Favvy_Okwans🖤

I was recently gifted Canva Pro, and you wouldn't believe that I've been having a hard time creating designs. I know it sounds crazy, but as a Canva designer, one of my greatest dreams was to get Canva Pro. I imagined that since I already did fairly well with the free version, having access to Pro would completely transform my designs. I would have access to better templates, finer elements, and more creative freedom. No more restricting my ideas because I couldn't access a particular template or feature. But that wasn't exactly what happened. The moment I got Canva Pro, I became utterly indecisive. Suddenly, I had access to an overwhelming number of templates, elements, fonts and possibilities. Instead of making magic, I panicked. I couldn't decide where to start, I would scroll through template after template, searching for the perfect one, and somehow end up creating nothing. I couldn't figure it out. Why was I suddenly design paralyzed? The more ...

Not Every Story Goes the Way We Think It doesn't always end with a happily ever after. The people you believed would be there no matter what could eventually turn their backs on you, and it's totally fine. If anything, it's just life. Life happens every day, and each day comes with its own surprises. I have always been big on friendships. My bubugaga would say I carry them on top of my head like government work, and she would always warn me to protect myself because friendship breakups can be the most painful, especially for people who are deeply invested, like I am. At the time, I didn't get it, I believed I was the exception, “Not my friends", “We're going to be forever” that kind of yada. But the thing with shortsighted is that you learn quickly, and if you're stubborn like me, you'll fight for the friendship with everything you've got. You'll chase the “Why us?” and ask, “We're supposed to do life together na”. And maybe that's the h...

“What you want to do is overrated.” ~ Eric Guaga I was watching a YouTube video by Eric Guaga today when he made the statement above, and I had to pause. In a world where we are constantly told to do what we want and pursue our dreams, he was saying the opposite. Do what you have to do. Leave what you want to do for later. Oftentimes, what we want to do is subjective. It is shaped by our environment, conditioning, exposure, and a lot more. As we gain more insight and acquire more knowledge, our perspectives can change. The things we once wanted may no longer appeal to us. So perhaps we shouldn't be in such a hurry to do what we want to do at the expense of what we have to do. Most times, what you have to do is annoying, tedious, uninteresting, not your thing, or simply not your preference. But in the long run, if you stick with it and do it well, it may take you exactly where you want to be. Growing up, I wanted to be so many things at so many different points in my life. And every...

After such a crazy weekend, Monday also came with its own wahala and in between losing my shi, my bubugaga called and an hour later I was all smiles. Sometimes, you need a really good conversation. Sometimes, it doesn't take much to feel better because after that call, all that was bothering me wasn't exactly solved immediately, but I felt so light. Dearest reader, it gets hard every now and then, hence it is necessary to have people you can unravel to, people you can come undone to and before saying a word they know exactly how you want to be comforted. I like to say, life is already hard, imagine doing it alone? You'll just craze, no jokes. My bubugaga re echoed something during our call and it was, "You can't figure it all out by yourself." Man was never designed to do life alone. You don't know it all, and sometimes strength looks like asking for help. So cherish your people. Call them back. Let them hold your hand when the road gets rough, and don...

 “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.” — Proverbs 13:12 There's nothing more annoying than being given false hope. You know that moment when you eagerly look forward to something, hold on to the possibility of it, and then it doesn't work out? In that moment, it honestly feels like the world should just end. That's exactly how I felt today. I was actually doing okay, content, even. Then I was given the possibility of getting my phone fixed today. I was genuinely excited because, low-key, being phone-less sucks. The moment I believed it could actually happen, I suddenly had this extra spring in my step. It's funny how hope can instantly change your mood. Well, at the end of the day, it didn't happen. Omor, I was so sad, sadder than I had been when the phone first got damaged. That's what hope does. It lifts you up, and when it's suddenly taken away, the fall feels even harder. Please don't sell me false hope. The...

 You can’t fall below the ground ke? You don’t even know that rock bottom has a basement. Just when I think, "You know what? I’ve seen the worst of it," boom, the universe unveils another level of it. It’s actually crazy. Tell me why I was being grateful that my tragedy was finally small enough to fit on the tip of my tongue, and then boom, my phone decides to go blind out of nowhere, a week before my exams. At this point, I don’t even have the strength to be sad, cry, or get angry. I’m just like, "Dear universe, Migwor" It’s not even funny, but I can’t help laughing. The craziest part? I don’t know how, but somehow I’m sure I’ll be fine. Dearest reader, this is merely a vent from an apparently heartbroken girl. I have no profound insight to share with thee today. Better luck next time. Anyways, if you think you’re going through a lot, just remember, it really can get worse. Like, mad worse. Things can go south so fast the contrast feels like day and night. Ciao. @f...

"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...

