It's Gonna Be A Bright Sunshiny Day

December 27th, 2020…and it is a gorgeous and beautiful day here in ATL. The air is nice and crispy, and there was no way I was staying in without catching me some of Mother Nature’s awesomeness. So me and The Chief aka The HNIC aka the Big Oga Madam On Top geared up and hit the Cochran Shoals Trail right by the Chattahoochee for a four mile jaunt by the river.

Brisk. Tranquil. Cool. And with Johnny Nash’s “I Can See Clearly Now” on an infinite  loop in the cerebrum.

One of the superpowers I have been chasing ruthlessly like Thanos for the past decade or so is the power of being present, being in the moment—a concept that is now so ubiquitous and overused in this heydey of meditation apps and commercial mindfulnes—as a powerful panacea to all the craziness, anxiety, worry and katakata in our lives today. Folks are unfortunately yet understandably not so present these days, and we are missing out on life, and the cool and good things happening around us, and the people in our lives, on the stuff in front of us, right now, right here.

We’re not living in the moment.

This is illustrated big time by the impatience and yearning that we all have for 2020 to just get on the hell out of here. Be gone. Pack your $#!+ and bounce. I keep thinking of that Denzel Broadway play meme where he shuts the door on some dude with serious prejudice.

I know, it has been a really tough and rough year. As in seriously, eh? However, it may be foolhardy to place blame on the year for our wahala, and misguided to look to the new year for relief and respite.

“We can’t wait for 2021, Chidi abeg.”

Hmm. Okay o. Are you sure you are ready for 2021, eh?

There’s about five whole days left in the year, and the goal is to be fully present each day and take what each one gives me. When Jan 1 2021 comes, same thing…another day to live fully, do my freaking best, balance my books b4 God and the universe before I sleep, and then hope I am given the opportunity to do it again the next day.

Of course I have a plan. I have goals. But the roadmap, to use my product management toolkit, is clear:

• There are things that will be done NOW (0-60 days—important/urgent).

• There are things that will be done NEXT (60-120 days—important/not urgent).

• And then things to be done LATER (>120 days).

This is a rolling roadmap, and loaded with flexibility as, yes, the universe always has a say and will intervene/interrupt/interject, and things will move from NEXT to NOW or NOW to LATER as the situation demands. Nothing is set in stone. Again, take it day by day.

NOW is where I live. NOW is the The Arena, the theatre of combat operations. The pieces are in motion, planets are being aligned, tactics in place, zooms getting zoomed. And I try to take each day in the NOW as it comes and then roll with whatever jiu-jitsu moves Ma Fortune has laying in wait. ‘Cos she’s got plenty to dish out. All I can do is follow the same rule as prescribed by Seneca that were front and center all thru 2020: not to give in to adversity, never to trust prosperity, and always take full note of Fortune’s habit of behaving just as she pleases.

Whether it’s 2020, 2021, or 2029…she don’t give a <Michael Jackson hee-hee!>.

That’s why I don’t and won’t ascribe savior status to 2021. Let’s just make it to tomorrow. And then next tomorrow. And then when we make it to Jan One, we take it another one day at a time. Just like today, we just ask that it be a bright, bright, bright, sunshiny day.

Happy New Year, my people!