As a child, I wanted to become a pilot. I figured out they’d be making lots of money from their job and that information became part of my belief system through one boy. He was always telling us break-time stories at school. He told us all about how his dad flies airplanes, flying even faster than superman and much faster than Jackie Chan! How his dad would sometimes have to put his airplane in a reverse gear and still beat other pilots. It turned out his dad’s airplane alone could dive in all those superhero speed and forms! We all got hooked to his tales. None of us realized Bunmi was just telling lies to make himself feel relevant since he was such a bookish blockhead at school. Well, he won. At least, foolish me wanted to become a pilot because of his lies.
Fast forward to junior high school, someone told me that no Nigerian university offers Aeronautic Engineering as a course and I knew my parents won’t send me abroad to study that course. So I switched my choice of ambition and started saying, “I want to become a computer scientist”. My new career choice came from my wanting to invent a lot of things as I knew myself to be quite a brilliant child. Stories about Einstein and other scientists never really moved me as I always knew I could do better if I studied the right course. Whatever informed that confidence? I’d tell you later.
Between the years 2000 and 2001, my cousin invited me to write poems for him. He would compose my poems into songs, I took the offer. Months later, we became the first Hip Hop music crew in our village, I was the rapper and he sang the choruses. By 2005, many had joined in the village music crew setup. At this time, my younger brother had gone ahead of us to start recording his songs in a proper studio while we were still waxing demos. A certain radio DJ was always extorting my brother; the DJ would offer to play my brother’s his songs on radio if my brother sends a recharge card to help the DJ top-up his call credits. That got me really pissed off and I swore that I would switch to a media career so as to help musicians air their songs on radio without ever charging them a dime!
In 2008, I was done training and had quickly interned with Metro 97.3 FM, Voice of Nigeria (VON) and Radio Continental ( Now MAX 102.3 FM). By 2010, I had also worked for over a year with now defunct Focus Cable TV as Presenter and Head of Content cum Production Lead. Then I joined Eko 89.7 FM of the Lagos State Radio Service where I had a better chance at helping many musicians air their songs. Did that for many artists at no cost. Mission accomplished. I moved on in 2019 and later joined Africa Business Radio where I was to help build a brand new radio station which aimed to become a giant in the Nigerian Broadcast Industry. I gave it my best and bested the vision of the organization till January 2020 when the time came for me to move onward again. Why I left is one big fat story!
Through all the above, I really had huge successes, great ministerial endeavors, huge testimonies and loads of followers as regards some spiritual, career, relationship or self-development matters. Yet as I lay here on this bed, back in my village, I see it all as vanity and nothing more. Make no mistake about it, life is interesting when you go with the flow but it’s often much more fulfilling when we slow down, dive deep into our own innermost part so as to rediscover and then unleash our lifetime purpose at its highest dimension of manifestation.
I had long known my spiritual path since I was aged, Seven. Yet I went through these many paths only to return to that same spot where the true meaning of my life clearly calls me back to when I was just Seven. A lesson learned is that while seeking to make progress, we often forget that indeed, “backwards is the only way forward”. It will be a battle to walk this path but I have always had victory on my side. So if you’re chasing everything else apart from the main core mission of your very spiritual self, I empathize with your situation. It can be a tough decision to make but make it my dear friend from forever and your existence would become true again.
Until you live and die doing your ultimate spiritual calling, you’ve not yet lived. Be well and good luck with your path.
