Finally we are at the beginning of the end of the year. Today is the first day of the month of December and it is that time of the year when we would find ourselves reevaluating everything we have been doing since day one. This is the time of the year that people would want to break open their savings and treat themselves and their loved ones to a splendid and pleasurable end of the year.
It is indeed that time of the year when you get to look back on your achievements and see just how far you have come and know what else is in store for you and where you are planning to go next. It is December, the last month of the year, and we have to end it in style. Right?
Well, let’s be honest for a second, this year 2022 has not really been like its predecessors, has it? I don’t know about the rest of the world, but in my dear country Nigeria, 2022 will remain in the minds of many of us as one of the toughest years because the way things got so bad was at a rate we had never before seen. From the economy to security, things were just bad. And then, we have the weather that seems to have decided to update its calendar without informing us. Because how would we be in December and rain would still be falling? When are we going to get back into dry season? When then would we get into harmattan? Probably by June next year.
A lot of things are just going bad and are still going bad, there is no hope that it will get better soon. But still, we all are fighting and striving to continue making ends meet. We are still nursing the hope that life would get better, even though we have not seen the way that would be possible.
In this my corner of the world, December has always been viewed as one of the most dangerous months. Because according to some people, it is the month that claims more lives than other months. I don’t agree with this analogy, but I don’t refute it either. I believe that December is a month with a lot of activities and just like when people are involved, things are bound to happen. Expected and unexpected.
In places like our villages, we would see a spike in traffic while in places like Lagos and Abuja, the traffic that is usually terrible on a normal day would be slightly better. There will be a lot of traveling, and loved ones will be reuniting with each other and spending quality time together.
When evaluating your achievements for the year, you might think that the past eleven months have gone by and you had nothing to show for it. But then, you have to realize that December is not the deadline for achievements. If we are being logical, it is just another month that will end in thirty-one days and another month will kick in. There is no need to beat yourself up because you could not meet your target for the year. Life is already hard, and being hard on yourself for something you could not do will not make it any easier.
There are still about four to five weeks left in the year, continue going after your dreams. If you happen to have a new project you want to embark on, start immediately. Do not push it off to next year. Nothing is too late to start now, but leaving it off to the future might be too late.
You might have resolutions already written and ready to plan out how your 2023 will be, good of you. It might be that in your resolutions of 2022, you did not even go halfway. Hell, you probably did not even go past the first one. It is understandable. You are human, just like the rest of us.
What you have to do is just get intentional. Make your goals and create workable plans that will bring them to life. Do not wait until next year to start working on them, start immediately. Life is too short to be basing it on a time we are not even sure we would get to, we have to seize the moment we have and use it to the best of our ability.
As we move on, the festivities will spread soon. All we will see around will be the colors of celebration, everyone will be trying their best to have a good time even though life is probably not treating them well at the time.
While I said December is just one month in a series of months, we can also see it as an opportunity to be grateful for time spent and for achievements made, no matter how little. We can be grateful for how far we have come and look forward to what is to come, that will be the kind of positive spirit we are meant to take into the New Year. And it is my fervent hope that as we roll on to the New Year, it will come with better days and better opportunities to achieve all we have set our minds to.
After all, it is about time.
Thank you for reading. Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section below, I would love to know what you are thinking. Till we meet in the next post.