I remember standing outside on a water drum at midnight, my head almost passing the rooftop of our bungalow—watching the city usher in the millennium year 2000. There was no electricity and all the better to appreciate the fireworks. The view was extremely beautiful in the way it lit up the sky, and even though I was confused at that point as to why it was necessary for my mother to wake me up from sleep for something that seemed like a common new year event, years later, I would ruminate gratefully on that moment—it felt like standing at a border, one foot in one country and the other in the next.
I don’t remember much of 2010 except for the fact that the decade came quickly, and the weirdness of writing dates that began with two had begun to recede. And then the setting of goals and targets. I do, however, remember most of all Nigeria’s Vision 20: 2020 which proposed that the country will be one of the top 20 economies in terms of GDP size.
Vision 2020. To think that long-ago timeline is just here around the corner, yet its target still far off. It’s not uncommon for new years to have themes: my year of too much money, my year of success. But I stopped making resolutions years back when I realized each new day, each new week or month can begin a new year for you. Plus, I got tired of getting on the new resolution hype only to fall off the wagon by February at the most.
But this year, the word “relevance” keeps ringing at the back of my head. It is the end of the second decade of the millennium and there are all these goals, personal and professional that we, especially those of us who bloomed with the millennium, are supposed to have achieved.
The new order of the world makes it even worse: the fast advancement of technology means that skills are quickly being adapted to apps and bots and taken over at an unprecedented rate.
What happens when your goals and achievements no longer remain relevant for the obvious reason that the process has been truncated by technology? No one wants to feel irrelevant or incompetent and acting out is often the response to a society spitting out things and people it deems irrelevant with no remorse whatsoever. By the time you read this, hopefully, I’m challenging myself to think before those situations that push us to react when the pressure is high and when we feel that time is against us come hurtling in.
The predominant belief of the last century was that going to school, working hard and keeping our heads down will be enough to move up the structural ladders and hit our goals, but it’s turning out increasingly that this is not necessarily true. Most times, people who feel relevant make decisions affect many others and have lots of personal successes that have boosted their confidence. But it goes beyond just mattering to others to what we have been saying to ourselves and what we are bold enough to say to the world. And I’ve realized, what often gets in the way of our goals are our intrapersonal and interpersonal relationships with others.
While “cut people off” has been a commonly proposed rhetoric, I’ve been reminded of the importance of incorporating other people into decision making. Shutting yourself out is a protective mechanism, kind of like when a door shuts automatically behind you, so strangers don’t get in, even when you forgot to lock. But being intentional about leaving a door open and being curious about other people’s opinions on topics and decisions end up with an equal and opposite effect: you’re also included, you become better at collaborating, at communicating what you’re really feeling whether at work or personally, and you eventually build both respect and trust over time.
I’ve also been reminded, more often than not, to get rid of the shame that comes from tooting your own horn. You can never toot your horn loud enough, especially in this age where so much content is competing for attention. I mean you can toot your horn obnoxiously, but that has nothing to do with decibels. You can toot your horn in a whisper and still be obnoxious. If you think this is bad advice, all you need to do is spend hours in Lagos traffic without a horn. I now believe that making yourself heard has the power to keep you sane and healthy in the thick of madness.
Have you ever had so much to do that you just decided to sleep instead? This year, I struggled with feeling overwhelmed by having too many things to do but not moving as fast as I would like on things. I know, I’ve heard it, perfection is not attainable, especially in this age when acting fast is necessary to take advantage of split-second opportunities. The knowledge that you’re responsible for big decisions in little time can often be a scary ordeal. But I’ve been reminded of the importance of making a decision, making another one and owning its failure or success. And with that, comes good riddance to excessive planning. And there’s that Socrates’s very timeless advice: know thyself, which cuts a lot of unnecessary choices. Because if I know I don’t really like watching TV, why suffer myself to go through DStv bouquet choices? It is the mind-blowing realisation that when I know myself, you make better decisions that proceed from clear values and not from what everyone else thinks is necessary to consider.
It’s easy to undervalue words like sorry and thank you when they are flung about like fly traps, expecting express attention and forgiveness as payment for basic human decency. But I’ve been reminded this past year that appreciation and gratitude for yourself and others also feeds back into intrapersonal relationships, and everyone, including yourself, stands taller when they come to understand the difference their input, contributions, work, and unique personalities made.
Being deliberate about identifying the place where you want to contribute; sharing your ideas; being willing to be brave, open up, and share yourself; being willing to risk having shot down your ideas because you genuinely believe they can help others, all of these are the skills we need to identify to achieve our goals and stay relevant. But there’s one more thing this does: you become more comfortable in irrelevance.
When we are about our contributions, as much as we feel our relevance, we also master irrelevancy. The real reason why most African businesses do not last more than a generation is because they don’t allow themselves to matter less so others can matter more and become leaders themselves. And it is important to realize with joy that at certain times of the day, in certain spaces, at a certain point in our lives, we matter less.
I like this concept of relevant irrelevance because, at that moment, you can do more things than on a normal day. You can take risks. You can be courageous, spontaneous and share ideas that may be unpopular. And ultimately, stop worrying about how important you are for one minute. We get to speak to connect, listen without offering a solution, have conversations with no goal in mind, and enjoy things without feeling the need to tweet about them.
Dear 2019, you were a welcome surprise, and the lessons you have taught are well learned.
It’s Adaku,
Signing out.
