The Uncomfortable Work of Knowing Yourself
The simply complex thing about self-reflection is that it can be calm and quiet, but it can also be invasive and sometimes difficult. You don’t get to decide which version you get. Many times, it decides for you.
Amongst all the things that go into being a fully functioning adult is knowing yourself. And knowing yourself can mean many things. Oftentimes, it takes a life event or a punctuated incident to make you pause, reassess, and then decide who you are. Who you really are.
For many people, you can coast through much of life with the same knowledge of the last-reviewed version of yourself.
What do I mean by that?
You can end up in a situation where you believe you know who you are, but you’re functioning off an outdated version. A version from years prior that you’ve simply carried forward, even as the parts of your life around you change and evolve.
Why do I say this?
Because I was in that scenario.
I felt like I knew who I was based on the context of who I needed to be at a particular time in my life. Maybe it came from the world I was in, the challenges I was facing, or the season I was navigating.
But this year, and honestly probably the last two years, have started to invite me into a conversation about the new me.
And it’s not pretty.
It’s not pretty because I am challenging the notions of who I said I was to myself. There are parts of me that I believed were a particular way, and upon review, I’m realizing maybe I’m not so sure. Maybe I’m not so certain that certain areas of my life are as locked in as I once thought.
In this particular discussion, I’m talking about everything from my discipline to narcissism, anxiety, trauma, and things of that nature.
It’s interesting because this post is actually coming to you a little bit after my mid-year review. And the mid-year review is interesting because it forced me to have some conversations around certain areas of my life.
Some of them were pillars I never thought would be questioned.
For example, I—and most people around me—would say I’m a very disciplined person. Sometimes they’ll say that because of the amount of discipline I’ve applied to my work or my fitness. I show up every day.
But I can see behind the scenes. I can see the things you guys don’t see.
And this is an honest place for us to share various things, so I’ll share this with you.
I love a sweet treat after dinner.
I love it.
Since I moved to Texas, my biggest one has been my cookie-stuffed cookies from the farmer’s market. They usually come with a scoop or two of ice cream, and they are so delicious. They feel good. They taste good.
And in those 15 or 20 minutes, nothing matters.
But I also know that I’ve just consumed arguably 300% of the amount of sugar I’m supposed to consume in one day in one sitting.
Now, I don’t have it every day. In fact, I’ve had to replace it with other things. But if someone asked me what I would finish dinner with, the options would probably be:
Number one: a warm cookie with ice cream on top.
Number two: a Magnum white chocolate ice cream bar.
Number three: gari, sugar, and milk with groundnuts.
Number four: a bowl of cereal.
I usually just want something sweet and milky to finish the evening.
It doesn’t happen every day. It doesn’t need to happen every day. And I’m okay with the fact that those are the choices I’ve made.
But I also know I’d probably be much closer to my fitness and body goals if I didn’t assume that those choices had no impact.
Another reason I know I’m not at my fitness goals is stress.
I know I’m stressed.
There’s a stress that comes from work, from being overworked. There’s stress that comes from things in my personal life. There’s stress that comes from family. There’s stress that comes from interpersonal relationships.
I have less of some of those now, probably because I’ve gotten better at isolating myself and removing myself from scenarios or situations that I believe bring me unhappiness or discomfort.
One of the beautiful things about maturity is being able to see a problem from a distance and make a conscious decision not to allow it to influence you, affect you, or lay claim to your happiness.
So, with that being said, my discipline in those first two areas, in terms of consistency, is accurate.
But I also know I don’t have the consistency I want with praying or reading my Bible, or in some of the other areas that matter to me, including taking care of my mental health.
There have been conversations I’ve had over the last few months and weeks around positioning myself for a better future.
I’ve made many mistakes in my young life, thankfully none too critical. I’ve hurt people that I love. I’ve hurt myself by attempting—or believing—that I was protecting people that I love.
I’ve hurt people by not being as transparent or honest about things going on. I’ve used white lies, no lies, silence, or some combination of all of the above.
I know the impact I’ve had in the spaces I occupy.
Now, the chapter I’m in is intensely focused on not repeating some of those mistakes.
I’m careful about not reintegrating into things that have either broken me or caused friction in my life previously.
And it’s hard.
Oh, it is hard.
Which brings me back to the conversation I started around re-evaluating yourself.
There was a time when I was serially dating.
I was talking to multiple women at the same time, trying to figure out in my mind who I thought was the right person for me. I would do pros and cons. I would evaluate how I felt with this person. I would evaluate the possibility of a future with this person or that person.
