Living the Deliberate Intentional Life

After standing in the scorching sun for ten very long minutes at the bus stop on the ever busy Douglas road, waiting for a vehicle heading to Ihiagwa to show up, one finally did, and the lucky few of us who could scampered in. It had been quite the Thursday, and I was itching to get back to my school residence.

As had become a weekly routine for me at this point, I had gone to the cinema at The Mall much earlier in the day to meet up with some friends and catch a movie. The Fate of The Furious was really the only item on my bucket list for the day, and believe me when I say it was every kobo worth the trouble. You really should see it if you haven’t yet. Great movie.

My hands were in my pockets as I scurried into the vehicle; in fact, they had been so from the very moment I got on Douglas. I guess that tends to happen somewhat as a reflex when it sinks into one’s subconscious that very few streets in Eastern Nigeria are more popular for dispossession and pickpocketing than this one. The bus (which looked rather rickety, I must add) was fully occupied in a matter of seconds, and - before you could say jack - we were in motion, and the characteristic noise that accompanies the boarding of long awaited busses by tired, worn out and irritated Nigerians soon died down. Most of us could heave a sigh of relief at this point. There really wasn’t anything to worry about anymore… apart from getting out of the unrelenting traffic congestion, of course. But trust Nigerian bus drivers.

As ours meandered through the slimmest of spaces, magically avoiding denting the vehicles he overtook while typically exchanging curses with the drivers of these much better-looking automobiles, I took my earphones out of my left pocket and my phone from my right. I needed to get away for a minute. I had purchased Bez’s sophomore album, Gbagyi Child, a couple of days earlier on the recommendation of my Boomplay app, and, so far, there were only two words I could use to describe Bez’s effort. Musical masterpiece (considering all the at best mediocre stuff that gets churned out daily from our music industry). But you really don’t expect any less when you give a special talent such as Emmanuel Bezhiwa Idakula 5 years to come up with a sophomore effort and a phenomenally gifted producer in the person of Cobhams Asuquo. Magic just must happen. It's foolproof.

So I listened idly to the album as we made our way out of the gridlock and on to the freeway. I had tried to open the window to my left, but the damn thing just wouldn't budge. It didn't really matter anymore though; with the speed at which we journeyed, the bus had become sufficiently ventilated. Midway through the album (and coincidentally the journey) I was on the seventh track of thirteen - Eternity - and randomly gave a thought to what I’d describe Gbagyi Child as if I ever were to write a review of the album. One word clearly came to mind. Deliberate.

Somehow, everything about the album seemed very intentional and on purpose. The lyrics. The instrumentation. Every little thing. And then, as we sped by, I looked out the stubborn unyielding window and casually observed the pedestrians for a few split seconds. Men and women apparently returning from the day’s hustle with their bags and briefcases. School children heading back home in their groups. Some fooling around with their peers and laughing cheerily, and others walking alone. Of the ones who seemingly preferred solitude, a few marched briskly like they were running late for something, and the rest simply strolled coolly and seemed to enjoy the walk. I don’t know what, but something about those few seconds inspired some random thoughts in me again, thoughts that were briefly interrupted as the nice elderly lady next to me nudged me lightly and signalled that it was time to pass our fares to the driver. We were done with that in no time and I went back to pondering.

 
Why is it that so many of us seem so comfortable with helplessly drifting through life and going wherever the waves dictate? We’re not in as much control of our lives as we ought to be, and we’re aware of this but don’t seem to bother because we’ve somehow taught ourselves to believe that a lot of things aren't ours to take charge of when, in fact, they are. The activities we spend our time and energies on. The relationships we remain in with the people around us, and how much these people's opinions, approvals and validations matter to us. The emotions we get so frequently immersed in. The values and principles we live by. How physically fit, spiritually aware and/or politically enlightened we are. The simple truth is that all these things are ours to determine. We only need to constantly remind ourselves that there are always options, and, as such, there's always a choice to make. It's only on the premise of this realisation that one can truly live an intentional and deliberate life.

I vividly remember how, not very long ago, I would so easily let the lowlights of the past prevent me from making necessary progress in the present, because I erroneously thought I needed to wait for the all the feelings associated with those disappointment to take their toll and fade away on their own before I could move on. And what would I do while I waited? Absolutely nothing. I'd simply resign myself to fate and take whatever came my way. Thank God I've long grown to understand how wrong and how much of a waste of precious time and opportunity that was.

Every new day brings us the opportunity to make decisions that determine how the the present and future turn out, completely regardless of what the past held, and it’s entirely up to us what we do with this opportunity. We get to decide what we will or won't do, and how we respond to whatever comes our way (and that’s only if we decide that whatever it is is worth responding to, because there's always the option to simply ignore whatever we want to. Unkind, untrue comments or downright destructive criticism, for instance).

Living life intentionally is all about taking responsibility for your life and your actions, such that you have yourself and no one else to blame if things go south. What this does is instil within you the consciousness that there has to be a reason for everything you do or choose not to, and that nothing within your control is allowed to happen in your life without your full permission. What this means is that whatever you do, and however you do it, you do consciously and with definite purpose.

We got to the last stop just as the penultimate song, Home to Gbagyi, came to an end, and we began to alight one after the other. It was already getting pretty dark and it seemed it would rain heavily in no time. I smiled because I had been expecting a downpour all week... and because the soothing evening breeze that greeted me as my feet hit the ground was something I had missed for too long. Commercial motorcycle riders circled all around us vying for passengers, and they really didn't have to struggle because everyone was already very eager to get home before the rain started. Everybody but me. I decided I'd rather take the five-minute walk home and enjoy the last track on the album; I hadn't had such a proper evening stroll in a really long time, and this was the perfect opportunity for one.

Suffice it to say that it was an evening I wish never ended.

Make that conscious decision today, and take charge. Live deliberately. Live intentionally.