus on purpose? Why isn’t she smiling?”

My brain went off-topic completely. By the time I snapped out of it, I had been staring blankly at the audience for about ten seconds. The words were gone. All of them. Every single point I had memorised in the bedroom, on the pavement, in front of the mirror, vanished.

I stood there. The whole school went quiet. I could hear myself breathing into the microphone.

You know how the brain works when you’re panicking. The harder you try to remember something, the further it runs from you. I was just grasping at smoke.

Fifteen seconds passed. Maybe more. Then a voice erupted from the back of the assembly.

It was the principal. Mr. Ajiboye.

“Get off my stage, naughty boy! If it’s to make noise in class, you’d make noise!”

He said it exactly like that. To be fair, I was quite a menace back then, and he knew it.

This isn’t even the worst part. And this story has a happy ending…

Let’s get to the worst part…

I crawled back to my seat at the front. Buried my face in my lap. Cried a little, or maybe a lot, I don’t remember the exact amount of tears, only that they came.

I could hear the other guy from art class dropping his weak points. In my head, I was thinking, “This guy isn’t even spitting anything solid.” Then another vicious voice inside me responded, “Well, at least he’s spitting something”.

Chai. I had just dissed myself.

The cruel irony was that by now, with the pressure gone, every point had returned to my memory. Perfectly. The whole speech sat in my brain, complete and ready, like when a guest arrives just as the party ends.

As my opponent finished, something rose in me. Maybe we can call it courage. Or desperation. Or the stubbornness of a boy who couldn’t accept that this was how his story would end.

I raised my hand.

The principal acknowledged me. “Yes?”

“I’d like to try again”, I said.

He looked at me. The whole school looked at him.

“NO!”, he said. “You’re not trying again. And I better not hear any report of you causing any issue in class again.”

Haaaaaaaaaa…

And that response, not the failure itself, but the refusal to let me try again, is what made it the worst day of my life.

Every time I remember this story, my anger goes toward that man. Because the worst thing you can do to someone who has fallen is refuse to offer them a hand to stand back up. Especially when that someone is just a kid who was willing to try again.

If Mr. Ajiboye had let me speak, today this would be a different story. A story of resilience, titled “The Time I Fell and Rose Again”. But he didn’t. So it’s not.

That man is probably seventy or eighty years old now, if he’s still alive. And he must have forgotten this incident.

So what’s the happy ending…

Haha… The happy ending, if you can call it that: the girl left our school at the end of that term. Moved somewhere else, for some reason. I never saw her again. So, at least, I didn’t have to spend another year avoiding the school bus.

I don’t know what lesson you can take from this. Maybe there isn’t one, or maybe there are several.

I told this story to a group of people recently, and someone offered a sharp interpretation: “Maybe the lesson is to never expect a second chance. You have one shot. Use it correctly”, She said. And I believe that’s a valid point.

But the point of me writing this is… I’ve learnt that if an annoying memory doesn’t go away, tell it to as many people as possible in a fun way. Over time, the fun takes the teeth out of it.

Until recently, I had never told anyone this story, not even my family. But over the past few months, I’ve told almost everyone who cared to listen. Now, I just remember the fun story anytime the event comes to my mind.

For most people, when something bad happens, all they can do is feel bad, complain, or press charges.

But I think life is worth talking about. Some stories should be shared. Not because sharing erases the pain, but because it transforms it into something you can hold, examine, and eventually, set down.

So there you have it. The worst day of my life.

So instead, I decided to focus on principles and beliefs. I asked myself some important questions. These questions came to my mind at random times throughout the month. Below, I answer them based on my beliefs and how I feel they should guide my life in 2026.

It was meant to exist only in my private archive. But after writing it, I realised it’s toooooo good for me to swallow alone.

If you’re reading this, I believe you’ll pick up a thing or two. You might not agree with everything, because it’s based on my beliefs, not yours. But it could be helpful for you to answer the same questions based on what you believe, and let it guide how you live intentionally, at least if you’re into this kind of serious thing.

Question 1 → How much output do I need to have?

I believe I need to do so much that it’d be unreasonable to be unsuccessful.

I believe my effort needs to be very consistent so that my success becomes a probability that goes up in a chart, not just a hope.

I believe I need to do so much that if I ever end up being unsuccessful, people will think it’s the work of witches and wizards because “that guy really gave his best”.

I believe I don’t deserve success until I’ve worked hard enough to be worthy of it. I also believe the hard work is useless unless the impact of the output matches the stress that comes with it.

I believe the only thing that really matters in life is result. And results should be measured by output. No one really cares about how many sleepless nights I had; what came out of it? I believe if it were due to sleepless nights, the security night guard should be driving Benz.

In 2026 → I hope to focus on, and have so much output.

Question 2 → How fast can it be done?

I believe I should not do it tomorrow if I can do it today. I should not do it later today if I can do it this morning. And I should not do it this morning if I can do it right now.

I believe there’s absolutely no reason for me to push a task forward unless there’s a clear reason why I cannot get to it right now.

I believe my doings should not depend on when I’m in the mood to do it. Because I’m not Father Xmas whose job is to be in a good mood and smile for them kids.

I believe anything I’m doing can be sped up. And whatever I’m doing fast can be done faster.

I believe delay is a decision, and it’s usually the wrong one.

And also, because the only thing that matters is output, I believe speed should be in the direction of a put going out. For instance, there’s no point in rushing to finish designing a page and then waiting two weeks to push it out; I should push it right now, and push it fast.

In 2026 → I hope to do things aggressively fast.

Question 3 → How flexible can I be?

I believe if I can’t change my mind, it means I’m not really using the mind.

I believe the value of intellectual humility is in the idea that a flexible mind is a thinking mind.

I believe I must have strong opinions, but loosely held, so that I’m able to adapt my views when faced with new evidence or perspectives.

I believe stubbornness is stagnation, not strength. And changing my mind isn’t a sign of weakness. As growth requires the courage to say, “oh, I see it differently now”.

In 2026 → I hope to be flexible in thinking when I need to be.

Question 4 → How calm can I be?

I believe not many things require deep emotion, seriousness, reaction, overthinking, or complicated analysis.

I believe everything should be handled with a neutral stance until it shouldn’t be.

I believe the answer to most rants and complaints should be “and so?”.

I also believe that the “what if” in every doubt should be replaced with “even if”.

However, I also believe the only time calmness should not be in the picture is when any of the beliefs in this piece are violated, e.g., I’m not staying calm if my time is being wasted, or if I’m not getting output. Otherwise…

In 2026 → I hope to make “calm” my competitive advantage and my default state.

Question 5 → How stressful can it get?

I believe life in itself is meant to be stressful. And I know growth is uncomfortable by default.

However, I know there’s a difference between good stress and bad stress. The stress I choose is different from the stress that chooses me. Stress associated with output and better future is good stress. Stress associated with death, bad health, and prison is bad stress.

I believe in the need to pray against bad stress, and the need to pray for good stress.

I believe, as an adult, there must be something stressing you the hell out at every point in time, I pray the stress is good stress, and I pray it’s not more than I can bear.

And I believe not having any stress at all is a sign of a life without enough challenge. And life without challenge is a mediocre life. And if I don’t want to be mediocre, then I have to survive the stress that other people cannot.

In 2026 → I hope to find fun in good stress.

Question 6 → How clear and short can I make it?

I believe it’s important that I’m able to communicate effectively, and effective communication boils down to clarity and brevity.

I believe confusion loves extra words; I should always aim to convey my message as quickly as possible.

I’m also aware that saying more words at times makes us sound smart, but the aim isn’t to sound smart, the aim is to sound clear.

I believe the only time more words are allowed is when more words are required for clarity.

I believe conversations should be in the direction of reaching a conclusive solution i.e, This is the problem, this is what I think, this is the solution…

I believe I should be able to explain and communicate anything in about two sentences, after which we should start talking about the way forward.

In 2026 → I hope to communicate clearly in the least possible time.

Question 7 → How generous can I be?

I believe generosity is a product of character, not of abundance.

I believe it takes too much and too little to be generous, depending on how I look at it. But the point of life is happiness, and being generous towards others does make them happy, which, in a way, is one way to fulfil our purposes in life.

But generosity also brings unwanted results, like being taken for granted, others thinking you give because you have too much and you don’t feel the sting, people becoming entitled because they get used to it, or just people being people in general.

With that, I believe I should be generous to the extent my mood dictates, and choose not to be without thinking twice about it. I should be able to give someone something ‘out of generosity’ every day for 6 straight months and change my mind on the 184th day, without explanation, because it’s my will and I don’t owe them one.

I also hope not to get used to other people’s generosity, and I hope to see the generosity of others as grace, not obligation.

In 2026 → I hope to be generous to the extent of my mood.