It got to a point in my life where I realized none of that works.
There was also a season in my life where I was the king of long-distance relationships.
People don’t realize this whenever I say it, but since around 2014, I have almost exclusively been in long-distance relationships.
Not always by choice.
But then I realized it was by choice to a certain degree.
I was so protective of my personal space that I wanted a way to be in a relationship where there was always some distance. Three or four days here, a week here at most, and at the end of the day, you go to your house and I go to mine.
That doesn’t serve me anymore.
That version of a relationship doesn’t serve me anymore.
And it brings me angst every day.
I wake up wanting to do things. I want to explore the world with my person in tow.
That’s not to say I’m not happy with my current life setup.
I am.
But you can be happy and still crave or want more than what you currently have.
Not in a completely invasive way.
Going back to the serial dating thing, I feel like I can share this from a place of growth and honesty, but also from a place of transparency.
Some of that was rooted in narcissism.
I knew who I was. I knew what I held. I knew who I was as a man in today’s society. I knew the values that I brought. I knew the value I brought into the life of someone I was dating or interested in.
But at some point, I still needed external validation.
For a long time, words of affirmation was my number one love language.
And the reason it was is because I needed to be told that I was valued and important.
That was primarily because I grew up in a household where that proclamation of greatness or value wasn’t something that was outwardly spoken about.
You weren’t told that you were great.
You weren’t told that you were smart.
You weren’t told that you were talented.
I don’t remember hearing those things from my parents or from those around me.
I don’t ever remember a teacher looking at me and going, “Wow.”
The first time I ever felt valued—and anybody who went to secondary school with me and was in my class that’s reading this would remember this incident—was when I left my small school in Mayflower, Ikenne, and transferred to Redeemer’s High School.
I was in Yoruba class.
I had grown up with my grandparents, so I had learned Yoruba and was pretty good at it. I ended up being one of the top students in Yoruba.
I remember the first day we had Yoruba lesson. Our teacher asked us some questions in Yoruba, and we had an exercise. I was answering everything so easily, and she was so impressed.
The whole class was like, “Oh, wow. This new kid is a Yoruba guru.”
People started coming to me for help with Yoruba lessons and things of that nature.
And honestly, it felt fantastic.
It felt so nice to be valued for just being.
The challenge that also came with that was realizing that if your validation comes from external influences or external pillars, you will always go back to seek it.
The conversation around love and importance for a lot of men, especially a lot of Nigerian or Black men, is that you connect your value to what you bring to the people around you. What you bring to your family. What you bring to your friends. How you help them. How they feel like you’re showing up for them.
Most of who you are becomes connected simply to that.
But at the same time, you are more than that.
So, if you haven’t done the exercise of learning yourself internally, you seek that validation elsewhere.
And if you happen to be half-decently attractive or have a little bit of money, a little bit of swag, a little class, or whatever the case may be, it can come from women. It can come from external sources.
For a long time, the validation wasn’t necessarily from women.
I wanted it from my job.
I wanted my manager to tell me I did a good job.
If I got critical feedback, it would bother me because, in my mind, who were they to think I was less than because of the work I was doing?
I had to be excellent.
I had to be this or that to feel that value.
And you carry that into some of the other pockets of your life—your relationships, your friendships, your romantic relationships.
You’re looking for that thing.
It’s the reason why you have some people who go into certain relationships, or you watch Pop the Balloon, for example, and someone says, “I didn’t feel the spark immediately. It just wasn’t there.”
And you ask yourself: What is that spark?
What does that mean?
For some people, it’s the thing that allows that pocket within them that needs to be filled to feel filled.
If it isn’t filled in that moment, they feel like something is missing.
So you find yourself trying to satisfy that forever.
And it becomes an incredible drug.
You are constantly looking for something outside of yourself to make you feel valued.
And that’s where the therapy comes in.
That’s where the conversation around learning yourself and loving yourself comes in.
I remember when I started working with my therapist a couple of years ago.
Oh my God, it was humbling.
There was an exercise she had us do one time where she said, “I want you to wake up every day and say something nice that you like about yourself.”
Every single day.
Oh God, I hated that exercise.
I absolutely hated it.
I would say things like, “I love my nose. I love my head.”
It felt so juvenile.
It just didn’t feel natural. It didn’t feel exciting either because I was never raised like that.
I was never raised to appreciate those things about myself.
If anything, I wasn’t raised to appreciate them for myself, within myself. I wanted them to be appreciated by the person I liked, the person who liked me, or the people around me.
