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Perhaps it was for a good reason that I had a mega wobble in 2021, its effects reverberating through 2022.

Sure, my ingratitude was on full display, as I trounced myself for being an utter failure, oblivious to blessings all around me.

But perhaps it was necessary to go through that, to take stock, reset, recenter, recalibrate, and then journey on. Perhaps it was necessary to surface feelings long suppressed, so as to get over them.

I won’t say that I’m completely over that pervasive melancholy. I can’t say I won’t relapse. I can’t say I’m a new person, suddenly buzzing about new directions and possibilities. No, of course not, for I have been carrying this self loathing and these feelings of worthlessness for thirty years or more.

In the past year, I came across a few people I used to know, way back in my youth. They’ve done really well for themselves. I mean really well, rising through the ranks of professional careers. I’m happy for them. No, I stand in awe.

Perhaps it was good to encounter them, to shake me out of complacency. They didn’t have the opportunities I had in my youth, but they have far surpassed me in all that they have achieved. Alhamdulilah!

So now I stand, facing the road ahead, making plans, setting out a bolder vision, mustering some kind of confidence from within. I’m obviously not going to join them up there, but within my spheres of influence and abilities, I will try, with God’s help, to move my trajectory up a gear.

It’s time to silence that perpetual refrain that I messed everything up two and three decades ago. Time to admit that it’s never too late to start over. Isn’t that the lesson of faith, after all?