What's Your Passion?

If you know me, you know my notes app is my life. I'm alway writing down stuff from to-do lists to budgets to goals and sometimes blog posts. In fact, there are more blog posts on my notes app than I've published, which is a shame. I recently found one from 18th June 2019 and I'm berating myself for not having published it. Nonetheless, better late than never right? So here it goes

"The goal isn't to start something. The goal is to end something"

The wise words of Wes Moore rang in my ears as I listened to a podcast episode with him on Oprah's Super Soul Conversations. See, i've been in a little funk lately with work, love and life. After being separated from my busy schedule in Abuja, I've struggled a bit with adjusting to Lagos and my identity. Work plateaued and I started to feel disconnected with my identity as a "humanitarian". And that could be because every humanitarian work I'm affiliated with is in Abuja.

If you've ever been stripped bare like I am, you would know that this is an unfamiliar and uncomfortable season/place to be in. When you really need to look inward and ask yourself who you are and what you want out of life. I've had to ask myself if I truly am a humanitarian and if I want to work in that field. And to answer this, I must go back to the root of why I started. In December 2011, I organised an orphanage outreach to Mother Theresa Orphanage Home in Gwarinpa. I didn't think too much about it, I just knew I was blessed and privileged to have equally blessed friends who had enough to spare. So I sent out a message to friends, donations started pouring in and a visit was carried out. I remember leaving in tears, thinking it was unfair that some children were abandoned or lost their parents and were left with little to nothing.

It became a tradition for me to organize orphanage outreaches so much so that friends began to seek my advise on what orphanages to visit. My dad even advised that I start my own NGO but I didn't think it was necessary. There were already so many NGOs around and I was content being affiliated with them than starting my own.

During the course of my degree, I found I was always drawn to the humanitarian issues from the day we studied the Rwandan Genocide. So naturally, when I graduated I knew I wanted to work in operations more than policy and started applying for jobs with NGOs. But that wasn't forthcoming no matter how hard I tried. I would make it to second level interviews but nothing after that. Eventually I got my first job in management consulting and decided to continue my humanitarian passion as a side project. Still, I struggled because I really just wanted to be in a job where I was making a difference in people's lives. I got another job but this time around, I had ventured further off track from the humanitarian path as I was now working in finance.

However, mindsets were changed, a mind map was drawn and I came up with a plan that would require me transferring to another department in my organisation which seemed to be the closest to my interests and background. Even that wasn't forthcoming, a year plus into the new job and I feel like maybe I'm not doing enough.

15 months away from my comfort zone; Abuja and I've started to ask myself if humanitarian work truly is my passion. I look at the NGOs I'm involved with and I feel disconnected. I can't even tell if it's because I'm no longer in the same location or if it's something deeper. Again, the words of Wes Moore ring in my head

Identify that your work is not someone else's work. If it doesn't make your heart beat a little faster, it's not your work.

A little light bulb moment comes on. What if the reason why I've felt disconnected is because I haven't really found the one thing I'm passionate about? Yes, educating internally displaced children and getting women off the streets are good projects but are they my passion? I was brought on board these NGOs because of my reputation. Am I happy to help out? Absolutely. But will I ever truly apply myself to these causes? Probably not as much as I will when I find the issue(s) that burns my heart so deeply, it gives me sleepless nights. Coincidentally, I'm reading The Moment of Lift by Melinda Gates and the way she talks about her projects, I feel the passion, I feel the sincerity. I want that. When will I feel that?

Phew. That's a lot to read and probably why I didn't share. Well done for making it to the end of this post. A lot has changed but I'm yet to find the humanitarian issue I'm passionate about. What I've decided to do in the meantime is to still pour out into the world in whatever way I can.