Question 8 → How much patience can I have?

I don’t believe that the patient dog eats the fattest bone. I wonder who came up with that saying.

I believe patience depends on the context in which it’s required. Because patience can be a virtue, but waiting around is not, and they’re often mixed up.

I believe that when speed and output are the biggest priorities, patience is not an advantage.

I should try as much as possible not to wait for anyone, because people will delay me. I should also find ways to get things done without depending on the availability of someone else, unless it’s unavoidable.

I believe I need to practise patience only when necessary (like when I’m boiling egg 🥚), and move with speed otherwise.

I also believe I must know when laziness, procrastination and waste of time are disguising as need for patience.

In 2026 → I hope not to be unnecessarily patient.

Question 9 → How quickly can I solve a problem?

I believe I should be able to give a solution to any problem within a very short time, if I really have to. I believe I can be the guy who clears the path, solves the problem, and removes the hurdle so everyone else can move along.

I believe it’s easy to get ahead if I just focus on solving problems rather than creating them. I also believe there’s extra leverage in solving problems FAST, rather than analysing problems extensively.

I know there aren’t that many problems that are interesting enough to solve, and there aren’t many that are possible for me to solve, but I hope I’m able to find a good number of problems worthy of solving, and when I do, I hope to actually have a solution.

In 2026 → I hope to be able to solve a lot of problems for myself and others in the least possible time.

Question 10 → How much more can I know?

I believe in Steven Bartlett’s “5 Buckets” framework for success, which emphasizes building success sequentially: 1. Knowledge (what you know) → 2. Skills (what you can do) → 3. Network (who you know) → 4. Resources (what you have) → 5. Reputation (what others think)

The most critical bucket is known to be knowledge, which shoots further to skills. That said, I believe I need to double down on what I know.

Apart from trying new things, I’ve found reading to be a great way to so much expand what I know. And as a testament, one of my best experiences of 2025 was reading.

I believe I need to keep my hunger for learning high. And I hope never to think I know too much to relent on learning or doing more.

In 2026 → I hope to learn so much more that my brain will tell me to slow down.

Question 11 → How healthy can I be?

I believe “Health is wealth” is an underrated phrase. The last time I had a sore throat, I would do anything to make it go away, and sore throat is the least of health challenges.

I believe I should be more willing to take the basics of health seriously, like sleeping properly, avoiding certain food, going to the gym, going on a run, or just strolling consistently.

I also believe it’s difficult to do these things because we humans aren’t necessarily obligated to put health first until the health fails. But I hope to have this at the top of my mind, a priority.

In 2026 → I hope to take my health seriously.

Question 12 → How grateful can I be?

I believe the concept of life is funny, and we can write ourselves epistles and go hard all we want, but the blessings of the Lord and the natural alignment of life cannot be underestimated.

I believe many things in life are based on God’s favour, luck, and mere circumstance. And a series of events leads to the final result, which means there’s room for a lot of things to go wrong. The fact that they don’t, is not nothing.

I believe I should never underestimate the power of luck and the alignment God has put in place in my life. And I also should not undermine the need for new ones.

In 2026 → I hope to be grateful anytime I remember, and I hope that ‘anytime’ is ‘every time’.

These are my beliefs.

And I intentionally used “belief” because I don’t want it confused with “opinion” or “thoughts”, there’s a difference. Beliefs are held more strongly.

If they work for you, chop knuckle. If they don’t, you can write yours. I believe the exercise matters more than the answers.

Either way, I hope 2026 is the year you become undeniable, alongside me.

So the week leading up to my Lagos flight was all about this pretending. Then, a day before the flight, reality kicked in.

It’s time for Lagos.

As the forces of karma would have it, I could not find my passport.

I sat down on that white but brown sofa that I’ve been chasing Mimie around to change, closed my eyes, and went into trance mode, retracing everywhere I’ve been and every place I might have taken the passport to since we got back from Greece.

It didn’t take long for it to click. I went to the bank, like two weeks ago. I took it to the bank.

Luckily, the bank movement was very memorable.

I could remember it clearly: I was in the car with documents in a big brown envelope. I’m not sure if my passport was in the envelope or in my pocket, but it must have been in the envelope. I entered the bank, collected a token, the token number was B68, sat at the reception for about two minutes, stood up, and went to the rep’s table. She didn’t need any documents or ID. She just needed me to sign. I signed. I left the bank. I entered the car immediately.

How is it possible that I misplaced my passport within that very brief run?

Confusion set in. There’s fire on the mountain.

Maybe I left it on the counter? Or at the reception? Or maybe the envelope had a hole, and the passport fell through? What if someone stole it? Or worse, what if Desi ate it? After all, the toddler has been eating anything and everything these days.

Now, to make matters complicated, it’s a Saturday, the flight was on Sunday, and the bank wouldn’t open till Monday.

My pretentious self, coupled with my unseriousness, had finally caught up with me, and the flight had to be cancelled.

Mimie was disappointed. But it wasn’t just disappointment; it was that familiar look of “this boy has done it again”. Not long ago, I had put the wrong name on a visa, then some weeks after that, I forgot my backpack on an airplane. At this point, she must keep a mental file labelled “reasons my husband cannot be trusted with documents”.

Innocent Mimie had been packing bags for days, only to be met with a hard shock from her unserious husband.

I searched. And searched. And searched. Then I gave up.

We were able to move the flight to the next available date, which was a week later. At that point, one full week of a potentially detty December was now out of the picture; it was a hard pill to swallow.

“Let me even go to the bank, maybe, by chance, they’ll be open, on a Saturday, for some reason. We never know until we try.” I said to myself.

So… I went to the bank.

Luckily, by some abracadabra magic, I was able to speak to the chief security officer, and he told me, with what appeared like a 98% certainty, that I didn’t leave a passport in that bank. Because if I did, they would inform him, and the bank would have called me. However, I could come back on Monday when the bank opens to reconfirm.

I was devastated.

If I didn’t leave this passport at the bank and it’s not at home, the situation is now even worse. Because I would have to go to the police station to declare it missing, then go to the embassy, then wait for a new passport, then do a new visa, then a new Emirates ID, then... by the time I’m done with all of that, it’ll be a random Thursday in August 2026.

“Let’s search the house one last time”, Mimie said. I was already tired, but I didn’t have the right to say it out loud; after all, I was the idiot who misplaced the passport.

Then, as Mimie was searching, and I was pretending to search, the angels looked down upon my troubled soul and saw how a child of God was suffering, they placed a little hint in Mimie’s memory: the passport might be in one of her bags, because we went somewhere together a day after the bank day, and the passport might have been taken along.

We ran upstairs at full speed. Tore the bag open.

And there it was. My beloved passport.

And for a brief moment, I felt the urge to say to Mimie, “You see, it was your fault all along. The thing was in your bag”, but I’m a wise man who knows how to pick his battles. I kept that thought exactly where it belonged, in my head.

We were luckily able to move the flight back to the original date.

Now, fellas, let’s go to Lagos.

Landing in Lagos was with joy. The fact that we almost didn’t make it added to the excitement of actually making it. Going through the airport on arrival was breezy, unlike before. Haha, nobody even asked me to “drop something” for them. Lagos has changed.

As we drove from the airport through the city, there was this fresh thought: Lagos looks cleaner. More peaceful. In fact, there was no traffic, which I later figured was because it was a Sunday, but still, a win is a win.

From arriving in Lagos to leaving Lagos, which is right now, because I’m typing this 35,000 feet in the sky as I fly out of Lasgidi, everything in between was blurry. Three weeks in Lagos somehow feels like three days or three months, depending on what part of it I’m thinking of.

Lagos is where I got to have more social interactions in a single day than I had all year while I was hiding in my offshore bubble.

Lagos is also the only place where I get to go to unavoidable parties, which were indeed interesting, until I found myself right in the middle of one and suddenly realised I’m not built for crowds. I even bought tickets to Davido and Asake’s show, deceived myself into thinking I would go. I didn’t. But the people who went brought back the gist. Apparently, they were bangers.

Family gathering in Lagos was as chaotic and sweet as ever. There’s always something to piss you off, and a lot more to make you smile. But that’s the beauty of family, you take the chaos with the love.

I kinda lost count of gifts at some point. It wasn't easy remembering who gave me what, and I’m sure someone gave me something, and I forgot to say thanks. But I do appreciate it all, especially that “Breaking Twitter” book that I finished in three days, which so far is the fastest I’ve ever read a book.

I must mention my Lagos signature swag: this fedora hat that Mimie bought at Dragon Mart. I didn’t plan it, but it became my signature move. I just started finding it swaggy to put it on my head when going out. At some point, someone even said, “Ha! As I saw that hat, I knew it was you”. The hat will probably rest now. Or not. Or I can just make it my forever signature. We’ll see.

