Odaa Baun: You are enough!

Many years ago, I learned that one emotion that all people from palaces, pews, pulpits, and every places struggle with is the feeling of not enough. This feeling of inadequacy may not be voice but could remain an area of vulnerability. The roots of this feeling of not enough or inadequacy can come from what happened on the playground, a breakup, divorce, workplace, place of worship, classroom, or boardroom, just anywhere. Advertisers and marketers, thanks to crass capitalism, know how to prey on this struggle with all kinds of merchandising that promises to fill this inadequacy if we purchase this or that. This feeling of inadequacy can sometimes lead us to pleasing people, obession for approval, and other behavioral issues.

Many years ago, I visited my late mum in Abuja and I was dressing to go to a famous church. So, I started accessorizing. I added a bead and a brooch after adding a necklace with a cross pendant. Next, I decorated my hair with flowers on the side. Mum saw me and had that look of "Let me not say anything to this girl." So I asked her, Mum, what do you think? Mum said, "You that is pretty before; you now added all these stuff. I think you are naturally beautiful even if you don’t add anything”. So I removed all the accessories one after the other. when I was left with just my dress and a simple necklace. Maaami said, Odaa baun! o fine baun! O orewa Baun! .So anytime I struggle with inadequacy about anything I remind myself of my mother's words "o daa baun!

In other words, you are enough! You are sufficient!

It does not mean I have abandoned my accessories; I still wear them if I feel like it, but I know that they don't make me because "Mo daa Baun, Mo fine bayen!" It should be said that being enough does not mean you eschew self-improvement. Instead, it means your quest for improvement is not driven by deficit or desire to fix something; rather, it is driven by surplus to become more of what you already are and become the highest, truest, and best version of yourself. The abundant you! The handsome you! The gracefully older and wiser you! The best part of you that is yet to unfold. To my mind, self-improvement should come out of the place of abundance, surplus, and sufficiency. A knowing that you are enough. My mother would say "Amo ni ko wo Aran eran". It is like the sides you add to your food at a restaurant; it is not the main course. So the degrees I acquire are amo. sides! I am good like that!

Could you consider that you are fine like that! You are handsome like that; you are beautiful like that. In other words, you are enough.

As a PK, I must give your scriptural backing for "you are enough." "Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God". (2 Corithians 3 vs 5)

By the way, I bought something through someone out of trust over eight years ago. For 8 years, they could not deliver what they purchased. When I told this person I was out of the country, they came out with a “game’. But I wish someone had told them, only me; I am enough to get back my stuff. I am not Aburo Iya Olamide for nothing. All this messaging people to beg them is playing with them, but we shall leave it at that.

So you are enough!

This year, I pray that you operate from a place of enough not scarcity.

From surplus, not deficit.

I pray you are filled with the love of God and good people.

I pray you have the Midas touch that makes all you touch turn to gold.

This is a prayer from the heart of a woman who believes she is enough, you are enough and that wet wood still burns.

Finally, I knew it was a new year, not by the turn of the clock and calendar. I knew it was 2024 when I made my dance move for my audience of one (God), and I heard one of my favorites, Asake, singing.

Make I be your gold like Simi (gold like)

Oh, my baby, come and see me (come and see)

Na you be my bloody martini

Komi je rush rush tetrazzini

Ko ye ko ma shako simi (shako simi)

Mr. Money sure person ni (sure person ni)

Every day lon gbo pe fun mi

I'm dope like Coke oro pe Pepsi ni

Happy New Year!

Posted on Facebook on  January 4, 2024