Dera's Diary

In my house, at least whenever my mum is around, CNN is always on at night. My mum likes to stay up to date with what’s happening and enjoys having CNN as background noise (weird, I know). Anyway, I happened to be listening the other day and one of the speakers (he wasn’t one of the normal news presenters) was talking about the Mar a Lago search with Trump. And he said (I paraphrase) ‘this is something we’d expect from third world countries, not from a country practicing the rule of law’, and this chafed a bit. Don’t get me wrong, even in high school, we were thought to think of Nigeria, our country, as a third world country. I remember cramming a list of qualities and characteristics by which you would classify a country as ‘third world’ or ‘developing’. It wasn’t until I came to the UK to study the IB and learnt some more about this and how these classifications leak into the way these countries are treated globally that it began to upset me. I’m not denying the fact that Nigeria a...

I was talking to a friend today and after discovering that we both struggle with this, I figured someone else out there probably does as well. Both of us were bonding over our mutual inability (sometimes) to just enjoy the good times as they happen. We either spend our rest filled, joyful, ordinary moments worrying about times when things will not be as easy, or comparing ourselves to people who seem to be doing and achieving more. This is pretty natural, I think. I've been doing next to nothing this summer, but when I hear about some of the amazing (and yes, productive) things that some of my friends have been doing, I can't help but wonder if I should be doing more as well. I think in some situations, a reminder can be helpful, especially if you DO have things that you should be doing that you have been postpoining and procrastinating. But (and this will probably echo some of my other posts), I think it's a bit too natural to consistently think that you are behind in so...

The other day, my siblings and I were talking about our high school. We went to a boarding school in a little known state in Nigeria for our six years of secondary school and my brother had commented on how much better our experience would have been if we were allowed to bring phones. My sister and I immediately jumped on his argument and disagreed, stating that we believed it would've made things really bad. Personally, I have very strong introvert tendencies. I'm more comfortable on my own or with well established friendships and my idea of a comfort zone is a situation in which I don't have to go out and talk to people I don't know or mingle and come up with small talk. The beauty of secondary school (despite all its flaws) and the camps that I was able to attend as a younger teen was that not having a phone MADE me stop and look at the people around me. There was no cushy comfort pillow for me or for the people around me to land on when we didn't want to talk a...

Hey guys, I thought I would do another recap of some of my favourite posts from the last 6 months... I'm tired of being scared January 28th 2022 - In this post, I spoke about our fearful nature and how I'm making strides in stepping away from that and conditioning myself to focus on what I can do. From: an introvert February 17th 2022 - This week, I wrote a letter from my introverted self to those who might seek to understand my nature and the nature of other introverts who can relate. The grass is greener on the other side March 12th 2022 - I explored a different side of this popular saying in this post and spoke about how we always look back at our past with rose-tinted glasses; simplifying and minimising the things that made all the difference back then. I encourage you and myself to be present. Get ready for a lot of challenging questions April 9th 2022 - I wrote about my own experience with learning to trust God over myself and I invite you to do the same. ...

I know the title is a long one, but hear me out... I was talking to my sister the other day about the future. I know everyone thinks about the future and stuff, but before I became 18, it was never really an intentional thought. But once this birthay came, basically overnight, I started thinking about the type of relationships I wanted to have in the future and careers and money and all that stuff that we can get away with being blissfully unaware of when we are in our early teen years, if you're fortunate. Anyway, I was thinking about the type of friends I wanted to have and the type of marriage I'd like to have, and my sister asked if I was working to become the type of person that would attract these friends and that type of guy. And I definitely had not been thinking about that as deeply as I should've been. Maybe you're like me. I feel like when we're trying to plan our futures and our standards in general, we forget the astronomic role we play in being the...

I remember being in primary and secondary school and always looking forward to a new school year. I liked the beginning of new terms, but I felt that new school years, more than anything else, offered a unique opportunity for self reinvention. I felt that despite the mistakes I may have made in the previous year, I could walk into a new year without baggage. I could choose different activities, different friends, make different choices and set different goals and priorities. Now obviously, I didn't need to wait for a different year to come around to make the necessary changes in my life, but if you're anything like me (and the entire human race) huge changes in our lives are ushered in by other big changes. We tend to wait for these monumental changes that we cannot control to reflect and initiate smaller changes that have been under our control the entire time. I finished the IB this year and I remember lying in my bed on my penultimate night trying to take stock of everythi...

Hi everyone, I hope y’all are doing well. Welcome to July! I can’t believe half of the year is done already, but at the same time, I kind of can. There are realisations that I came to at the beginning of the year, that I’m still struggling to accept and accommodate. And at the same time, there are goals I set that I have seen myself achieve. I’ve moved into different spaces and seasons in certain aspects. But I’ve also seen myself stay in certain seasons that I was ready to leave because it wasn’t time for a new one yet. I’ve seen myself stay in emotions and thoughts I should’ve left behind because they were easier and more convenient and more comfortable. As we enter this next half of the year, I find myself taking stock of how many of my prayers and my goals I have worked to achieve. I told myself at the beginning of this year that I wanted to read more. And since February, I have read at least 10 books every month, so I’d say goal accomplished. At the same time though, I cam...