Paradox of Choice
Channel: Leke Raji
Date: 08/04/2020

Before I left, I spent my last days in Nigeria weaving through traffic to reach my favorite spot for Bole, while soaking my senses up with as much as possible from the environment as I hear "The President's too silent, be like say na another they import". Everyone's got something to say and the conversations are never changing. In 2020, it's the same conspiracies but from COVID-19. Even the church is involved.

Tomorrow, I'll be on a ride to the airport and I do not know when I might return. But I just fell in love, so my emotions run wild, as contradictory as ever, just as the warmth of the morning sun and the harmattan wind brushes over my skin in December. Weighing between acute nostalgia versus the excitement of the unknown, I am more indecisive than usual... fearing that I might abuse this opportunity and the privilege I've been given to choose. So I overthink then freeze up, watching time draw nearer to make life altering decisions, like what I'll wear, watch or have for lunch?

And I find it amazing how I seem to have an opinion on what others should do or be. It's hardly mutual, always convinced that something else is what's best for you, not for me. Now the tables have turned, and I am dumbfounded, trying to make sense of this many sided dilemma. 

As I know there is definitely some safety in the abundance of counsel, realizing my sentimental longing for the past isn't founded only on happy memories, but in obstacles scaled by the collective effort of different but extraordinary persons, united through a blend of love, pain, victory and loss. One shared experience complementing the next, and the next, into becoming the entire story of us.

Still, I consider it glorious to discover for myself what God has hidden. This way, I never doubt when communities practice social distancing, when I'm left on my own. And the more I observe, I find that a lot of choices over which I obsess are not all too exclusive. One seems to require the knowledge of the other, and in its selection I've chosen to explore both. As to choose light, I must have experienced some form of darkness. Having encountered despair in order to pick the option of joy.

By risking it all for glory I will come to appreciate the safety community provides. You see, I am still as indecisive, and it's an endless list
but that really is the beauty I've come to see in the grace & freedom I possess: 
It's complete control and willpower over our foregone conclusions. The ability to do a total 180 at any time, transcending the society in which we grew, never confined by the nature we were born into.
And I wonder, is this what it means to be born anew?
Having some awareness of the influence of our upbringing on our thoughts & independence. Not rebelling per say, but questioning all things, and seeking out truth.
Learning to listen without comment... here to understand you, gently in depth when I probe.
Never to remain stagnant in ignorance...cause there exists no control, no confidence over the things we do not know.

But it's hard to keep track of what's wrong & right, especially in an ever changing world, so I let providence guide me. Assured that our liberty will be expressed with love and in all its mindfulness. Best believing, it will not become a tool to make you feel yours less, neither will it take any more shy steps.

Leke Raji
@leke.raji

Art by Matse Cooks