I have been consistently writing year reviews for the last decade, but frankly, this one feels different. I don’t think I have had the kind of earth-shifting year I had in 2024. It was such a good year for me and mine, I truly turned the page in my life this year and learned to truly live. When I wrote my review of 2023, I mentioned that 2024 was the story of redemption and boy, it truly was. It was a year where I was truly restored and redeemed and lived above my wildest imagination and dreams. The joke is that by the end of 2023, I thought I had lived all there was to live in life, what a true joke. I hadn’t even experienced half of it. Here’s an excerpt from my 2023 review:
“I am genuinely blessed at how far I have come to be living an answered prayer, I could genuinely die today and die a happy and fulfilled man. The effect of this fulfilment and happiness is that I will live my life knowing I can die any minute and so every minute has to be worth it. No settling for less, no timidity but living life to the fullest just how God designed it to be and as was consistent with my 2022 review, continue to live for the greater good.”
This was the first time in my lifetime that I truly learned to live without fear. I realized that fear had been ingrained into my fabric and hid itself so well that I did not notice. This year changed so many things and brought so many firsts for me. I lived fully, without fear and experienced so many sides to life that I was oblivious to before now. I have since realised that so many people actually go through life without experiencing life fully, they live out a limited playbook and stay under the illusion that they experience life. Joy is such a beautiful thing that only Jesus can give and I am so thankful for joy.
I read more pages this year than I’d ever done in my life and it was very intentional. I came into this year knowing I wanted to glean as much knowledge as possible and boy, did I read. I read across so many genres and it was truly refreshing. This whole year was about gaining new knowledge and breaking new frontiers and I am glad that I did. What I realized later on is that knowledge actually is the true harbinger to wealth. The reason why this year was the richest year in my history is tied to the fact that I learned more new things this year than in all my years combined and this is saying a lot because I’ve always been the archetypal smart lad. Knowledge is truly power and it’s frightening that there is still so much to learn. I will do a separate post of some of the books I read.
This year had its own challenges but these were challenges that I loved because I hadn’t experienced them before and I find that these new challenges helped enrich the quality and experience of my life. I had near-death experiences this year and they helped me appreciate life even more. This is also very on-brand with the growth and progress I have made this year, progress must come with downturns and you must be able to ride both. I was in a car crash this year, the kind of crash where the airbags come out and whenever I remember that moment, I think of 2024 as the year I almost died because I was truly close to dying. I was briefly unconscious and I shudder to think of how it could have all ended before it began. With all my successes this year, you could tell that the devil was trying to nip it in the bud, but the loser lost yet again. For the first time in my life, not only was I in a serious car crash but I also had major medical procedures this year; first time ever receiving anaesthesia (saw the word too many times and signed several documents that I now know how to spell it at first try). I spent thousands of dollars on healthcare this year which is frankly stupid but instead of anger, I am grateful because I now see that there is no amount of money too much to spend on your health. What’s the use of making money if you cannot spend it. After spending so much time at the mercy of the medics and not able to move, I now appreciate what a gift movement and life is. I think I needed to experience the issues I had this year to truly appreciate life. I have always been healthy and never really had cause to spend time in the hospital, this year was truly the first time in my life that I stayed in the hospital and it was so important that I experienced that.
But the biggest lesson for this year was love. I thought I knew what love was and that I had experienced love but this year was the first time I truly experienced what love, devotion and care are. So many people think they know what it means to be truly loved but how wrong. What we call love most times is the love that we give but how do you truly know when someone loves you? I am not sure how to explain this but this year evoked feelings and emotions that I had never felt in my life before and I keep shuddering at the prospect that I was so close to living the rest of my life without truly experiencing this feeling of receiving true love.
This was the year when I found out how I like to be loved and how to feel and receive love. I saw what it was for someone to truly love you and the kind of feeling it evokes on your insides, never ever felt like that in my whole life before. Love is truly a beautiful thing and if my experience is anything to go by, so many people will go through life thinking they have found love, propose, even get married and end their life under the illusion of love without truly finding out what true love is. My prayer is that people truly find love because it is really the most powerful force on earth; there’s nothing stronger than receiving love. Once you figure out how you like to be loved, it is very easy for you to then find love and know when to walk away from situations that don’t serve you. Love is service and must serve you. If your love has not served you, not put you first then it is not love, please walk away. I am grateful for all the emotions I experienced this year, truly the most beautiful thing; walking in and walking out.
