Tuesday, 9th June 1998.
I was seated in front of our National 14-inch CRT television watching the 9 ‘O’clock news on NTA.
I wasn’t alone.
My Dad, mum and three sisters were also in that sitting room. Dad looked tense but he wouldn’t show it. At least not in front of us.
24 hours earlier, the country was thrown into panic and jubilation.
Panic because it’s not normal to hear that the Head of State (you saw on TV the previous night) is dead.
Jubilation because that Head of State was General Sani Abacha.
That evening, hundreds marched around our neighbourhood in Kano hitting drums and chanting whatever gave them joy.
You would think they struck gold or landed the lottery. I’d never seen anything like that.
As an under 10, I wasn’t conscious enough to know the implication of Abacha’s regime let alone his death.
Later, I would read terrible tales on TELL Magazine chronicling how the regime unleashed brutal force without restraint.
Back to the TV screen on…
That night, we saw the new leader; General Abdulsalami Abubakar. A calm, unassuming guy speaking softly into the microphones lined in front of him.
Abacha was gone. But with another guy in uniform, Civilian rule seemed far from sight.
I didn’t understand what Abubakar was saying.
Actually, I didn’t care.
The next day was school and I couldn’t wait to see my friends Sadiq, Kanyim and Pius.
My Dad motioned me to go change the channel (I was the remote. Lol!).
As I flipped through the stations, there was this blank screen in-between and then some static noise, followed by a blank screen and on it went until I found another channel.
Each time I switched channels; the TV screen went blank for a split second.
Over the years, I’m yet to see a TV that switches between channels without that millisecond blankness in-between.
I’m baffled by the fact that, after so many years, we haven’t devised a way around those milliseconds of darkness before the next channel pops up.
I’m sure there’s an explanation for it. But I can’t bother you with TV tech now.
My focus here is those milliseconds between NTA and CTV. Or maybe Zee World and Telemundo.
In so many ways, our TVs mirror real life.
For all I know, transitions are delicate moments.
Years of aviation research shows that take-offs and landings are the most dangerous moments in a plane’s flight. Although landing accounts for just 4% of the entire flight time, 49% of plane crashes happen here.
That’s why flight attendants will ask you to turn off your gadgets or wake sleeping passengers as the aircraft switches from aerodynamics to gravity and vice versa.
Most sleep therapists agree that what you listen to or think about in the instance you drift into unconsciousness influences the quality of your sleep.
Midwives agree that labour is the most vulnerable period for babies as they transit from the inner world of warmth and comfort.
There are many more examples…
Our lives are laced with episodes of conflict between our past and present as we switch seasons.
Leaving your 9-5 for full entrepreneurship will not be all rosy even if you’ve sorted out your living expenses for a full year upfront.
Pivoting from medicine into management consulting will not be seamless.
Moving from wrestling to acting is not as easy as The Rock, John Cena or Batista made it look.
They may not tell you the demons they conquered as they endured their versions of millisecond-blackout in-between transitions. But it doesn’t change the fact.
Blackouts are real!
There will always be a point where you lose sight of the shore without any sighting of land ahead of you.
This is where your demons wait for you.
They don’t attack you when it’s convenient; or when you still have the opportunity to turn back.
They wait for the moment when you’ve burnt your bridges; when there’s nothing to go back to; when what you hoped for is not happening as soon as you expected.
You start doubting yourself. Regret starts to build up.
You muse: “Maybe it was a bad idea after all.”
“Maybe I was better off taking the lower offer with more guarantee.”
“Maybe I would’ve taken the bribe and remained in their good graces”.
Transitions will test your resolve, patience, confidence and character.
You’ll be offered shortcuts and juicy alternatives. But as I’ve learned, most shortcuts are longer than longcuts.
The shortest distance between two points is a straight line. Walk it!
If you can survive those milliseconds of nothingness, you’ll emerge victorious on the other side.
One way to survive transitions is to remind yourself of past victories while keeping your eyes on the goal.
If you’re intentional in your seasons of strength and confidence, you must’ve documented your goals well enough to make them stick. You must have documented your small wins as constant reminders that you’re capable.
In his groundbreaking book, Man’s Search for Meaning, Holocaust survivor, Victor Frankl explained that survival mostly depends on looking forward to something or having hope for the future. The greater your hope for the future, the more likely you are to endure today’s pressure.
This is where documentation comes in. Surround yourself with testaments of past triumphs and future goals. As much as I hate over-celebrating my victories, I document them well enough to inspire me in my darkest moments.
Whether in word, pictures or sound, load your mind with enough reminders of your past victories and enough indicators of your future.
This way, you won’t get lost in-between the channels of your life.
Saturday, May 29, 1999.
I was seated in the same room watching NTA news at 9 ‘O’ clock.
This time I was a year older.
But not old enough to make full sense of what had happened in the past one year.
My three friends and I have been promoted. But only Sadiq and I remained in the same classroom.
Olusegun Obasanjo is now President. And Nigeria was officially a democratic nation; after 16 years of military rule.
To many people, the dark days of brutality were over.
But there’ve been MANY milliseconds of blank screentime since then.
The country has and will continue to switch through countless channels of its existence. And so will you.
It’s the cycle of life.
It’s not going to happen once or twice.
So, you’d better brace yourself with enough memories of past wins and a compelling sense of purpose to look forward to.
PS: If this message made no sense to you. It’s okay. I take it that you may still be like the 1998 version of me who couldn’t make sense of his world. Save this message in whatever way you can and revisit it from time to time.
Your experiences will make it make sense.
