#BN2015Epilogues: As Adetola Blossoms into a Butterfly, She is No Longer a Slave to Fear

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 and The Prodigal Daughter.

We’re very grateful to everyone who has sent in an entry and we intend to share all the stories we receive. Don’t forget to send in your entry with the subject “2015 Epilogues” before 15th of December 2015.  

Today’s entry is very special and we urge you to read it, as we believe Adetola‘s story is one that a lot of our readers can relate to.

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Twenty Fifteen…
I started the year in Church, of course, praising God and rejoicing with friends and loved ones.
Guess what, I had no New Year’s resolutions, I just wanted to be the best in all I do!

It’s past one a.m. and I am typing away on my new “personal” laptop. If I thought that 2015 will end this way or I received a “prophecy” from “Alufa” I would have called him a joker.
The past one year has been about work and work and less of me.

My 9-5 consumed my very being. It was like I lived to work. Please don’t crucify me, I am not saying it’s bad to work, but mine became a burden. Alarm was pre-set to 5am, my brain knew best to set out before 6am, else I sleep in Lagos traffic, ditto the trip back home.

My kids knew their mum lived at home but we hardly had time till weekend. Weekend was a luxury, let’s not go there. The world is mobile, so we work all the time.

Responding to messages on social media and reading BellaNaija was a task. I lost friends, but I determined never to lose family.

By July 2015, I looked back, I could not boast of achieving any other thing besides meeting work targets, learning how to deal with my irate boss, and a decent pay check. I knew life wasn’t designed this way.

October 2015, the turnaround point for me, I quit my 9-5. I quit because my value was being determined by work. I quit because I was certain that life had much more for me.

Did I have another job offer that embraces work-life balance? NO. Did I have a stash of stolen Nigerian funds in foreign banks? NO! Is my last name Dangote? Hell NO! This is me that advises others not to quit a job if they do not have a better one yet. But I had faith and hope and not forgetting I had Jesus.

From November till date, I have attended two professional certifications that has made me ready for the next step in my professional entrepreneur life. I am completing my projects presently.

I have enrolled for the dream professional course I always wanted to complete.
I have revived my Mobile Cocktails Company, @CocktailsbyTSM.
I have started writing again.
I am working on projects that will blossom.
I have laughed more with my children. It has been a privilege to attend my children’s open day, day camp and be more involved in their growing life. No more bugged by AMG “Absentee Mummy Guilt”.

I am happy. Every day, I am getting better in all I do. I know everything will work out fine, it won’t be long (Amos 9:13 MSG).

If it was in July or September, I would have been sleeping and turning on my bed, you will think a trailer ran off me. I would have missed the call for BellaNaija”s 2015 epilogues.

I have been hit by the bug of entrepreneurship, I no longer sleep, I think and create in my dreams.

PS- my favourite song in 2015 “No longer slave to fear” I am a living testimony of the song.

2015… the year the caterpillar metamorphosed to a butterfly.
Hello from me to 2016!