It’s really difficult to put the Lagos experience in writing. But the most important takeaway is this: despite the fact that I’m not much of an adventurer, I can confidently say, the best place to be in December, is Lagos.

Some guy was boasting about how much he’s earning from his Substack.

He dropped the numbers casually, like, “Oh yeah, I just hit $X from paid subscribers this month 😌.”

I was confused. Paid subscribers? You mean… people are actually paying other people to read their Substack?

Because I genuinely thought we were all here for the vibes. You know, writing our random thoughts for the fun of it, sprinkling memes for flavor, and pretending it’s deep. I didn’t realise there were people out here cashing out from their essays about “slow living in fast times” or “how breadmaking cured my dog’s depression”.

So wait first… if I go broke today, all I need to do is make this Substack paid? Just slap a $5/month tag on my thoughts, call it “exclusive content”, and I’m instantly rich?

Let’s say I get 1000 people to subscribe… No, that’s too ambitious, okay, 500 people… Still unrealistic, maybe 100?

Okay, if I can get two people to subscribe, that’s like $10 free money? Not bad for just murmuring into the void.

But seriously, I digress.

This whole discovery just confirms there’s money everywhere. Even in things that look completely unserious, like a newsletter about your golden retriever dog named Biscuit and his emotional journey through castration. Someone on this substack is making a living off it.

PS → I published this article previously in 2023 when AI was new, just thought it needed a refresh.

I remember one Sunday, one of those rare miracles where we got back home from church early (only pastors’ kids can relate).

I randomly asked my dad, “How did you guys survive without internet or mobile phones back in the day? Like… if you couldn’t text or call, how did you even communicate?”

Let’s go to the past…

He smiled. That quiet, nostalgic kind of smile that usually means, “sit down, gist dey”.

He took a moment to gather his thoughts as he settled into that brown chair, and then he began to recount his university days.

“Well“, he said, “things were quite different back then. If we wanted to communicate with someone who was far away, we would write letters, put them in envelopes, and then trek to the nearest post office to send them. Then, we would wait for days/weeks for a response to arrive.”

That sounded like ‘cap‘, big cap; like something an arrogant old uncle would say to emphasise that they suffered and we little brats have easier lives.

But it’s not; that was reality.

My curiosity increased, and I asked, “Wasn’t that stressful? There are 200 other things one could do with the time spent trekking up and down to the post office. What if the message was urgent?”

“It will seem stressful to you now, but back then, it was our norm. We didn’t know any different, so we didn’t feel the same sense of urgency that we do today with instant communication. We were patient. We understood that it took time for messages to travel and for people to reply.” He said.

He concluded by saying, “You only feel inconvenienced by a situation if you know there could be a better situation. What you don’t know doesn’t affect you.”.

Let’s come to the present…

Fast-forward a couple of years: Just as I sat behind this desk, I remembered that conversation with my dad and reminisced about the lessons from the story.

I couldn’t help but think about how the internet revolutionised communication and how the rise of AI is changing the landscape of technology and the world as we know it.

It hit me that if we’re in the early days of AI and we’re impressed this much, imagine what AI will be like 10 years from now.

Let’s go to the future…

I imagine a little me (my future child), just back from school in a self-driving car, mannerlessly flinging his backpack on the floor (since the robotic house help will pick it up), excited about how his AI teacher helped him build a moon rocket, and how his school robot principal promised to take the whole class to the moon if they finish their homework on time.

Then he pauses mid-rant and asks: “Big man… how did you guys survive without superintelligent AI? Like… AGI wasn’t helping you in school?”

I take a deep breath, summon my inner dad-mode, and say: “Well, my boy, back in my time, at least in the first three decades of my life, we didn’t ‘really’ have the luxury of advanced AI as we do now. We relied on our knowledge, problem-solving abilities, and manual processes to accomplish tasks. In fact, our teachers were humans.“

Curiosity filled my child’s eyes (since curiosity is in the gene), and he asked, “But didn’t you miss having intelligent robots to make things easier and faster?“

I looked at my child with appreciation for our progress as humans and joy that he had the sense to ask such thought-provoking questions.

Passing down the gem from the conversation with my dad, I concluded with my child by saying, “You don’t miss what you don’t know, just as you are currently not missing something in the future that hasn’t been invented yet. But looking back, the absence of superintelligent AI made us resourceful and encouraged us to develop our critical thinking and problem-solving skills. It taught us the value of perseverance and creativity in finding solutions.“

I imagined my child would think that sounds like what I, an arrogant old man, would say to insinuate that my generation was smarter and theirs could not get simple things done without using AI. So I added, “But that doesn’t take away from the benefits of AI. I mean, why do we need to rack our brains about going to the moon when AI can just transport a bunch of teenagers there for fun?”.

As our conversation continued, I realised that just as I had struggled to comprehend my dad’s experiences without the internet, little me would find it difficult to grasp a world without advanced AI. To him, we are just idiots in this era.

And at that moment, I couldn’t help but feel grateful for living in a time when AI was gradually becoming an integral part of our lives.

Let’s reflect a little…

Reflecting on the past, present, and future, I realised that each era had challenges and breakthroughs. And the challenge of one era creates a breakthrough for the next.

The internet and AI were two monumental milestones in our technological journey, each offering unique benefits and lessons.

The internet wouldn’t exist without ARPANET, a Cold War-era military project meant to help computers gossip securely. Web2 wouldn’t exist without the internet. AI (as we know it today) wouldn’t exist without Web2. And a robotic school principal of the future wouldn’t exist without AI.

And as we continued to advance, I knew that my child, little me, would one day share his own stories with the next generation, marvelling at how they managed to survive without a technology yet to be invented.

Let’s take home some points…

You don’t miss what you don’t know. But once you know, you can’t imagine not knowing.

Today, you might still be wondering what the fuss about AI is. Twenty years from now, your kids might be wondering how you survived in a world where AI wasn’t making all your meals (and they’ll say it while chewing 3D-printed pounded yam, generated by a machine built on GPT-170 model).

I saw this recently in a book, and it said it better than I ever could:

From “I’ve never heard of it” to “Seriously, people lived without it?”, the journey is always the same as ever.

Stay informed.

But just by clicking that link, a surprisingly complex sequence of events took place in the background, like dozens of systems talking to one another to ensure you saw these words of wisdom.

Now, here’s the thing…

It’s easy to overlook the complexity and effort behind what we don’t understand. So, to help you understand, let me walk you through what happens when you make a simple card payment, as an example.

The Hidden Chain Behind a Simple Card Payment

Let’s say you’re on a website about to buy cigarettes (ignoring the fact that smokers die young, but that’s a topic for another day).

You type in your card details and click “Pay”; it looks straightforward. But under the hood, here’s what actually happens:

1. Merchant system (the website you’re paying on)

• You press “Pay”.

• The merchant’s website collects your card details (number, expiry, CVV).

• For security reasons, those details are expected to be sent straight to a payment gateway (like Stripe or PayPal) instead of touching the merchant’s servers.

  🔒 Note: If the merchant’s website decides to play superhero and lets your card details touch their server, or worse, stores it (without proper standards like PCI DSS compliance), you can expect a random debit from a gas station in Belarus sometime in the future.

  

2. Payment gateway (e.g Stripe, Paystack…)

The gateway is like the bouncer at the club. It checks if your card is even worthy of getting in.

• It captures and encrypts your card info.

• Runs quick checks: Is the card number valid? Format correct? Not expired?

• If it passes, the gateway wraps it all up in a neat little transaction request and sends it off to the payment processor for the real action.

3. Payment processor (e.g Stripe again, or not)

The processor is like the logistics guy who knows the roads, a.k.a where to go from here.

• It takes the encrypted card details from the gateway.

• It figures out which card network (Visa, Mastercard, Verve, etc.) to process this request through, depending on your card.

• Then it sends the transaction on its way, like a dispatch rider.

  💡 Bonus info: Most times, the gateway and the processor are the same e.g Stripe, Paystack... But at times, the gateway has to tag-team with another processor.

4. Card network (e.g Mastercard, Visa)

• Once the request gets to the card network, they also sniff around for anything suspicious: wrong format? shady merchant?

• If your card is enrolled in 3D Secure (3DS), the network pauses everything and says, “Wait, let’s make sure it’s really you”.

• That’s when you get that OTP or push notification to prove you’re not a random skinny dude in a basement trying your luck with another person’s card. Not sure why I added ‘skinny’ there but it just made the sentence sound better.

• Once verified, the network forwards the request to your issuing bank (the bank that gave you the card).

  At this point, we’ve traveled across four systems and still haven’t touched your money. While you’re just right there staring at your phone waiting for the loading animation to wrap it up.