I experienced a new meaning of friendship this year and now I am grateful for the lifelong friendships and community I have. Friends turned brothers who will stick with me for life. I also realized that so many people live lonely lives, they have friends that they cannot share every single aspect of their lives with; that is sad. True friendship is liberating and another life hack. Grateful to all my brothers, we went up another notch in our friendship this year and I made so many true friends that I am grateful for. I am also grateful for family this year. I rekindled the relationship with my father and realized how much I missed that in my life. My father is quite the storyteller and hearing him tell me tales that I never knew about myself as a child is so refreshing and sharing never before seen pictures with me fills me with so much gratitude. It feels like I rewrote my history this year, the way my autobiography would have read this year is so different if this year did not happen. I find that I am living a dream; my both parents are proud of me, I honor them and take good care of them. They are truly happy in life and have everything they need, I am super grateful that I am able to take care of them comfortably, receive their blessings and have their covering and connect to my roots. It’s the first time in my life that I have truly felt this broad covering and I can tell you, there is nothing like it. It’s such a blessing. My life became complete this year.
A lot of my life is public and it is very intentional. My life and the experiences I live are not for me, they are for the world, I was put in this world to make the world a better place and the more of my story is out there, the better the world is as a result.
I travelled a lot this year and reignited my love for travelling. Truly, life is meant to be explored. I explored new cities, new cultures and new culinary experiments. Now that I think about it, my friends and experiences this year cut across several races and ethnicities and it helped me gain a fuller experience. Yet again, something most people never experience; life in a context different from what they have been used to. Some things remained the same; my love for football, real estate, fragrances and shoes. I picked up new things like monochromes, tea and the Prophetic.
I gave out more money this year than I probably have ever given out in my entire life combined. This is another thing about near-death experiences, when you go through them you then see the futility in storing riches for yourself because they won’t save you when the time comes. What would save you is the prayers people say for you even when you’re not there. I lost count of how many times people upheld me in prayers at random times, all of those prayers kept me and I do not take it for granted and I realized that the more money I gave, the more I did not need money to live. You don’t need money to live or be happy; you should challenge yourself next year to give out more money than what you keep for yourself, it is a truly life changing experience that helps you live above lack and opens the door to favour that you cannot imagine or merit. Try it.
Don’t be too scared of leaving things behind, some of your greatest desires are on the other side of fear but you’re too scared to walk away. One of the things with living without fear is that you get to take risks and most often than not, they will work out well more than they will fail. I have lost count of the many risks I took this year and the fact that I am here writing this should tell you all there is to risks; you will not die and so what if you do? Even sadness and loss enrich the quality of your life, so many people try to rationalize sadness and philosophize loss but the real victory is in embracing it.
My song for year was Holy Forever by Cece Winans; it reminds me of the awesomeness of our God and how intentional he is in crafting the life that we live. All creation lives for his purpose and glory alone; the goal of life is ministry. Everything you do in life must be geared towards ministry; your career and interests are a tool for delivering ministry and must be seen as a medium not the end goal.
It was David in Psalms 13 who asked God to illuminate his life else he sleeps the sleep of death and I think this is a prayer everyone should pray for 2025 and I pray that the Lord gives light to your eyes. Dostoevsky said life is a tale and how pitiful it is to live without stories, with illumination, you will have so much stories to tell. Make 2025 a year to tell your own story, it is time to own your life and stop skimming the surface. Please live, it can all be gone in a minute, you deserve a chance to live. Please do!
Some 2024 Awards…
Best Book – Revenge of the Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell
Best Podcast – Moneywise by Sam Parr
Best TV Show – Day of the Jackal
Best Artist – Dunsin Oyekan
Best Song – Holy Forever/Cece Winans and Onuigbo/Stephen Osadebe
Best Comedian – Matt Rife
Best Leader – Jensen Huang
Best Journalist – Andrew Ross Sorkin
Best Gift – Sony XM5
Best Product – Airbags and Airtags
Best Decision – Going Case-less
Person of the year – Limechi M.I.
Happy new year and welcome to 2025!
Miracle.