Happy New Year 🫶🏾

I know… It’s February, (covering my face).

But this is my first post of the year, so allow me. Happy New Year, truly. I pray this year stretches us in the best ways.

Quick life update? Busy. School has been schooling, papers, projects, everything.

I bought a used car, lol, sometime last year. The transportation system here is crazy, and it’s hard to survive without it. But, at this point, the car and I are in a toxic relationship. Story for some other day, though.

I want us to talk about something that has been flooding my social media feeds. It looks like my algorithm is doing a great job because I’ve been watching lots of social experiments. Anyways, for today, I want to talk about the concept of traveling, or at the very least leaving your home, exploring nearby cities, and if financially capable, out of your country as well.

Lately, I kept seeing these TikTok videos where people asked older adults one question: What do you wish you did more of when you were younger? Over and over again, the answer was the same.

Travel.

I think it’s important to go out more; it does not necessarily have to be international. I was really close to visiting Ghana by road. I had made my findings already before I was transferred out of Lagos and got too lazy to travel. Like, it’s not just about stamping your passport or something, to me it is just choosing not to live on autopilot, you are given birth to, start kindergarten at some point, then primary school, then secondary school, then uni, graduated and get a job. What’s next? Keep working from Monday to Friday for the rest of your life, save and invest for kids or family, you don’t even know what would happen!!

My new habit these days is that when something is on my mind, or I find it interesting. I researched any relations to it in Islam, so I did research on “travel” and found an interesting one: The full verse states: “Say, [O Muhammad], ‘Travel through the land and observe how He began creation. Then Allah will produce the final creation. Indeed Allah, over all things, is competent'” (29:20).  It’s like our creator wants us to really go and explore this whole universe.

I also think travel will humble you, like you see how big the world is. It teaches you a lot about patience, accommodating, tolerating, and how people live, eat, pray, and even survive. Basically, broaden your horizon. And like I said earlier, travel can be done in many ways; going to a museum alone, driving around for 2hrs, exploring parks, etc. I think it’s just the intention and vim.

As humans, we tend to postpone things. We say, “When I graduate”, “When I get married, “When I earn more”, “When things settle.

But things rarely settle; there’s always something to chase. If there’s something I’ve learnt in my 27yrs or life, it’s that it’s this life will always demand something from you. There will always be a bill, an assignment, a responsibility, etc. So if you keep waiting for the perfect time to experience the world, you might wait forever.

I don’t want to be 70 saying, “I wish I explored more”.

I want to say, “I lived.” So, I’m gonna treat travel as an act of living and of course document my travels here, hoping y’all would share yours with me as well!

What’s one place you’ve been meaning to see?

Lastly, Ramadan Mubarak!!!