  

5. Issuing bank (e.g, Standard Chartered Bank)

Your bank finally gets the request from the card network like: “Hey…. This person is trying to pay $50 to Cigaretometer store. What do we do?”

• Then your bank goes into FBI mode: “Do you have money? Is this transaction legit? Are you in London but buying from Sweden at 2 a.m.? Have you hit your spending limit? or life limit?”

• If everything looks okay, the bank approves the transaction. If not, it declines.

6. Response travels back

The answer (approved or declined) now travels all the way back:

Bank → Card Network → Processor → Gateway → Merchant site → Your screen.

At this point, your screen updates with “Payment successful” or “Declined”.

All of this happens within seconds. But the point is…

Every software system looks seemingly innocent to a regular user, but behind the scenes is a lot of handshakes, a lot of duct tape and 50 million different things that could possibly go wrong.

So next time you make a payment (or click anything really), just know: it’s never that simple.

And hopefully, now... you’ll see it differently.

📝 Note:

This is a simplified flow. In reality, things can get even more tangled, especially if you’re using digital wallets (like Apple Pay), or virtual cards.

But hey, this is a Substack post, not a technical documentation. Let’s not kill the vibe.

I slowed down. I mean, I could barely see. Common sense says you shouldn’t use full headlights when there’s an oncoming car; the dimmer one is enough. I got irritated. As he drove past me, I tried looking in the car just to see what idiots looked like, but it was dark. “What an idiot”, I said to myself. “I hope he doesn’t use the same brain to raise kids.”

When I finally got home and parked, I was trying to pull the parking brake when I noticed a bright light symbol on my dashboard. Alas, my full headlights had been on the entire drive.

I didn’t call myself an idiot sha. I said, “Ah, I didn’t even know it was on.”

But what if the other guy didn’t know either?

It’s easy to judge other people.

A few months ago, Mimie misplaced her ring. And every day since then, she hasn’t heard the last of it from me.

“Are you sure you didn’t purposely throw it away so people won’t know you have a husband at home?” I’d joke. “Abi… How do you even misplace a ring?”

Fast-forward to yesterday, I misplaced my entire backpack at the airport.

Inside it were my ‘dear’ laptop, phone, headset, and card.

We spent about two hours roaming around trying to find this bag. Eventually, we got it back from “Lost and Found,” intact.

I consoled myself with, “Well, I was carrying two extra bags, that’s why I misplaced it.”

But honestly, is it not more ridiculous to misplace a whole backpack than a tiny ring?

It’s easy to judge other people.

When you see parents giving their kids iPads to watch cartoons, it’s tempting to think, “What a lazy parent. Why not just play with your child?”

Until you have one of your own.

Then you realise it takes divine intervention and a bit of superpower to keep a three-year-old entertained for 30 straight minutes without losing your mind.

Everyone is an expert on how to raise a child… We form different opinions based on whatever we see. But you know why that is?

Because, it’s easy to judge other people.

The Bottomline…

Judging others is one of those “same as ever” concepts. Something that has existed since the beginning of time and will continue till the end of it.

Sometimes, we judge because it’s natural. Sometimes because it’s easy. But most times, because it feeds our subtle human need to believe we’re smarter, wiser, and more put together than others.

While writing this, I was chatting with Mimie, and according to her, “judging is part of what makes us human, part of what separates us from rabbits. It’s instinctive. It’s how we make sense of the world. The only difference is, some people keep their judgments in their heads, while others say them out loud.”

And yeah, she’s right, which confirms the fact that we’ll always judge others. The trick is to catch yourself doing it.

That tiny moment of self-awareness → that “Ah, it’s easy to judge other people o, I have my own shortcomings too.”, is what makes you a logical, evolving adult.

And to sum it all up… The alternative to judging others is understanding them.
And honestly, it’s much easier to judge people than to understand them.

So maybe let’s all keep judging, but let’s at least do it with a bit of self-awareness.

I rest my case,

- Chief Judge, Kay.

In 2023, I wrote a story about a birthday drama from a decade ago.

In 2024, I wrote a sarcastic but true piece about the day I was born.

Every year, I return to these pieces and read them one after the other. And every year, I feel something close to tears. Not because I’m being emotional, and certainly not because there’s some hidden wisdom in them, there usually isn’t. But because the writing is so good, I’d be so pissed not to be ME if I were YOU.

This year is different. It’s 3 p.m. I missed the midnight ritual and kept the gods waiting. They probably sighed in disappointment, but still left a few gifts at my door, generous as always, ‘cos I’m their favorite.

So here I am, staring at a blank notion page, kinda struggling with the direction to take.

“What do you think I should write about?“ I asked Mimie. She’s usually good with these ideas.

“You could write about the fact that nothing changes as you grow older”, she said.

“So you mean I’m still the same dumb kid you met years ago?“ I gaslighted.

“No. Not from that perspective… It’s more like…”

“You know…” I cut in.

“A lot changed“, I said. “In fact, everything changed“.

She smiled. “Well, there you go. Write about that.”

“But I don’t want to write about that…” I muttered.

Mimie gave up and drifted back into her world as she unpacked the two million gifts she got for me. And as she did, I slipped into my head and into this endless abyss of what this piece could be about.

I could write about 50 things I’ve learned in 50 years. You know, like those cringy LinkedIn posts. And when you ask, “Are you 50?” I’d answer yes, because I’ve been here before I was born.

I could write a graceful reflection about how life has been good, while vividly describing my view from this 30th floor. You’d never know if 30th is because I’m in a penthouse with floor-to-ceiling windows and a skyline that makes you believe in God… or if it’s my age, and the “view” is just me looking back at everything I’ve climbed over, walked past, or pretended not to see.

I could write a 5,000-word novel just hyping myself up, talking about how nobody came from where I came from and did it like I did it. Or I could write a 5,000-word self-drag, pointing out that the reason nobody did it like I did it is because I did a terrible job. Because I fumbled the bag so many times, I should’ve gotten a sponsorship from a bag company.

I could write an open letter to God about my gratitude. But why would I do that? When I could just go inside a room, lock the door, turn off the lights, and cry to him instead, which I already did.

I could write about the fact that I got the best birthday gift this year. Not the kind you can post on social media with a caption and a hashtag, but the kind that makes you pause, grin to yourself, and think, yeah, life isn’t so bad after all. The kind of gift that feels less like an object and more like a statement, that you’re seen, that you’re valued, that someone went out of their way to put a smile on your face.

I could write about how, eleven years ago, I told myself to buy Ray-Bans because the future was too bright, and how I promised myself I’d retire by this age. What a funny kid I was.

I could write about my life as a movie, but complicate it so much you wouldn’t know if it’s a comedy, thriller, sci-fi, suspense, or just one of those films written by someone high on something but somehow gets a 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes.

I could write about how I’m getting close to 40, and how I have to figure out how not to be a fool anymore, because a fool at 40 is…

I could write about all these sweet birthday messages I’ve been getting, which make me go, “Oh see, I’m not a piece of shit after all.” Then I could instantly become a piece of shit by replying, “Do you mean this message you just sent or ChatGPT wrote it???”. Hahahahahahahaha

I could write about how this is my first birthday as a dad. How it feels like a blast. How nothing prepares you for this particular kind of joy, the kind that makes your own birthday feel like a side quest.

I could write about anything.

I could write about nothing.

Or I could just write about all the things I could write about.

Because that’s the fun of this birthday ritual: the choice, the freedom, and the absurdity of trying to capture a life in one birthday post. The world is mine. I can do whatever I want. It’s my birthday. And today, I just wanted to write something.

“Hey birthday boy! Did you figure out what you wanted to write?” Mimie asked, breaking my thoughts.

“Ha,” I said, “I’m actually done.”

Happy birthday to me 🙂

They’d been planning this for weeks. And I only found out about an hour before jump-off time. When I was told, I ran upstairs, not to prepare or pray, but to “relax my mind”, which in practice meant lying flat on the bed, staring at the ceiling and wondering if a sudden headache might be convincing enough to cancel.

Then I called my mum, to see her face, you know, just in case.

Heavy sigh.

The journey there was long. I couldn’t get it out of my head. On the outside, I was a hard guy. On the inside, I was a trying-to-be-hard guy. The thought that I wouldn’t be doing it alone helped. Kyle, one of the evil planners, would be jumping too.

“Calm down bro, people jump everyday”, I said to myself, “people jump every hour”, myself said to me.

Heavy sigh.

When we arrived, we signed this long agreement and liability waiver. I skimmed it, noting every paragraph threatening “serious injury”, “catastrophic malfunction”, and “pancake-like impact”.

Then came a delay. “You’d have to wait like 3-4 hours”, said a Filipino lady who I thought was really too honest to be a salesperson. “A perfect excuse to escape”, I said. But apparently, the stubborn people I came with weren’t buying it.

Like patient dogs, we waited two long hours.

