Yes, you read it right. The number of graphic designs that have the caption, ‘DON’T GIVE UP’ are countless and the phrase must have become your mantra.

With the myriad of possibilities there seem to be currently, it is easy to start off in different directions with the high hopes that at the end of the day, one of them will work out. As necessary as it is to garner all possible skills, it is also more pressing to be able to say an emphatic NO! The throes of the COVID-19 pandemic have been watered down and the new normal is kicking in. The truth, however is that the new normal only has a face mask on, every other thing is the same. This means that the assumption that everything has changed because you have many new accounts on different learning apps may not hold true.

Work in the wrong direction will always yield negative results tending to frustration and bouts of “Life no balance” sermons. It is thus advisable to define a line of work and its expected results.

Giving up one thing is usually facing something else either consciously or unconsciously. So, if you give up on your dreams and aspirations, you end up facing depression and failure wholeheartedly, it is either one thing or the other.

If it is okay to give up, the crucial question is what are you giving up on?

Give up on trying to impress the world with your ability to post irrelevant stuff. Give up on approving yourself because you have a little more retweets and likes. The digital mistakes passers-by on the gram and the bird app will make are not entirely worth your hustle early in the morning, through the day and late at night. If you are a social influencer, I respect the hustle and will urge you to keep it on. If you are not, please give up the struggle and get your self moving rightly.

LinkedIn has done well enough in allowing people to celebrate their efforts and highlight the best parts of their professional lives. This may not necessarily equate to the social pressure on other social media apps but still puts some pressure on people who have put down goals for the year and have no idea where they were written. The tendency to go on comparing and contrasting with other people becomes the next best thing to do, but you should give up on that too. Give up comparing yourself to other people. Top profiles should encourage and inspire, but not intimidate. You have a unique place in the sphere of things and your responsibility is to let that out. Give up comparing and contrasting to your detriment.

A lot of steam may have been let out by the previous action to give up, allow me to add a little more heat. One of the easiest things to do is to claim that you can’t kill yourself because you want to succeed and then give yourself sufficient reasons to be unproductive and average. If you found a reason not to do what you had to do yesterday, you’ll find another today and tomorrow and even next year. Right now, give up looking for justifications to remain where you are. Give up permitting yourself to be average. Stand up from that bed, switch off the TV, freeze the Netflix app and get on with what you know you need to do. It may be true that there are some limits, but planes fly in spite of gravity. Rev your engines and get moving, the world is waiting for you.

It’s okay to give up what’s pulling you down. It’s a great idea to give up when what you’re giving up on will let you take on your dreams and let you create the future.

From the stables of wins and successes. Yours in the journey,

Elushade Oluwatumininu.

Contact tumsielushade@gmail.com