Favvy_Okwans🖤

So I had a bad phone day today. I got to work with duties piled up, but my phone adamantly refused to charge. I was upset because I had things to do. However, I decided to let it be, hoping it would charge eventually, which led to me sleeping for several hours. On a Monday? Doesn't sound like something I’d do. But waking up after much-needed rest, I was grateful I had rested. My body needed it. You know that thing where you intentionally overwork yourself because you want to get things off your mind? I was almost drowning in the sea of a lot I had intentionally placed myself in. And the phone not charging at that point felt like the universe compelling me to take a break, which I did (ps: my phone is currently 100%, yes, it later charged). Dearest reader, you see how my phone humbled me into getting the rest I needed? Very demure. But seriously, take a break every now and then to avoid crashing out. Also, busying yourself to avoid the things you are not ready to confron...

Is This Wisdom Don't just throw words. There's this thing I came across recently. It read, "Guess who's going through a lot right now? Everybody! Be kind." The simple art of being mindful of the words you throw at someone is a level of kindness everyone should cultivate. Do you know what words are? What they could do? Words are powerful, and once said, they cannot be taken back. You only have control over what you say. The impact, the ripple effect, and everything in between are things you have no control over. Dearest reader, if you are not building someone up with your words, keep it abeg. Or at least, learn diplomacy. Speaking of diplomacy, I once worked with the most diplomatic lady ever. One time, I did something very foolish, and rather than point it out harshly, madam called me calmly and said, "Favour, is this wisdom?" It was obviously not a wise thing to do, which led to reflection and ensuring avoidance next time. What are you saying, and how a...

In secondary school, we were all part of this club called the “Jet Club.” It was for science students, and we usually just went there to show off the new things we had learnt. So, there was this zonal meeting we attended outside our school one time. I can still vividly remember how we left there feeling so un-smart, the supposed bests of our school. Mehn! One of the questions that stood out for Ava that day was when a student asked who knew the Rutherford comment on the observation noted. We were all lost. We had never come across it before, in all our years of studying chemistry. So, when someone answered, quoting a long statement that sounded so dope, we were wowed. On getting back to our school, Ava swore to learn it. Fast forward to the next day, she put us through the stress of locating the said statement, only for us to realise it wasn’t even a scientific law or anything that grand. It was just someone’s statement explaining experimental results. This didn’t stop Ava ...

I can't think of one thing I enjoy more than reading, and by reading, I mean African literature. It is soothing as it resonates deeply with me. Sometimes it is an escape from my own reality, where I get to judge characters however I see fit. In the words of Kingatha, "To Favour, reading is a sport." Today, as I escaped the walls of my office space and jumped right into that of my novel characters, the world around me went quiet. A few minutes into my read, I was engrossed in a character’s action. The said character was blind to reality, she was not thinking things through, and it would cost her too much before she realized it. I was so pained I felt like giving the character a resounding slap to bring her back to reality, to make her see that, "Madam! Chairlady! You are not thinking." However, I couldn’t. So I closed the book in defeat, doing my typical "I’m not reading this book again" routine whenever the characters act foolishly. Lol. I ...

"At the height of emotion a man loses his sense of reasoning"  This is not just a saying. Yes, I have previously used the above axiom a couple of times, but not until now did I scratch the surface. But you know why? Why and how do we end up saying things we do not truly understand in their entirety? It is because we like packaged information. Fancy quotes that seem to make sense, even when we do not understand the sense they carry. While there is packaged information (fancy and eloquent), there is also processed information (analyzed and broken down). And like Mr Pojo puts it, the gap between these two is reasoning. So it works like this: Packaged Information + Reasoning = Processed Information. An example of packaged information is what we hear, what we are told, and most times, what we read. It is often catchy. But without the application of reasoning, it cannot shape our lives, influence our understanding, or affect how we do things. It takes reasoning to process informati...

Many times we forget that we are living in an answered prayer. Somebody reached out to me today and congratulated me on a recent milestone, reminding me of how hard I had worked to achieve it and pointing out how proud I must be to finally get it. Only then did it dawn on me how ungrateful I have been. I had forgotten just how much I once desired it. When we want something, we do not stop crying out to God for it. We are consumed by it. Yet the moment we receive it, we move on to the next thing to worry about. Dearest reader, here is a reminder to pause. You have done well. Look how far God has brought you. Life gets busy. It is one ordeal after another. We barely celebrate our wins before we sink into another challenge. It does not necessarily get easier, but guess who gets better? You! Next time you are having a bad day, think back to what you have survived, to where God has brought you, and to how beautifully you are becoming. @favvy_Okwans🖤.