Comet Nwosu: Can You Give Account of How You Lived This Year?

Do you remember when you were anticipating entering the year 2021? How about 2020, 2019, 2018? All those inspirational quotes, tears, laughter, growth goals, development aspirations, what about the resolutions?

It’s the end of the year once again – take note that there’s a “once again” at the end of this sentence. This means that we’re not stuck in the frustrating cycle of berating ourselves for not getting a clean slate.

But is a new year really a clean slate? Many would say it’s just another day, month or year. But in a way, it is a clean slate – it sets the tone for a change of heart, mind, wardrobe, and even the people in our lives. As we anticipate the year, we also need to take into account how our year 2021 has panned out.

For some of us, it’s been eye-opening, lip-sealing from several bouts of shock, ear-jolting from unbelievable stories, anxious-filled. For others, it’s been monumental, full of saving graces, favour, and so on.

However it has turned out for you, it’s been such a ride, and as much as we want to orchestrate our new rosters, regimens, resolutions, and budgets for 2022, we ought to give an account of the three-hundred and sixty-something days we were given.

For me, 2021 has been liberating. Liberating because I’ve distanced myself (through God’s saving grace) from mentally and physically debilitating situations that I was crippled by for years by the very people I entrusted my life to. It’s been very liberating to finally let go of the need to please anybody but myself. It’s been liberating to finally learn the differences between nice and kind and choose to exercise the latter more. It’s been liberating to finally summon the courage to do and be a lot of things (for the sake of my newborn) that I wouldn’t dare to do or be in the first place.

How about you? What is the one word you’d use to sum up your year 2021? Did you accomplish any of your resolutions?

It’s so easy to jot down or mentally map out a list of behaviors or habits to cultivate or abolish as a new year approaches, but the real hard work comes from actively working towards accomplishing the set resolutions.

What I do to remind me of my resolutions each year and adhere to them is to write them down on a piece of paper. At the end of each month, I go over the paper as I engage in a fasting and praying session to kick-start a new month. That way, I incorporate them in my prayers and ask for the grace to keep doing what I’ve slated.

It keeps me in tune with what I said I’d do, be, or work on. It also helps me evaluate my progress.

Which of your prayers for this year got answered?

I understand it’s not in our powers to have our prayers answered. All we can do is ask and hope to receive from God or the universe. But guess what, we always have more than one thing we ask for although there are more pressing ones. Knowing this, can we account for at least one prayer that was answered? Just one little prayer point. Are we grateful that it came, for the time it came, and how too? Or do we wish it differently?

Did you achieve greater progress? Did you achieve greater elevation? What about independence? Peace of mind? Friends? Family? A lover?

When we decipher this, it will help us to stay spiritually connected to who we serve. It’ll enable us to be grateful for what has been accomplished and hopeful for what’s to come.

What has this year prepared you in advance for?

The common trite is that everything happens for a reason, yet we forget to squeeze the little ounce of wisdom dripping from that. If you hadn’t gone through what you did this year, you wouldn’t be better prepared for next year. The courage I’ve built from this year will help me soar higher, above the challenges ahead – in motherhood and career-wise.

The pain I’ve been through from getting rejected by my loved ones will propel me to stand on my own and work towards obtaining independence from every cadre I always sought.

There’s something this year’s ordeal has taught you to better prepare you for the upcoming year. Figure it out so you can align yourself with all it entails to sail smoothly in 2022.

It’s exciting to anticipate a new year while forgetting all that’s happened in the past one simply because they’re in the past, right? But the trite that says the past somewhat determines the future holds water for when it comes to giving an account of how we’ve lived this year and how to navigate the upcoming year.

We can’t move forward unless we’ve determined the steps to take to do so , evaluated how far we’ve come , the how’s, why’s, which’s, where’s, when’s of our actions.. This is what giving an account looks like. That is what it takes to match into the new year more aware and, most importantly, ready.

Get into the new year prepared, don’t be caught unawares by the very things you should have at the tip of your fingers.