Chiamaka Uwadoka: Embrace it all (30 Days, 30 Voices)

I’ve learnt to embrace it all. By embrace it all I mean, I’ve learnt to look at every experience as a piece to the puzzle that is Chiamaka Uwadoka.

This is going to start with the usual ‘I didn’t know what to write when I was contacted to do this’ paragraph because well, I didn’t. I read a couple of articles written for this series, and I always thought, ‘Wow, that’s really good. I wonder what I’d write if I was ever contacted to do this’. Even though I was as clueless as they come, I am still grateful for the opportunity to share a little bit of something with you.

I thought about many things to write and many ideas came to my head yet none really stood out. I know there are many things I have been through that could inspire someone or help someone. You see, in my 21 years on earth, I have been through a lot! So many happy times, so many sad times, things I’m not able to talk about yet and many things that are not yet ‘ripe’ to talk about if you know what I mean. Articulating the various lessons I have learnt from these experiences is sometimes hard or impossible to do. What I will share with you today is the lesson I have learnt from the entire process.

I’ve learnt to embrace it all. By embrace it all I mean, I’ve learnt to look at every experience as a piece to the puzzle that is Chiamaka Uwadoka. All these experiences make me the person I am today. The thing is, we are all made like that. We are the way we are because it is either our nature or because of things we have experienced. Unfortunately, in life, people hang on to the hurt and anger of bad experiences. Yes, there are some experiences that we may never really recover from but we can choose to react negatively or positively to them because we are responsible for the way we react to the things that happen to us.

In life, things can been pretty great and at the same time things can be pretty rough. When I was younger, I took the great times for granted but as I got older and ‘stuff’ got real, I began to appreciate the great times. As I appreciated the great times and the rough times, I became genuinely happy. My happiness in life stems from the fact that I know that everything will surely work out in the end. I always try to maintain a positive attitude (as a firm believer of the Law of Attraction) and I’ve learnt to trust God at all times.

I guess my message is, embrace the things you’ve been through, good or bad, especially bad because ‘adversity doesn’t build character, it reveals it’. In the midst of the hurt, pain, embarrassment you might be going through following a bad experience, embrace the lesson it taught you. Remain positive. There are some experiences that you might not want to share or re-live but embrace them still. You can choose to hang on to the negative feelings but what good would that do? I’m now comfortable with the things I’ve experienced, happy about the lessons I’ve learnt and I am looking forward to more experiences. I am also looking forward to helping someone who might be going through something I’ve been through.

Appreciate life when the going is good. Never take it for granted. At the same time, work on letting go of the negativity that follows a bad experience. Learn from it and move on. When you’ve taken the lessons, strive to be a better person than you were because that is really the whole point of the entire process.

 

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Chiamaka Uwadoka is a Law graduate, an avid reader, music lover and comedy addict. You can follow her on twitter: @ChiChiUwadoka

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30 Days 30 Voices series is an opportunity for young Nigerians to share their stories and experiences with other young Nigerians, within our borders and beyond, to inspire and motivate them.

 

Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.

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