Favvy_Okwans🖤

"Not every battle is between good and evil. Some are between good and what merely looks like it", ~ X In the words of Pojomatics, there's evil, there's good, and then there's pseudo good. We all know what evil is, but let's look at it from the Hebrew perspective. The Hebrew word often translated as evil is rah. Depending on the context, it can mean evil, disaster, adversity, harm, or ruin. On the other hand, the Hebrew word for good is tov, which describes something that functions as it should and promotes life, beauty, and well being. These are two extremes. But what if I told you there's another side? The Pseudo X. It could be pseudo good or pseudo evil. I find this concept fascinating because pseudo good seems to exist somewhere between good and evil. It appears to be a middle ground, but it's a false one, and that's exactly what makes it dangerous. So what is pseudo good? It is that which wears the appearance of tov while being rah ...

"You're always the victim or the hero in your own story." ~ X One of the most fascinating things about human beings is that we rarely experience reality as it is. We experience it as we perceive it. When we look back at a situation, we don't always see what actually happened. We see what happened through the lens of our emotions, assumptions, experiences, and blind spots. Your perception of what happened is not always what happened. Maybe that's why we're almost always the good person in our own narration. We tell the story in a way that makes our intentions obvious and our mistakes understandable. We explain away our actions because, to us, they make sense. I offended a friend recently, for days, I was upset that they hadn't reached out to me. In my version of the story, I was the one who had been wronged, then we finally had a conversation. That was when it dawned on me that I had been the villain, not by intention, but by my actions. The impact of what ...

For the past few weeks, I have been dealing with an issue with my WAEC date of birth. One tiny error meant I had to update almost every official document I own. It has had me moving from office to office, getting lost and finding my way again almost every Eke market day. The frustrating part is that everything had to be sorted before my exams. And if you've ever tried correcting an error in Nigeria, you already know the drill. It takes time, the process is tedious, and by the end of it, you're stressed out. I had already gone through several major stages of the process. Today was the final one, my JAMB change of data. Now, I had heard all sorts of horror stories about the JAMB office in Benin. Stories of people arriving by 7 a.m only to leave by 8 p.m, stories of endless queues, frustration, and wasted days. Naturally, I dreaded going. It didn't help that I woke up around 6am, when I should have been leaving by 6:30. To make matters worse, I almost got lost agai...

"I have a terrible habit of leaving things unsaid for the sake of peace." ~ X The fact is, this is completely unnecessary. Often, when we leave things unsaid for the so called sake of peace, what follows isn't peace at all. It only breeds loathing in the one who had so much to say but chose silence, and oblivion in the one who assumes everything is fine simply because they were never confronted. I hate confrontation. Truly, I do. But if I do something wrong, please confront me. It'll be a hard pill to swallow, but I'd rather swallow a bitter pill than unknowingly keep hurting someone I care about. In the same vein, if you do something that hurts me, I'll tell you. Not because I want to fight, but because I don't want resentment to find a home in my heart. I've learned that the quickest way to let go of hurt is to bring it into the open. The conversations we avoid today often become the bitterness we carry tomorrow. Peace isn't the absen...

"You need more than enthusiasm or motivation." ~ X Dearest reader, they say when the going gets tough, the tough get going. One day, the enthusiasm will fade, the motivation will wear off. Eventually, it will be just you and your dreams against the world. And in those moments, life will test whether you truly mean business. Starting is difficult, incredibly difficult. But truth be told, it's the simplest kind of difficult you'll ever experience. A friend of mine recently complained that his head felt like it would fall off because of the amount of planning he's doing for a project he's working on. The first thing that came to my mind was this: one day, he'll look back and realize that planning was the easiest part. The deeper you go, the harder it gets. Every new level demands a stronger version of you than the last. There will be days that test your patience, shake your conviction, and make you question whether you know what you're doing at all. Those...

"If you saw the greatest in me and chose to stick with me, then it was a privilege for you. You didn't do me a favour." ~ X One of the strangest forms of entitlement is believing that believing in someone automatically makes you indispensable to their story. Somehow, we've convinced ourselves that sticking with people, supporting them, or seeing their potential means we've done them some extraordinary favour. That without us, they wouldn't have become who they are. But that's such a narrow way to see relationships. If anything, walking alongside someone as they grow is one of life's greatest privileges. You get front row seats to their becoming, you witness prayers turn into testimonies, you watch discipline become excellence, small beginnings become remarkable stories, and dreams slowly take shape. If you're paying attention, their growth should spill over into your own, it should challenge you. Inspire you, propel you towards becoming better your...