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It’s the way people rate me, because omor… sometimes I’m genuinely scared of the pedestal my friends place me on. Like yes, I know I’m an impressive young person, but I’m literally still an average teenager. (Maybe not so average, but you get the point.)

So I’m participating in a poetry contest. The task is simple: record a poem and submit it. Now, I already had a poem. A really good one, if I do say so myself. The last time I posted it, it got a lot of applause and people could relate to it, so I decided to use that same poem.

I made the video, but I wasn’t feeling it, so I made another video, same poem, same vibe. Still, something felt off.

That was when I consulted a friend, and she told me it didn’t sound like me. Then she said, and I quote: “This poem sounds lost. You’re Favour Okwanyionu, you’re anything but lost.”

And in my head I was like… “Na so you rate me?” i’m anything but lost, ke? 

But it genuinely got me thinking, and it pushed me to consider writing something that felt more authentically me.

Dearest reader, low-key, people are watching, they’re observing, absorbing, and forming conclusions about the kind of person you are. I mean, it’s a human thing to do.

But the bigger question is: what do you give off? What kind of memory do you leave behind when you enter a room? How would people describe you when your name comes up in a conversation?

I know we like to say it doesn’t matter what people think about us, and I agree… to an extent. Because there’s a degree to which it actually matters.

I read somewhere that if one person has something bad to say about you, you can ignore it. But if 80% of people have the same complaint about you, then maybe it’s time to look inward and ask yourself what you’re doing wrong.

And honestly, I think that’s valid.

Not in the sense that you should live for validation, or start shrinking yourself to be liked.

But in the sense that you should never be so obsessed with being “yourself” that you become deaf to correction. Because at the end of the day, the people closest to us usually know us best.

And sometimes, the way they see us is a mirror we didn’t know we needed. 

@favvy_Okwans🖤.