Heavy sigh.

Eventually, it was time. The instructor came to strap me in. I couldn’t picture his age range; he looked 30 and 78 at the same time, rattling off these crazy rules and instructions I couldn’t comprehend. The only thing on my mind was the question I finally blurted out:

“How long have you been doing this, and have you had any casualties before?”

“Oh…No. I never even think about that”, he said, casually. “Been doing this for twelve years”.

I felt calm. A bit.

“How long does the jump last?“ Kyle asked an instructor while we were on the bus to the runway. “One minute free fall, and seven minutes parachute”, said the instructor. Out of nowhere, a woman, clearly a psychopath in uniform, chimed in: “Two minutes if the parachute doesn’t work”. Everyone laughed. I did too. Then I decoded that sentence in silence for the rest of the ride.

Heavy sigh.

We hopped on the plane. It smelled faintly of gasoline and fear. It was cramped, the kind of space you’d expect smugglers to use.

The fear didn’t really set in till we got to 13,000 ft. It got real when it was time to jump. My friend Kyle shuffled to the door. One second he was there, the next, gone. Flicked into the sky like a coin. That’s when I knew I was either about to have a cool story to tell from this eight-minute jump, or none, if the fall took two minutes.

Heavy sigh.

The instructor clipped me to his chest like a toddler backpack. “Just relax,” he said, which is, of course, the easiest thing to do when someone is about to shove you out of a moving aircraft.

And then… it was my turn. My legs refused, but the push came anyway. Out. We jumped. The first ten seconds were terror: instant dizziness, violent air, my body spinning uncontrollably. I could hear the instructor scream something in my ear that sounded like “Isn’t this amazing?????” but could have easily been “We’re both going to die!!!!!!!”

Something something something. The free fall went on for about sixty seconds.

Then the parachute yanked us upward. Suddenly, it was quiet. We floated. And I could see the Palm Jumeirah below us. Nice view, sure, but also the kind of view you can enjoy on a helicopter tour without having to jump off of it.

We glided for about 8 minutes before finally landing on a field where other jumpers were scattered around, pulling off their gear and looking far more heroic than I felt.

Then came the questions from Mimie:

Was it fun? - Yes.

Was it worth it? - Yes.

Was it an experience? - It is.

Would you do it again? - “Only if I lose both memory and sanity at the same time.”

“Now I understand why they call it a once-in-a-lifetime experience. You do it once, and never again.” I said.

As the adrenaline wore off and the ground felt solid again, I realised something: I wouldn’t have signed up for this on my own, or even thought of it as something to do “for fun”. But I’m glad I did. As David Sedaris once said, sometimes the only reason you need to do something is to get a good story out of it. And now, I do. And I’ll tell everyone about it for as long as I can.

I went to university in the same town I grew up in. So when I was in year one, every Friday evening, like a ritual, I’d hop on a bus and head home. By Sunday evening, I’d be back at school, refreshed in two ways: my sanity (a little) and my pocket (enough to survive another week).

The ride home was short, twenty minutes on a good day, forty minutes if traffic or pure wickedness was on the road.

Now… if you’ve ever taken a bus in my old town, you know the front seat is where destinies are decided and legends are made. There were three seats in front: one for the driver, two for passengers.

The passenger seat by the door is heaven, and the one in the middle is hell. So, the usual code is simple: when a second passenger comes to join you in front, the boss thing to do is to step out, let them climb into the middle, and then hop back into your comfortable odogwu position by the door.

Let’s just say… If you manage to snatch that door seat, you’ve made it in life, at least for the length of that bus ride.

On this fateful Friday evening, I was the first to get to the bus. I claimed the front seat by the door, settling in like the chairman of transport affairs. The driver’s radio was coughing out some old Fuji tune through these half-dead speakers, while he shouted at the top of his lungs to lure more passengers.

Gradually, the bus filled up behind me. Most people would naturally avoid the front seat if one person is already there because they don’t want to be trapped in the middle. Then, out of nowhere, this guy approached the door.

In a split second, I had to decide: should I maintain my odogwu status and make him sit in the middle, or should I play it humble and shift?

One look at his face answered the question. Strong face. The type of face that looked like it had fought a dragon before and won. His whole vibe screamed, “I don’t have time for bullshit”.

I didn’t want problems. So I surrendered my throne, slid into the middle, and sat there like a pretty little sad boy.

The bus rolled out. My head buried in my Itel phone while I scrolled through whatever, pretending the middle seat wasn’t the worst place on earth.

As we drove out of the school gate and turned left towards Mayfair (a popular area in town), we had barely driven three minutes on that straight road when I heard, “Ye ye gbaaaaa!!!”

My head slammed forward and bounced back. It was a quick 2-second event. I looked up. The bus had swerved into the bush. The windscreen vanished. Glass everywhere. And blood dripping down my face.

I turned left: the driver was stuck, wrestling with the door.

I turned right: Strong Face was screaming. A jagged tree branch had smashed through the window and was sticking out of his eye like some horror movie prop. Blood poured down his face in a way that made me grab my own eye, as if checking mine were still there. For a moment, I thought, that could’ve been me.

I freaked out.

Then I realised… the only way out was to climb up front through the windshield. Something something something, I scrambled out through the front, over the bus, and tumbled down the side.

In seconds, people had gathered.

Against everyone’s advice to stay put, I flagged down an okada (bike), and asked him to take me home. The bike man handed me a rag to press against the wound on my head. I’m almost certain it was the same rag he used to shine his rusty seat, but I didn’t care.

When I got home, my dad, normally the ‘hard guy’, froze. It was the first time I saw worry on his face. Soon we were at the hospital. I got stitches and endured the worst headache of my life over the few days that followed. By Monday morning, I was back in school with plaster on my head like it was a badge of survival.

I’ll stop the story there.

So what’s the point of all these?

I just finished reading the first chapter of the book → Same As Ever by Morgan Housel. And it reminded me of that bus ride. How a decision as small as “do I sit by the door or move to the middle?” can literally decide whether you live the rest of your life as a one-eyed pirate or not.

According to the book: We mostly stress about the big decisions: what job to take, which country to move to, whether to invest in crypto, but it’s usually the tiny, forgettable decisions that have the biggest impact.

That Friday evening, I thought I lost comfort. But maybe I saved my eye.

To be honest, I don’t even know if that guy actually lost his. I just assumed. Because… an eye with a tree branch poking out of it isn’t really the easiest to save.

And while writing this, I asked Mimie, if she would have dated me if I was one-eyed. She didn’t even blink before saying, “No!”.

And that, is how small forgettable decisions truly shape destiny.

But she was greeting me.

And there I was, standing like a confused statue, unsure whether to bow back, wave, dance, run, or just awkwardly smile and nod like I usually do when I don't know what's happening.

So I bent down too. She bent lower. I bent lower. She bent even lower.

It turned into a politeness competition I didn’t sign up for. And I was losing badly.

"Welcome to Japan", she said in careful Asian English, still bent at what looked like a 45-degree angle.

I panicked and mumbled something like, “Same to you” 😆

That was my very first sign: Japan is not like anywhere else I’ve been.

To be fair… I didn’t explore as much of Japan as I wanted.

Because… after spending weeks roaming around Europe like tourists with no responsibilities, Japan was where reality finally caught up with me. I had accumulated enough work backlog to keep three people busy for a month.

So while Mimie was living her best life exploring every vintage shop in a 50-kilometer radius, I was locked in this dark room in the hotel, typing furiously on my laptop, trying to catch up on everything I'd been ignoring.

Still, in the little time I had outside, Japan left me with a handful of lessons that made me go, “Huh… interesting”.

And here are five of them.

1. They bend… a lot

Back in Nigeria, bending to greet elders is a sign of respect. Makes sense. You don’t bow to your agemates, or people you’re older than, that would feel odd.

But in Japan? Everyone bows to everyone. Even the vending machine would bow if it could.

And once someone bows to you, you must bow back. It's like a social contract. But then they bow again because you bowed. So you bow again because they bowed again. Infinite loop. Battle of the bendest.

Let’s just say I spent half my time in Japan in various stages of bending.

2. The streets are clean, but no trash bins

You can walk for hours and see maybe one tiny bin at a train station, and that's it. So where does everyone put their trash?

Plot twist: They take it home.

According to japaninsidersecrets.com:

Public bins started disappearing from Japanese cities after the 1995 Tokyo sarin gas attacks. Now, it’s just normal to carry your rubbish home, even after eating or drinking outside. There’s a strong social expectation to keep shared spaces clean.

See me walking around with an empty coffee cup in my hand for three hours.

3. People join queues with ease

Train arriving? Perfect lines.

Restaurant? Queue.

Tourist attraction? Formation.

Everyone just waits, patiently. Even elderly people.