"The me I see is the me I'll become." ~ X I've always been heavy on self perception like mahd. I was watching a YouTube video today when the YouTuber said something that completely blew my mind. He said, and I quote, "The strongest part of the human mind is the need to maintain consistency with our identity." It was such a gbam! moment. Not because it was a new concept, but because it confirmed one of my deepest axioms. One question I always ask people is, "How do you see you?" because everything that's possible for you stems from how you see yourself. We are constantly trying to stay consistent with the kind of person we believe we are. People often tell me I'm tenacious, and over time I've found myself sticking things out simply because I've come to believe that's the kind of person I am. In the same way, as the clock inches toward dusk, I know I'll write because I'm the sort of person who writes every day. Did you cat...

You see that thing they say, "When the rain stops falling the umbrella becomes a burden", I practically experienced it firsthand today. Lol. It has been raining up and down for a while now. Just this week I've gotten home drenched up to two times, and today I knew it'd be no different if I didn't take an umbrella. Sure enough, it started drizzling and I was covered. On my way back from school though, the weather had completely cleared, so the umbrella was practically useless and, apparently, a burden. As at the morning it was such a lifesaver, but afterward it was just something added to my stress. It made me think about how quickly our perspective changes. The very thing I couldn't stop appreciating a few hours ago became the same thing I was complaining about carrying. Not because it had changed, but because my circumstances had. It's just like I say quite often, how we don't realize the extent of the promise we're making while we're making t...

It's a lie when I said it was no big deal. Trust me, I was trying to be brave when I said, "We win some, we lose some." I woke up in the middle of the night clutching my chest because I couldn't breathe properly. Later, I cried myself to sleep because the possibility of what if simply wouldn't leave me. I participated in an essay writing competition recently. If you know me, you'll know my writing means the world to me. For me, it isn't just words on a blank page. It is soul to paper. It is pouring out the entirety of my being, unraveling every part of myself and laying it bare. I had plenty of time to write the essay, but I wouldn't be Favour Okwanyionu if I didn't leave things until the last minute. About a week before the deadline, I finally became serious about my research because I was writing on a topic I had little prior knowledge of. Eventually, my essay was ready. Because it meant so much to me, I was intentional. I was meticulous. I remem...

"There's something about falling so many times that the floor starts to feel like home." ~ X The worst kind of failure isn't the one that knocks you down. It's the one that teaches you to stay down. You've failed so much that you slowly begin to comply with it, you stop expecting things to work out, you stop dreaming as loudly, you stop trying as hard because, somehow, you've convinced yourself that disappointment is simply your portion. It's like discovering there's a basement beneath rock bottom, and deciding to furnish it. At first, every setback hurts. You cry, you question everything, you promise yourself you'll never let it happen again. Then it happens again. And again. Then one day, you don't even react anymore. You just dust yourself off and think, "Here we go again." It's funny how humans can adapt to almost anything, even disappointment. Maybe that's why some people never leave the floor. Not because they enjoy ...

I'm hardly a football fan, but one thing I deeply admire about the sport is the passion it inspires. The World Cup is currently ongoing, and you don't even have to watch a match to feel the tension. It's almost electrifying. I remember coming online and seeing that Egypt was leading. Omor I knew it wasn't going to be easy for Messi fans. I was still in transit then, but by the time I got home, I was shocked to discover that Argentina hadn't just equalised, they had gone on to win. Everywhere was alive. One sport having that much impact is astonishing because, damn. On the roads, in the streets, in viewing centres, everywhere possible, people were shouting, celebrating, and basking in the joy of the victory. That's what I envy about football. That's what draws me to it, the raw passion, the unfiltered excitement, the unwavering loyalty. Someone even said they didn't need to eat anymore that night because Messi had already satisfied them. Another joked tha...

A lot of things could be avoided if we just talked. That was the realization I came to today. I had a little quarrel with one of my favorite people, and for a few days we were at odds. It was such a weird feeling because this is literally the person who vets almost all my edits. I'd finish editing something, instinctively want to send it across, then remember we weren't exactly talking, and I'd just keep my phone. I don't keep grudges, that's too much work. I don't even let the sun set on my anger. I'm usually quick to be the bigger person. So as the days passed, I realized I wasn't angry anymore. Hurt? A little. Disappointed? Maybe. But angry? Not anymore. The problem was that we'd both said things in anger, and pride made it difficult to admit that maybe we had gone too far. We both knew something needed to be fixed, but neither of us wanted to be the first to lower our guard. As we finally made efforts to sort things out, it hit me that almost eve...

"What shapes you isn't what you want to become. It's the journey into who you want to become." ~ IAMP Sometimes, the process is frustrating. It's slow, uncomfortable, and can feel completely unnecessary, but that's exactly where the gold lies. I like to say that when it gets really hard, hold on a little longer. It might just be the point where things are about to change. Because in the end, it isn't really about the destination. It's about the process that gets you there. I remember when I decided I wanted to become a writer. I got a coach, excited to start learning how to write better. Instead of jumping straight into writing, he took me through a process. At the time, it honestly felt like pure wickedness. I couldn't understand why we had to spend so much time on drills that didn't seem to have anything to do with writing. Looking back now, I understand how priceless that process was. At the end of the day, it wasn't talent alone that sh...