Sometimes today, when somebody hits on me and I’m not moved by it, a lot of times it’s because I feel like I’ve gotten to the point where I actually do know who I am a little bit more.
But I still ask myself: To what end?
What is the reason for this feeling?
What is the reason for soliciting this thing?
And sometimes you don’t even have to ask for it.
Sometimes it’s just given to you.
There was a time in my life when everybody knew that I loved smelling good.
I would put on a nice outfit, put on a nice cologne combination, go outside, and then come back in thinking, “Wow, I went outside and nobody said I smelled good.”
Nobody said this or that.
And it was like, why do you need that?
Why isn’t it enough that you feel that for yourself and already appreciate that within yourself?
That has taken some work.
It has taken some self-reflection.
It has taken some self-understanding.
But I know what it means now.
I know what it means when my body is asking for certain things.
I know what it means when I’m distancing myself because I’m seeking something.
That’s where that comes from.
I’m also able to recognize that I’m in a season of my life where I need less to be more.
Maybe I can hear myself getting ready for long-term commitment in terms of marriage or something like that.
I just want to be able to cook dinner with the woman I love and watch a movie. Listen to our playlist. See the world.
The next 40 countries I want to see, I definitely don’t want to see them alone.
I’d love to do that with the person I’m building that forever future with.
But at the same time, I need to understand that it starts inside, with me being content.
Shout out to one of my best friends who, a few years ago, told me I needed to be comfortable being alone.
And for a few months, I was strictly in that space.
Matter of fact, I was so intentional about it.
I didn’t want anything serious. I didn’t want to be with anyone.
I just wanted the opportunity to fall deeper in love with me.
To understand what I like.
To understand who I am outside of the noise. Outside of my career. Outside of this blog. Outside of editing videos for you guys online. Outside of all those things.
The wordsmith.
Someone who can sing.
Someone who can cook.
Yeah, those are all great.
Those are all things you guys see.
But when the lights are dim and you’re alone, who are you?
What brings you joy?
What fills you up?
What does all of that for you?
That’s a question I’ve had to ask over the last two and a half, going on three years.
The answers aren’t always pretty.
There was a time in my life when my stress levels were so high that I was self-medicating.
I’m not going to go into the specifics, but I think all of you here are smart enough to read between the lines.
Almost every night, I would indulge in something that made me calmer, made me less anxious, and made it a little easier to engage with the world because I wasn’t facing my sorrows.
I wasn’t facing the challenges I had.
I wasn’t facing where I was lacking.
And that brings me to something else: the super intense value that needs to come from who you are partnering with.
I think I grew up in a household where I didn’t have a voice to speak up.
It wasn’t just the household. I think it was also much of our culture, where you were meant to just be a good kid.
Good kid.
Do well in school.
Do all the things you need to do.
Don’t rock the boat.
Don’t be disrespectful.
In many cases, expressing your feelings, displeasure, or discontent about certain things was seen as disrespect.
So you end up largely quiet, largely silent, largely accepting of everything that’s happening.
Because who are you to speak against your family?
I have been through certain things in my life—in romantic relationships, personal friendships, and things of that nature—that I have never spoken about to anyone.
Because in my mind, I believed that transferring or opening that box would make the person I love, or the person who loves me, sad.
So it was my responsibility to hold all of that within.
And I know some of this is deeply connected to being a firstborn child.
It was my responsibility to hold it all.
Do not put that on the people you love and care about.
And you can do that for a while.
But then what ends up happening is that silence and resentment go together.
I want you to understand this today:
Silence is the healthy soil that resentment grows in.
I’ll say that again in case you missed it.
Silence is the healthy soil that resentment grows and thrives in.
It will germinate. It will grow. It will thrive in that space of silence where you don’t speak and don’t talk about what your needs are, what the gaps are, or what the opportunities are, for whatever reason.
Some people don’t speak on anything because they want to weaponize it and use it against people they love or people who love them.
I don’t believe that was the cornerstone for me.
Mine was more so this:
Have you ever been in a scenario where somebody hurts your feelings by doing something that hits an area that’s important to you?
Dependability is a big one for me.
Let’s say I ask you to help me with something.
You say, “Sure, I’ll help you.”
Cool.
I say, “Hey, at eight o’clock, can you please do X?”
You say, “Yes, I will do X at eight o’clock.”
Eight o’clock comes.
You don’t do it.
And then, in many cases, you have a story as to why you didn’t do it.
Now, most people know what I’m about to say.
Imagine the person then asks you:
“Hey, are you upset?”
No shit, Sherlock.