Apparently, this is an Asian thing, not just Japanese.

According to someone on Japan Guide Forum:

People join queues easily in Japan due to cultural emphasis on group harmony, social order, and individual responsibility for maintaining public spaces.

Must be nice…

4. Tipping = Disrespect

After Europe tried to extort tips from me at every opportunity, Japan was refreshing.

No one asked for tips. In fact, word on the street was that offering to tip someone is actually insulting.

Why?

According to starttravel.co.uk:

It is in the Japanese culture to take pride in one's work. As such, employees have the highest standards when supplying a service and don’t feel the need to accept tips to feel appreciated.

To the Japanese, attempting to give a tip suggests their employer does not value them enough to offer sufficient pay.

Interesting…

5. There’s tech everywhere… except at the counter

Japan is a paradox with technology. They have automated toilets that do everything except file your taxes, but some places still only accept cash.

For some reckless reasons, we travelled without a card. To our surprise, many places in Japan don’t accept Apple Pay or Google Pay. You either come with cold hard cash or a cold hard card.

The Bottom Line

I highly recommend Japan. I would definitely go back there at some point in the future, and I would probably leave my laptop at home.

Ha… I forgot to mention, the coffee there is god-level.

Disclaimer: These observations are purely based on my experience during two weeks in Japan (Kyoto and Tokyo). How you observe a location is very context-dependent. And that's the beauty of travel; it's personal, subjective, and occasionally involves way more bowing than you expected.

About 11 years ago, I was a wide-eyed first-year university student. I had barely completed my first year when the inevitable happened: school went on strike.

For those unfamiliar with the Nigerian university system, a “strike” basically means the government hasn’t paid staff properly, so the staff stop working, let’s just say “using the students to hold the government hostage”.

Classes shut down. Campuses go quiet. And students like me end up at home, doing… nothing.

This particular strike dragged on for almost six months. But it turned out to be one of the most positive seasons of my life.

The Random Guy in the Hood

In my trenches, there was this guy who worked at Access Bank. His life looked perfect to me.

• He had a one-bedroom apartment.

• A DSTV subscription (big deal to me back then).

• A Toyota Corolla.

• A wife who stayed home.

• A child he dropped off at school every morning.

It looked stable. Peaceful. To me, he had made it in life.

Every day, I’d watch this dude drive out, and I’d think: “If I can just live like this guy when I graduate, I’ll be fine”.

So I Did the Math

Curiosity made me wonder: “How much does Access Bank pay their staff?”

I went on Nairaland’s career section and asked. Luckily, a few people working at the bank replied (Sidenote: Nairaland.com was such a great forum back then).

Turned out, his salary was about 150,000 Naira, roughly $900 at the time (Sidenote: Naira was stronger in those days, before it became a bad boy).

That was my lightbulb moment.

“So I just need to make 150K a month to live like that Corolla guy.”

So I Came Up With a Plan

At the time, I was already into blogging. Google AdSense was hot.

I asked in my bloggers’ WhatsApp group: “How much traffic do I need to make $900 from Adsense?”

They told me. And suddenly, I had a clear target: hit this traffic, earn $900.

I wasn’t even in a rush. I thought, “I just need to hit this traffic before I graduate. So I have 4 years to hit the target. Once I graduate, I’ll be living like that Access Bank guy”.

But one thing led to another, before the strike even ended, I had hit the target.

And when I returned to school, it wasn’t just with cash, it was with a shiny new Blackberry Q5 in my hand.

The Beautiful Part of Small Dreams

Looking back now, what surprises me is how conservatively innocent my thinking was. I even told my wife, “I was so naive back then”.

But as weird as it sounds, I believe being naive could be a blessing.

At that time, I wasn’t thinking of making millions. Not because I intentionally didn’t want millions, but because my world was so small, I didn’t even know I should want millions. And in hindsight, that innocence naivety was a blessing because the relatively “small” target was enough to keep me focused, consistent, and hungry.

I’ve come to believe that… Sometimes, aiming too big can be a mental trap. The moment you set your sights on $100M, you start calculating the years, the investors, and the sleepless nights. The mountain feels impossible before you’ve even taken the first step.

But when the goal is small and clear, it feels doable. And because it feels doable, you actually do it.

The only challenge is that once your mind has been exposed to “bigger doings”, it’s almost impossible not to have big dreams. Back then, the biggest doer I knew was the Corolla guy, so it was easier.

And now? Honestly, part of me still wishes I had that innocent, naive, and conservative mindset, because life is way easier when we don’t overload ourselves with giant big dreams.

Sometimes, a Corolla dream is all we need.

Fat Man 1: "Bro, we need to chop life! Go out, have fun, enjoy yourself. Life is short, remember? 😉"

Fat Man 2: "Are you mad? We need to lock in! Work hard, life is not a bed of roses! 😡"

And there I am, caught in the middle like the referee in the sumo match, but the problem is, the two fat idiots are not even fighting each other; they’re fighting me.

Introducing… the "Chop Life" fattie

In the left corner, weighing 2400 kg, he’s known as the "chop life" fattie, the unofficial ambassador for the YOLO culture. You’ll usually find him in party shades, even indoors.

He’s always trying to make me understand that there’s a lot of life to chop. The other day, I was on my own, and he just showed up with the Instagram recommendation of this fine resort in Saudi Arabia.

"Let’s go to this place?" he whispered.

You know… this guy once tried to convince me to book a flight to Ibiza in the middle of the night because Chris Brown was going to be there, and I should leave my wife and baby behind, because YOLO.

Introducing… the "Lock In" fattie

And in the right corner, also weighing 2400 kg, is the "lock-in" fattie, the motivational-quote-forwarding menace. He’s always storming in like a disappointed parent who just saw my report card.

"Chop life with what money?" he asked me the other day.

“With the money I made from locking in”, I responded.

"You only have this one life to make an impression. And you want to be busy chopping it?”, he screamed.

To him, having fun is a distraction and resting is for the weak, or the dead.

The illusion that there’s a middle ground…

You'd think the solution would be balance, right? A perfect 50-50 split between chopping life and locking in. But anyone who's tried this knows it's like trying to walk on a thin rope during an earthquake.

When you're locked into work, you feel guilty about not living your best life.

When you're chopping life, you feel guilty about not being productive enough.

It's a special kind of torture where you can't fully enjoy either state because you're constantly thinking about the other.

But I’ve figured it out…

That… the real problem isn't choosing between "chopping life" and "locking in", the real enemy is the guilt that follows whichever choice I make.

I’ve realised that these two fatties are not trying to fight me, they’re just trying to optimise my life, but they're using different metrics.

One measures success by experiences and soft life.

The other measures it by achievements and progress.

And I’m stuck trying to maximise both simultaneously, which is impossible; it’s like trying to drive north and south at the same time.

And I’ve concluded that…

Maybe the secret isn't choosing a side, but accepting that this tension will always exist. Maybe it's okay to have seasons, periods where you lock in hard, and periods where you chop life harder.

The question isn't which choice is objectively better, it's which choice I can live with, and which fat dude I want to answer to at any point.

So I’ve stopped trying to evict them. They live rent-free in my head, and now, we take turns. Sometimes I chill out with Chop Life fattie, sometimes I grind with Lock In fattie.

Either way, I’ve chosen to make peace with the fact that I’m human, and humans are chaotically complex… It’s okay to have two fat men in your head.

So if you'll excuse me, I need to go lock in... right after I finish chopping this life a little bit.

And Zakynthos Island, the third largest of the Ionian Islands, usually calm and blue, was preparing for a party, the boogie-down party of the year.

But out there on the water, there was a different kind of party happening already.

The chase…

It’s the Greek navy versus a smuggler ship, fire for fire, water for water, blood for blood; it was the battle of the fittest.

A rusted cargo smuggler ship, called MV Panagiotis, was slicing through the ocean waves like a thief in the night (literally). It wasn’t just carrying cargo. It was carrying anything you could call “illegal”: drugs, alcohol, guns, maybe even people, depending on which old man you ask.

The Greek Navy had gotten a tip, probably from a snitch who was ready to get a stitch. And they were hot on the smugglers’ tail.

But the smugglers on board were pros, the best in the game; half of them had experience in the pirate world. They didn’t start smuggling yesterday; they knew the seas well, and the seas knew them.

The navy was no match, and the storm gave them cover. They could not see where they were going, but they pushed the engines harder. In their world, you take risks or die trying.

For hours, the chase continued through the tempest. Then, suddenly, silence. No searchlights cutting through the darkness. No radio chatter. They might have escaped.

The crew members gave themselves jubilant high-fives.

“I told y’all it was fine. I’ve been doing this for 40 years.”, the captain started bragging.

