NdukuOutLoud

Failing, learning, and choosing to live with intention.

According to me, that is.

It would also greatly depend on who writes it. Because it isn’t just facts. It also perception. There’s how we see ourselves, how others see us, and sometimes these stories collide. Some people understand( I hope my biographer lands in that camp). Others judge- harshly. And even my own classification of who “understands” and who “judges” is probably biased. Not factual.

Don’t Do That!

Timing matters too. If this biography were written now, it might be a good read. A few years from now? Even better. But a couple of years ago? I’d have begged for it to not be published. There are chapters in there that would make you scream: Don’t do that! But guess what? I did.

Apparently, the fool is always the precursor to the saviour. And maybe foolishness was exactly what I needed to begin again.

I loved a man who was clearly right for me- while walking away from one who probably was. I started courses that could have changed my life but never finished. Spending half my time worrying about what people thought instead of chasing what really mattered. Ruined friendships that grounded me.

It would probably also be incomplete. As a result of the many days that started well and ended up in clubs, intoxicated. And mornings of hazy memories.

You Believe That?

Then something shifted. I don’t know exactly what or if there was a specific event but there was a shift. Maybe it was the motivational podcast, that led to another and another, then a book and many more later. But something did happen and I believed that I did not have to live like I was.

I used to roll my eyes at self-help. Too cheesy. Too neat. Always written after the fact, when the mess was already cleaned up. Affirmations? Saying things out loud? Foolish. But apparently, “The fool is the precursor to the saviour”-Carl Jung.

And look at me. Quoting them. Believing, reluctantly at first, that I do have a say. That I do have a role- one that I had been delegating, assuming, ignoring. Not anymore.

And now, the author would be tasked with the challenge of either following me around or booking time on my schedule to meet. Because we roll like that now. Plans. Goals. Early mornings. No random walk- ins.

It Worked.

A few years from now, though, the story will be one of growth. Of moving from self-doubt to confidence. Of choosing goals. Of books read, goals written, and work done that actually paid off. Of daring to chase what I wanted. Of burning bridges- some with regret, some with relief.

Of beginning again, despite age, despite uncertainty.

And yet, every scene-whether reckless or redemptive-belongs to the same story. The heartbreaks, the wrong turns, the nights I’d rather forget, and the mornings I fought to begin again-they’re all threads in the fabric of me. None of them stand alone. Together, they build the biography that is mine: flawed, unfinished, but undeniably alive.