Of course I’m upset.
But what’s the missing part of all of that?
The missing part is when the person then asks you to explain what it is that made you upset.
I don’t know if anybody else feels the same way, but I hate that.
I absolutely hate it.
Because I’m thinking, you already knew that this upset me.
Rehashing it is even more upsetting because you could have just avoided it.
It could have been avoided.
You know it could have been avoided.
And now you’re making me relive that experience.
I don’t enjoy that.
So for me, a lot of times, what that ends up looking like is silence.
And remember what I said earlier about silence and resentment?
Hand in hand.
I’m like, “No, it’s okay. Whatever. Just let it go. Calm. It’s fine.”
But it’s not fine.
Because then the next thing happens.
And the next thing after that happens.
And the next thing after that happens.
And all of a sudden, you can’t stand the presence of this person.
You don’t want to speak with this person.
You don’t want to spend time with this person.
All of those things start to grow.
And you start to find yourself.
For me, a lot of times, what that ends up looking like is silence.
And remember what I said earlier about silence and resentment? They go hand in hand.
So I’m like, “Nah, it’s okay. Whatever. Just let it go.”
Calm. It’s fine.
But it’s not fine.
Because then the next thing happens, and the next thing after that, and the next thing after that. And all of a sudden, you can’t stand the presence of this person. You don’t want to speak with them. You don’t want to spend time with them.
And all of those things start to grow.
You start to find yourself more and more displeased, more and more unhappy in that scenario.
So one thing I’ve learned about myself today is that I have to speak up.
Now, there is also a fine balance. I don’t ever want to sound like a nag. I don’t want to feel like I have to repeat the same thing over and over again.
So, for me, a lot of times it’s simply:
“Hey, this upset me.”
Or:
“This didn’t make me happy.”
I also feel like I require the people in my life, my friendships, and the people who occupy space in my life to understand that this is the level of commitment I’m comfortable with when it comes to my feelings.
I’m happy to tell you that whatever you did hurt my feelings and this is how I feel.
But I don’t necessarily want to do more than that.
I don’t want to have to talk about it three, four, or five times because you don’t seem to understand that something is truly hurtful, or that something doesn’t make me feel loved or seen.
So before, I would be quiet.
Now, I will speak on it.
But I also speak on it strategically.
“Hey, this is how I feel about this thing. I want you to know.”
And then I leave them with the responsibility to do with that information what they will.
That’s part of the work.
That’s part of the growth.
That’s part of the journey we’re talking about.
Now, I don’t think I’ve slept well in many months. Most nights, I wake up multiple times a night.
There’s a lot on my mind.
My future is on my mind. My immediate future is on my mind.
For many months, I was worried about everything from buying my house, my car, saving enough money, being ready for emergencies, retirement, family—all of it.
And ladies and gentlemen, somebody’s tired.
I have probably cried more than I ever have in my life over the last two years.
I have so much within my heart that I’m asking God for.
I have so much that I’m praying for.
And many times, it feels like waiting is just so hard.
Waiting feels so challenging because you pray these prayers and you don’t know if they’re going to translate into what you’re necessarily seeking from God.
I’m not confused about whether God is listening. I know God is listening.
I just don’t know if that translates into the thing I’m asking for.
I’m asking, “Hey, I’m asking for this thing. Will I or shall I be getting this thing?”
I don’t know.
And sometimes I ask myself whether happiness is going to come from this particular pocket of my life.
Whether it’s clarity around my transition here, clarity around my house, the big life events, clarity around my life partner, or my overall future.
Future safety and coverage for my parents. Happiness for my siblings and my friends.
You carry all of these burdens and all of these feelings in your heart.
And it is exhausting.
It is exhausting.
I wish there was a world where everything was so simple.
And I know people will say faith is one way to sort through a lot of these feelings.
And it helps.
I can tell you for a fact that, outside of any other human being, the conversations I have with God are probably the ones that give me the most calm.
Sometimes it’s praying about it.
Sometimes it’s crying about it.
Sometimes it’s simply being able to process all of it.
And I know for a fact that the place where I’ve felt the most comfort overall has been with God.
And I know that’s part of why I started this piece with a conversation around faith.
I know that I need to lean more into that because it’s not going to be on my own understanding.
Oh boy, have I tried.
Boy, have I tried to balance everything in my own head.
How many times have I said, “Oh, I’m going to do this. I’m going to do that thing.”
And then it would lead to this.
And it hasn’t.
“I’m going to make this choice and that choice, and then it’s going to translate to this.”
And it has not worked out.