“I once dived under a ship that was getting searched by a coast guard, lifted it on my head, poured the coast guard goons in the ocean, and carried the ship 400 kilometres to the shores of Barbados while holding my breath. No one can catch me, I’m the wind itself”, said the captain.

When the sea decides…

Then it seemed the sea heard what the captain said, and told the wind, and together they formed the waves.

In what some locals call “the aggression of the sea”, the waves suddenly crashed like hammers against the ship.

Visibility? Still Zero. The crew could barely see two meters ahead. The captain tried hugging the coastline, hoping to find a hidden cove to wait out the storm.

But… the waves hit from the other side. And the other side. And the other side. And the other side.

After a long natural battle between the great ship and the waves, they crashed. Hard.

Right into the soft white sands of a cove surrounded by steep limestone cliffs. Their ship, Panagiotis, was battered, broken, and stuck. It was like the island itself had reached out and said, “Enough of this nonsense. You don’t get to run anymore”.

The aftermath…

The crew scattered. Some say they ran into the hills. Others say they drowned. Some even said they consulted the Greek goddess and disappeared into thin air.

The Navy arrived soon after and found the wreck, but most of the contraband was gone. And the rest? Just floating near the shore.

For weeks afterwards, Zakynthos fell unusually quiet. And every new tourist in town was a suspected shipwreck survivor, or worse, the captain.

The ship was never moved. They just left it there. And over time, the salty water and sun bleached it into something between a skeleton and a monument. The cove got a new name: Navagio, which literally means “Shipwreck”.

But tourists call it Shipwreck Beach now.

Welcome to Zakynthos - Greece…

And that story up there is one of the most interesting new things I learned on my visit there. Told by Kostas, the tour guide. At some point, I had to stop him and ask, “Were you one of the smugglers? How did you know? 👀”.

And while I stood there staring at the original wreck, I listened closely as the wind howled through the cliffs, and I just could hear the ghost of a smuggler laughing at how famous their failure became. So famous that a legend like me graced the scene 😇

But I snapped out of it, because I’m here to enjoy life, not listen to ghosts laugh.

We spent about a week in Zakynthos, one for the books, even though getting in and out of the island was an adventure itself.

I mean, it’s a small island, and it appears you have to fly from one place in Europe (or Schengen) because they don’t have immigration there.

The plane was so small, with about as much legroom as Desi’s toy plane.

And I'm pretty sure the pilot drank something strong before take off, as he just kept going up down up down up down like Jangilova.

Getting out was even worse; the plane was smaller, and the pilot probably drank something stronger.

In a nutshell, with my stay in Zakynthos, I learnt that:

• Water is bluer in some places, and Zakynthos is one of those places

• The shipwreck story is the most interesting thing about the visit

• It’s one of those places you go when you want to escape the chaos of life

• It’s too quiet there

• It’s a great place to do nothing

• People are extremely friendly. They wave at you like they’ve known you since primary school

• It’s not the kind of place where you see a luxury car. I mean, driving a Lamborghini there would make you look stupid

• They have a tip culture also - it seems it’s a curse in Europe

• You need to see the clifftop views once before you die

• Sea turtles are the real celebrities

• It's relaxing, but probably because "there's nothing else to do"

The Bottom Line

Zakynthos looks incredible on Instagram and delivers exactly what it promises: beautiful water, dramatic cliffs, and that famous shipwreck.

Would I recommend it? Sure, if you're island-hopping and want to tick it off the list. But if you're looking for a place that will make you want to extend your stay indefinitely, maybe not.

To sum up, it’s one of those places you visit once and say, “Yeah… one time is enough time”.

Disclaimer: These observations are purely based on my experience during my one week in Zakynthos (Greece). How you observe a location is very context-dependent. And that's the beauty of travel; it's personal and subjective.

"First time in Zurich?" he asked, probably noticing the way we were looking around like confused villagers.

"Yeah, first time. So what's life like here?" I said, as we waited for our big luggages to drop at baggage claim.

He didn't hear me the first time; I guess my Yoruba accent caught him off guard. So he leaned forward, and I repeated my question, this time, sloooowly, with international student pronunciation.

He put his hands in his pockets and chuckled. "Man, it's boring. Not much to do. But the pay is good compared to other parts of Europe".

"Not much to do for you or not much to do for tourists?", I asked curiously.

"Oh there’s much to do for tourists, especially since you're here for the first time, you can go to the old town, Lake Zurich, the Rhine Falls - that's a bit outside but worth it. There's also the FIFA museum if you're into football, and the zoo is a must...”

He kept going on and on. I couldn't keep track of all the places, but Mimie was diligently taking notes like she was preparing for an exam.

He seemed genuinely excited to help us. Or maybe he was just doing his job really well. He assisted us to the transport area and kept talking about Zurich and all these tourist places we should visit, but honestly, I couldn't care less at that moment. I was tired and just wanted to get to the hotel.

We stepped out of the airport exit, and the weather hit us with a big 20-degree drop from Dubai’s 40 degrees we were coming from.

Welcome to Switzerland.

We went on to spend a week in Zurich. And in this period, here are 15 news things I learned that made me go "oh really?" during the stay.

1. Shops close early, and they're not apologetic about it

“They’re closed”, Mimie said.

“What do you mean they're closed, it’s just 4 pm” - I said, as we stood aimlessly in front of a coffee shop at 4:10 PM on a Tuesday.

Where I’m coming from, the second shift of the day starts at 4 PM, and there’s still a third shift. So, this was a shocker.

As we later realised, they close pretty early around here. Not because business is slow, and not because they’re lazy, but just because they're done for the day.

“We’ve logged off for the day, currently having beer with our friends at the local pub, come back at 9 am tomorrow, you weirdo”, that’s how I interpreted the huge “we are closed” sign on the door.

That was the first clue that people take life simply around here.

2. It’s giving “old money vibe”

You know that old money vibe where wealth is so established it doesn't need to show off?

While we were strolling to a restaurant at 9 AM, we looked over a bridge that had houses lined on both sides. This dude, dressed like your typical "corporate bro" in a crisp shirt and black boots, casually stepped out of his backyard, which happened to be connected to this fancy lake right in the middle of the city. He got on his boat and (I presume) cruised off to work.

“That must be nice, let’s move here”, - I jokingly told Mimie.

There are levels to these doings, and that guy is on the penthouse level.

3. Walking is a norm

In Dubai, we don’t really walk, as the city is not built for walking.

Surprisingly, in Zurich, we didn't take a single Uber or taxi. We just walked everywhere. According to Mimie, it's a good way to lose all this fat. I can't argue with that logic.

The city is actually built for humans who use their legs. I call it Legedez Benz.

The health app on my phone even sent me a notification that reads “you are moving more than your average steps in the past 30 days” - a win in my book.

4. These buildings have seen things

The architecture is wild, legacy buildings that look like they were built in 1822 and somehow survived multiple bomb blasts from WWII, but are still standing pretty.

You could tell that the buildings were old, but they looked good.

You walk past a random cafe and realise it's been serving coffee since before your grandfather was born.

5. They speak German

I wasn't expecting that, but apparently, they speak Swiss German. And, according to the lady at the restaurant (can’t remember her name), Swiss German is like German's rebellious cousin that decided to do its own thing.

Most people speak English though, and most road signs have English version, so you won't really struggle much if you understand English.

6. Everything felt safe

When you're in a place and you see people riding around in drop-tops with their roofs down, you can tell they're not worried about someone randomly giving them a knock on the head in the middle of the street, not to mention someone robbing them.

That's what safety feels like.

7. Everything costs your kidney (and maybe your liver too)

Everything is expensive.

To put it in context, we hired a nanny for 5 days, and we paid about the same amount we pay our nanny for 3 months in Dubai.

Why? Payment is per hour, and the price of services racks up relatively fast once you break it down into hours.

We didn’t even use the nanny, cos Desi didn't like her, and guess what? No refund. They don’t joke around in Zurich.

8. You can drink from public fountains

I'm not sure why they trust the water that much. I didn't try it, though, because the last thing you want on a trip is a running stomach from water poisoning. Then you're pressed desperately while walking around, you run to a nearby restaurant to use the toilet, and they tell you it's 4:01 PM – they closed one minute ago.

9. Their zoo is a whole vacation

We did take a taxi here (I just remembered, it's the only place we didn't walk to), but the whole place was family-friendly and walk-friendly.

We easily did 10K steps that day. You had to walk from one habitat to another to see the animals. This is because they kept them in natural environments, not cramped cages. I wouldn't call the place a zoo, at least not in the context I’m familiar with.

10. Coffee is mostly trash

When you're battling jet lag, good coffee can save your life. But here? It's basically water with brown colouring and a cube of sugar. I've had better coffee from the one Desi makes at home.

11. Food is mostly trash

We just kept swallowing bread and chicken. Everything else was a miss. We later found this place called Babu's, about a 15-minute walk away, and that morning stroll for some decent food and coffee was worth every step.

