Pain

If I were asked to describe the entire feeling of pain with one word,

I'd go with the word 'empty'

Because really that's what pain feels like, it feels like an empty vacuum void in your chest sucking at every and any possibility at being happy.

Truthfully, pain sucks.

It can knock you right off your shoes

Or leave you feeling like you can't even feel your shoes

Like it's all a dream, or a figment of your imagination

The latter leans close to being Numb, but leans away too.

Pain could make you punch the wall

Or crawl into a ball bawling your eyes out

Pain could make you confide in alcohol

Or become that one friend who never seems to shut up

Pain could make you creative, typing on your forgotten and abandoned blog

Or it could leave you feeling dejected, confused about reality.

Pain could lock your thoughts up

Or it could release a wilder side of you, an unapologetic you.

All these would be correct, accurately because every human is unique and every body feels pain differently.

Your inability to shed tears in a painful moment does not reduce you from being normal

Your inability to shut up about everything bad that's been happening to you does not make you abnormal—EXCESSIVELY ANNOYING? Yes. But abnormal? No.

So take pride in your pain.

Own it...

Because if you don't.

It'd own you.

And we don't want that.

Do we?

Are You Ready?

You know I once said "Reach for the sun instead of the clouds" (Technically)

Well, I want to give you a typical day-to-day example of what I meant, because I see most of you didn't understand;

Imagine you're an influencer of 50K followers on IG and you were approached by Unilever to promote Vaseline or something and they asked you how much you were going to work for? And then because you were aiming for the clouds (to you, the clouds—50K was THE BEST THING that could happen to you) you told them 50K. That's you reaching for the clouds because you didn't even recognize your skills, talents, and beauty.

So they agree to pay you 50K monthly and you're happy. But then after you announce to your followers, you signed a deal with Unilever, congratulations from your fellow influencers pour in and they're like... "Congrats oooh, welcome to the 150K teammmm." You'd get confused. You know? Because... Wait what?

That's when you'd find out your mates were reaching for the moon (and some would have lesser followers than you, some just 20K, some 10K self... But that won't matter because they aimed for the top, especially in their capacity. They aimed for the sun best to their capacity and followers, and they got it).

That's when you'd wish you aimed for the sun instead too, because if 10K followers are getting 150K naira, per month for lesser work or even equal work... Then IMAGINE what your 50K could get you ✋🏽. What it could've gotten you. You would've even whopped in over 300K if you played your cards right.

So here's what differentiates me from other motivational speakers. I'm telling you it's never too late. You could call up Unilever after putting in a month of hard work earning customers for them, making yourself EVEN more valuable, so that when it's time to renew your contract, you announce you're charging more. Because it's never too late.

—New knowledge, new skills, new information IS NEVER wasted. Don't sit down feeling dejected and wishing you knew better. Instead, DO better next time. You're allowed to feel bad about past decisions that never favored you, but you're not allowed to let that feeling stand in the way of making better decisions that will favor you!

And now that you've proven you're even MORE valuable than they thought (remember you pulling in customers and even more followers on the side), they're not going to want to lose you. You could even settle for 400K now.

Do you see the difference between you aiming for the clouds and aiming for the sun? A whooping 350 Thousand naira difference!

Aiming for the clouds would leave you dejected, as long as you know you're worth more, because you do more, bring more. Then NEVER settle for the clouds.

—Awelekume 2021