#BN2015Epilogues: Amaha Decided to Focus on Her Talent in the Year of Regenesis

Last year BellaNaija Features put together an inspiring feature series to round off the year. The 2014 Epilogues featured 10 real people who took an introspective look at their year and wrote about it. This year, we decided to make the call public to our readers. {Click here if you missed it} It is our hope and desire that we will have enough entries to have a story up every day from the 1st to the 31st of December. We have received an impressive number of entries and we hope that you will share yours with us.

We kicked off the series and so far we’ve had the following entries: Jennifer G , Morountodun , Victory, Mayowa ,  Harmony ,Dekky , OJ , Busola , Modupe, The Prodigal Daughter , Adetola, Ayomikun , Omami Jojo , Kehinde , Iember ,  Hadiza and Florence.

We have had an overwhelming response to the call for Epilogues and we’re grateful to everyone who has sent in an entry. We will do our best to share every story we received before the deadline (even if it runs into the new year. Because BellaNaijarians are so awesome!) Please read Amaha‘s entry today so you can experience the inward bubbling of happiness and optimism  that we felt when we read it.

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It seems my big epiphanies occur every 5 years. Sure, I have steady growth pains but the gestation period for all those growth bumps to coalesce into deep, magnificent insights happen in multiples of five. 2015 was no different. I hit that age. I don pass Falz, “I need to be a Missus at twenty-height” and have entered the threshold of no-return, “Taaty”.

30 has been gritty and glorious. All through 2014, it was basically disappointment central – I hadn’t achieved what I wanted to achieve professionally, romantically, physically, or musically. I didn’t meet any of my goals. I had gained back 66 pounds after dropping 120 between 2011 through 2012. As a result, I was back to fighting that self-confidence battle I had throughout my 20s – carting around a whopping 326 pounds.
It seemed nobody cared about what I could do musically and I was having some work issues after thinking I had worked so hard to obviate those. In fact, Ọmọ, the thing tire me jọ!

2015 was tough! I basically had go-slow through the first half then tried to fire-on-the-mountain run-run-run the second half. Leg dey pain me wey I use take run but that na another story. I want to focus more on my growth musically, because in a lot of ways it mirrors and has been at the nexus of the growth and insights I have realized in other areas of my life. God has shown me, through this talent He gave me that I am his. If you didn’t achieve any goals this year, don’t worry – a lot can happen in a day. Let go and Let God. Do your human part and He will answer all the rest.

I don’t own myself because I cannot create myself. That realization is truly humbling.
The deep insight came from a sermon I replayed from my time living in a small town in 2013. It was a sermon on the Parable of the Talents. We all know that story…the guy with 5, the servant with 2, etc. I realized that I was the servant with 1.

I am what you will call an introvert. To get to this point where I am sharing information about myself with total strangers and feeling comfortable doing so, na war. So yes, I have the talent to vocalize, write music and sing but I either hoarded that talent and kept it to myself or worse, I didn’t use it to its full potential, I held back.

The insight this year was that I need to share it with the world – I need to maximize it and use it and if I feel like I do not have the tools or wherewithal to support the level of talent I have been given, I need to develop those tools and/or find the people who have those tools then mutually partner with their talents in developing mine. I learnt that I know NOTHING (is that Jon Snow I hear?)

I learnt I needed to go back to school and learn the basics of the music business and the theory behind making music. I took courses through Coursera from Berklee in Spring and have wrapped up my Modern Musician Capstone this Fall.
I also applied for and got into a mentorship program from a multiple Grammy winner on this Music Business all while restarting this weight loss battle in July (bye-bye 18 pounds), finding and putting together a band in September, performing an average of 3-4 gigs per month through November, multiple radio interviews, TV guest spots plus a full-time, demanding job. If you know as I lazy, you go know say this one?! No be me, na Miracle!

So what does this mean for 2016? The momentum built now cannot be lost. 2015 can’t be a year of nostalgic reminiscing. It needs to be a year of Regenesis. Whenever I start slacking off, I need to remember that I cannot go back to being Baba 1 Talent. I need to know that I know, that I know when my Father calls me home, I can look up and say:
Yes, wisely, I used the Talents you gave me…every. last. drop.

Thanks for reading and God bless!
.aMAHa.

Photo Credit:  Dreamstime |  Mimagephotography