12. Bicycles everywhere

Another clear sign that life is simple is when your biggest transportation decision is "road bike or mountain bike?".

Most people rode bicycles around, although that might be because the roads aren’t really as big, a typical European vibe, at least compared to a place like Dubai.

13. The population is relatively low

Matteo, the nice guy at the hotel entrance, mentioned that the population can shoot up to 2 million during peak tourist season, but if you're counting only actual residents, it drops to around 400,000.

No wonder life moves at a slower pace. Low population means low competition, low pressure, and apparently, low stress levels all around. Meanwhile, in other competitive cities, people are fighting for life like it's the Hunger Games.

14. The tip culture is... direct

They don't ask, "Would you like to tip?"

They ask, "How much would you like to tip?".

It's kind of awkward when you say "zero" to such a question, especially when the lady asks while smiling sheepishly at you, but that’s the trick.

15. The pace is therapeutic

Everything moves at a calm, measured pace. Not slow because of inefficiency or laziness, but slow because they've figured out that rushing everywhere doesn't make life better.

It's the kind of pace that makes you realise how unnecessarily frantic everything else feels.

It's therapeutic in a way that makes you question why we've all agreed that chaos equals productivity.

In summary, life is soft in Zurich. I could live there. Well, if I could afford it, and that's a big if, considering I opened my mouth every time I checked a receipt.

But, let’s say I could afford it, would I trade everything else for Swiss serenity? Maybe not now, maybe when I’m 65.

But at least now I know what an alternative looks like.

Disclaimer: These observations are purely based on my experience during one week in Zurich. How you observe a location is very context-dependent. And that's the beauty of travel; it's personal and subjective.

But somewhere between then and now, the gears have shifted (haha, you need a 32GB brain to get that pun 😬). I'm slowly, but surely, learning to loosen the grip, to embrace the unplanned detours in life and open up to a bunch of weird side adventures.

When the notification popped up, at the top right corner of my laptop, the first thing I noticed was my laptop battery being red-close to death, so I picked up the charger to give it some gas (hehe, you for sure need a 64GB brain to get that one 😬). Back to the notification, it was from "M.A. McLaren". It's an RSVP to come along on a joy ride to a place I've never heard of… Jebel Jais. I confirmed immediately, didn't think twice, a technique I've been using to say more "YES" to fun and extroversion.

This newfound openness, however, extends beyond mountain drives. You might now find me on a paddle tennis court, swinging rackets and hitting balls like a pro that I am plan to be. The goal? Pure vibes, and maybe, in the future, a bit of bragging rights after I challenge everyone in the city to a match and thrash trash them.

Also, someone made something happen somewhere, and I ended up starting a podcast—a podcast so underground that no one will ever get to see it, but that's a story for another day. I might write about it someday, perhaps—I digress.

Day zero: right party, wrong day

I pulled up at the Arabian Ranches Golf Club with unwarranted confidence.

"We have it today," I told the security guard confidently, as if I were part of the planning committee.

The puzzled look of “who is this guy” on the security guard's face should have been my first clue.

The penny dropped soon enough, accompanied by a healthy dose of self-acknowledgement of mumu-ness. I had arrived a full 24 hours early. I had to call the McLaren contact, who confirmed the event was the next day.

"Oh, wow, I'm here now, I thought it's today", I replied, as if expecting him to say, "Oh, since you're there, and you’re the big boss, let's gather everyone else and do it today then".

I had to pack my enthusiasm and shame back in the car, head home, and wait another 24 hours.

“Old man, the date is on the invite, you didn’t look at it?” My brain asked me. “You’re the brain. That was supposed to be your job, and I would appreciate if you had more drive for your job”, I replied (haha, you need a 128GB brain to get that one 😬).

Take two: the real day….

The next morning, I pulled up at the same spot, only this time, I wasn't alone, and the security guard finally looked like he was expecting me.

I was hoping to see like 10-20 cars at most, but about 80+ McLarens showed up.

The parking lot looked like a scene from a Fast & Furious movie, except everyone was sipping coffee, taking pictures and having croissants instead of preparing for a heist.

While others were talking engines, horsepower, and handling specs, I stood there nodding like an idiot. I knew nothing about what they were talking about. Truth is, I still get the gears confused, I don’t know how to close the car’s roof properly, I think driving the car in sports mode is stressful, and I’m not sure if the fuel tank is on the left or right. The other day at the valet, I couldn’t roll down the window. The valet guy was just standing there, staring at me, probably thinking I stole the car.

I digress.

We had breakfast, mingled a bit, and then attended a safety briefing about nfd9438ejnfdannefd (cos I can’t remember the details). I know there was something in the briefing that sounded like an irony, it sounded like telling a fish not to swim. Oooooh yeah I remember, the mclaren team was telling McLaren owners not to speed… I appreciated the gesture, and most people probably nodded through just to get the "drive safe, don’t kill yourself" formalities out of the way—bla bla bla.

Destination: Jebel Jais

Then we kicked off the 2-hour drive to the Jebel Jais mountains, the highest point in the UAE. The road to Jebel Jais is a driver's dream—winding paths cutting through rugged mountains, sharp curves that test your reflexes, and a straight 120 km stretch where you can really feel what your car can do.

What I was piloting was the McLaren Artura Spider. And unlike a Tesla that jumps forward when you accelerate (like a rabbit on caffeine), this beauty grips the road firmly, (like that video I saw on tiktok where one drunk guy put his arm inside a tiger’s mouth), this car holds the ground to dear life, giving you this “I am god” feeling of being in complete control, even at ridiculous speed.

The sound of the engine behind me was music to my ears. It’s like playing your favourite album on repeat—every track hits just right. (Haha, you need a 256GB brain for that one… if you don’t get it, it just means your brain is below 256GB, and that’s fine 😬)

During the drive, I could see my phone buzzing with notifications. I ignored them all. YOLO, as they say. I fired the accelerator instead, watching the speedometer climb as the mountains grew larger in the windshield. Their father!!!

The motorcade….

While I was proudly cruising and smiling sheepishly at my 110 km/h speed, this other guy in his fancy blue 750s Spider sped past. He must have been going at 459590 km/h. One second, I saw him, the next second, he was dust.

Then there goes the guy with the cool wrap on his 750s. And another with the glorious GTR flashed by. And another. And another. It felt like playing NEED FOR SPEED multiplayer online with a processing power that can’t keep up with the frame rate.

“These dudes can speeeeeeed”, I thought to myself. I guess that's what the car is made for. But I couldn't join the speed party completely. I'm not used to this. And I’ve got a beautiful wife and baby waiting for me at home, so I’m cool with being the last in the motorcade.

"Don't worry about keeping up", my brain told me. "It's not a race".

I agreed.

“But how fast can you go?”, my brain asked curiously.

“hmmm maybe 120 km/h?“… I answered.

My brain said, “You can do 180”, to which I replied, “I think that’s too fast”.

“You can try telling that to the McLaren owners who came all the way from Qatar to unleash their beasts on these mountain roads”, we concluded.

The view….

As we climbed higher up Jebel Jais, the temperature dropped and the views became increasingly spectacular. At 1,934 meters above sea level, Jebel Jais is the crown jewel of the Hajar Mountains. The landscape changes from smooth slides to dramatic rocky cliffs, offering panoramic views that made me forget I was still in the UAE.

If you’ve ever seen a luxury car commercial, that’s exactly the kind of road they’d do it on.

The view from up there? You have to go see it for yourself. The rocky mountains stretched out like the playground of a giant, with layers of rock telling stories of millions of years gone by. I wondered how they got a road in between those mountains.

“These mountains don't care about quarterly targets or Mixpanel metrics. They just stand here, majestic and unbothered, reminding me how small I am in this world”, I thought.

The return…

Heading back, with adrenaline subsided, and social battery in red, I couldn't help but think about how much in fines I would get for that trip. The guy behind the speed cameras probably had his most profitable day of the year, counting all that money he’s about to get from speed tickets. I don’t even pity myself that much; I’m more concerned about that guy in the blue 750s Spider. But then again, some experiences are worth every dirham.

As we descended from that HIGH (hahaha, actually, this one requires a 520GB brain to understand 😬), the reality of returning to normal life started to sink in. "Now I have to deal with all these messages”, I thought. But something was different. I felt satisfied.

The new normal…

It was easily one of the most enjoyable moments I've had in life.

So here's to saying yes more often, to making room for fun, and to the fine folks at McLaren who made it all happen.

Life's moving fast; we might as well enjoy the view while we're up here. But while at it, keep an eye out for those falling rocks—and I’m not talking about the ones on the Jebel Jais mountains (okay… this is the one that requires 1024GB to understand 😬). I’m out.