I’m a big procrastinator, and that’s why it’s the 13th of the new year, and I’m yet to figure out a review article plan for the previous year. Not an excuse, but some form of apology to everyone who’s been waiting on this to no one exactly (I sometimes live in an alternate reality that I’m some sort of hotshot with interest from a lot of people).
Anyway, into the review
I titled this ‘I see, I saw’, which feels kind of misplaced because if I’m being factual, 2022 was good to me, hell it was fucking great. I mean there were ups and down, but still holds a lot of memorable milestones for me. Before now 2018 used to be my best year, but 2022 certainly gave it a run for its money.
Q1; the Seesaw Period
Like always, I start my year with absolutely no plan, and this might have affected me in Q1 of last year or not. On the 1st, I got approached for a gig running into 100s of K. Was all promising and all what not, referred a brand designer to the client and that one delivered only for me to get ghosted on when I was supposed to start my part of the deal.
Omo, I wan run mad
PS; I had no job at this point, had just spent over half a million the previous month on a Macbook, and was broke with no savings at all.
I literally don’t know how I got through the first quarter of the year or what I was doing during that time. But it was mostly a lot like the seesaw movement, with no direction whatsoever. I think I spent most of my time then travelling to go be with my woman who is out of state with the money I didn’t have (back to that later down the review).
But really, that was much of it. Spent a lot of time Twitter’ing’ & LinkedIn’ing’ in the guise of job hunting. And in March, I made this tweet;
Q2; Some semblance of light at the end
Right, there and then, no that will be a lie, I still didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life or the year. I’ve always been the outgoing type (when money permits) and talker, and I just knew I could put such to use in my career or more specifically tech related things. And then Untitled Design Conference came along.
Untitled Design Conference (UDC) was the first tech-related design conference of its type in Nigeria and by extension Africa. It was supposed to be an alternative to DevFest that caters mostly to developers. I knew I wanted to be a part of it, but in what fashion I wasn’t sure.
Getting a speaking slot won’t have been easy, I probably won’t have picked myself out of the pool of submissions. And if you follow me, you will know I drop a lot of aspire to inspire every now and then, which informed my shoot for the moon, when you can aim at the star.
I reached out to the organisers, Marvis was the first contact I believe, and pitched myself to him, said hey, let me host your event, and just like that my ‘Technical Host’ career kick-started. I went on to host UDC, GenZ Hackfest Conference, and Flutterbytes Conference. I turned down a couple of others because their organisation wasn’t to my taste and didn’t want their lackluster’ness’ rubbing off my building brand.
Oh, I hosted (or MC’ed) a wedding reception, which I’ve vowed never to do again. I was approached to MC a burial also, and I didn’t know how to respond that day. I mean, I appreciate the vote of confidence in me to be able to anchor your loved one’s burial, but I don’t think I can successfully relate to bereaving old folks, so I turned it down. I probably should have gone for the Jollof tho, burial Jollofs slap hard I’ve been made to understand.
So, I’ve kind of been doing more of a recap than a review, so I will just pause right year, and I don’t know what I’m going to write for the rest of the article, but here we go again.
2022 was a year of a lot of first for me. my first house (it’s a rented apartment but, still, even tho) first house I’m paying for all alone and a choisy one that is up to my taste. My first car (tho I’ve bashed it quite a lot, not my fault tho, Lagos drivers are not well in their heads). First opportunity hosting events.
And yeah, I was able to give more to my family in 2022. Took my parents out shopping on numerous occasions, and supported my younger siblings financially on certain projects and it’s all been everything I’ve always dreamt of. That’s something I intend to extend to close friends in the new year.
What I’ve Learnt
There’s literally nothing impossible. My progress through 2022 is one I didn’t dream of because it seemed impossible. Shot your shoot, and never stop touting your own horn. Almost every gig or job I got last year was from shot shooting, like they say, a closed mouth is a missed opportunity. But don’t overshoot, so you don’t get shot in the leg.
Another thing I’ve learnt is the importance of friends, having friends, close ones that you trust and who care about you. And try to return the care, even for the littlest things.
Had so many hangouts with my guys last year which was always refreshing. And for the most part, each and every one served as a source of inspiration for my progress.
Then make money. Money afforded me some luxury in 2022 that really, I agreed no one should be broke. I’m broke again tho because it’s January, and no, it’s not because of bad financial decisions, there’s just a spirit with January that does not come with money.
Going Forward
Uhmm, omo, I don’t know o.
As I said, I never have plans going into the new year. I think the only significant resolution I made for the new year is to completely take sugar out of my diet.
But career-wise, I’m looking at landing an international gig that will be paying Ks of $. I don’t know how that will happen tho but we go find way run ham sha.
I would have loved to host DevFest ’23 or OscaFest ’23 sha, but with all the principalities and powers involved, that might be a long shot. But certainly looking forward to re-gracing the stages I stood on last year, host some state or regional DevFest events and other tech events outside Lagos.
I intend to travel more this year, exploring Nigeria is top of mind, but Bandits said no. Either way, intend to find a way around that and see a lot more places, explore other cultures, meet new people and make more memories. You only live once init?
Lastly, learn new things. Took some swimming classes last year. I will probably learn how to ride a bicycle (yeah, I know right) this year, then a power bike and a whole lot of other bunch of things that present themselves to me. And I’m also on the lookout to making more female friends this year, pure platonic friends.
This EOYR is getting too long, so I will just bring it to an end here.
2022 was certainly my year, tied it up and owned it Christian Grey style, looking forward to doing more damage to 2023, I would have said like that 365 days guy’s style, but I don’t like the movie.
Anyway, cheers to the new year, and see you most likely by year-end or the next.