But one thing I’ve learned overall is that God has always worked it out.
Now, I can honestly tell you that there is a lot of my life that I understand today.
And there is a lot that I’m still seeking answers for.
Sometimes it is wanting to build the future.
Sometimes it’s wanting to correct mistakes of the past.
I know what I believe my future looks like.
And I know that it requires work.
I think that’s another thing I wanted to leave you all with today.
People say that the good things in life are free.
But the part they don’t tell you is that while they may be free, they’re hard to come by and even harder to maintain.
They require work.
Your joy might come freely, but you have to work to guard it.
Your salvation is given to you freely because it was paid for, but you have to work to protect it.
Your relationships are the same.
You might stumble upon a friend. Maybe you just happened to sit next to each other in chemistry class 15 years ago.
But it requires work to continue pouring into and maintaining that relationship.
All I’m trying to say is, yes, the good things in life are free.
Yes, they will come to you as blessings.
Yes, in many cases, they will feel easy to come by.
But like I said earlier, they require work to keep.
I mentioned earlier that I am very tired.
I’m very tired of a lot of things outside of my life.
I’m very tired of a lot of things in other areas of my life.
But I am willing to do the work for the future that I want and for the people that I want in my life going forward.
I know it might not be pretty work.
I know it might not be easy work.
I know it’s definitely not the easiest.
But it is the area I want to pour into in this season of my life.
And it’ll be done by the grace of God.
By the grace of God, and with the help of love and the people around me who continue to make me feel seen and heard, it will be done.
So here’s your mid-year review.
In summary, I’m probably the most stressed I’ve ever been while also feeling the most content with what God has done in my life.
There is one big gap in my life.
And I have brought it up directly.
I have started the conversations.
I have challenged myself.
And I am going to continue to challenge myself in that space to get the things that I want.
At the same time, don’t be surprised.
Not because I just spent a lot of money to buy my home.
But don’t be surprised if I start to pull back a little bit more on social media and these platforms.
I’m realizing that I really, really want a quiet life.
A quiet life filled with joy.
A quiet life filled with intention.
A quiet life that is mine.
Not the variation I’ve seen others have.
Not the one I’ve heard others prescribe to me.
Simply the one that I build for myself.
So I’m working on it.
It’s not perfect.
But if you realize that I’m not engaging in certain conversations with you or with someone else, understand that it is because I want this next decade, or even the next half-decade of my life, to truly, truly be centered around joy that passes understanding.
I am passionately trying to get closer to God.
I’m passionately trying to get closer to the man that I want my kids—my sons and my daughters—to be proud of.
So the work continues.
Some of it isn’t perfect.
Some of it may have hurt you in passing, whether through intention, a lack of listening, a lack of understanding, or anything of that nature.
I apologize.
This work in progress is trucking along.
And I also want to thank all of you for being here.
I hope that this piece today—I know it’s long—forces you to sit down and think through your own life.
Think through what makes you happy.
Think through what drives you.
Why do you do what you do?
Why do you feel like you must be the helper of everyone?
Why are you the people pleaser?
What is that rooted in?
What kind of trauma is that rooted in?
What kind of gap is that filling for you?
Ask yourself those questions.
Interrogate yourself to get those answers.
Because that will help you determine and shape who you are and who you’re going to be going forward.
None of this, when it comes to adulting, is easy.
Oh, it is not easy.
But it will be worth it.
So thank you all for reading.
Thank you for being here.
And if I was going to say that if nobody read this, I would be okay.
But I see the numbers.
I know y’all be here.
So shout out to you.
Those of you who don’t comment, I’m looking at you.
I will post this on my blog. I’ll also make a flyer and post this on my story.
So if you’ve read to the end of this and you don’t comment on my blog, please send me a comment on Instagram.
I would love to hear your thoughts.
And please know that this is the type of validation I’m okay with.
This is the type of validation I’m okay taking going forward.
I don’t want the other things that are rooted in vanity—my body, my outlook, my confidence, and things of that nature.
Yes, I’m grateful for them.
But more than anything, I appreciate the visibility that comes from truly being honest with myself.
Honest about the person I am.
Honest about the person I want to be.
And honest about the man I want to become going forward.
So I will leave this here.
Thank you again.
And I’ve said thank you 700 times.
But truly, truly, truly, thank you.
I do hope that you all have a fantastic rest of the weekend.
Whatever time you’re reading this, thank you.
Just go forth and truly be the version of yourself you want to be.
In all happiness and in all joy.
You deserve that.
Until next time, stay up.