The Way of the Eagle
Soaring through storms
I have a tradition. At the end of every year, I reflect on the events that defined, shaped, or changed me during the year. It started three years ago, and I had no idea that it was something I was going to look forward to.
This year, however, I’d decided that I wasn’t going to do it. For obvious reasons, I wasn’t in the Christmas spirit as I normally would be. But right now, it’s eighteen minutes after nine, the family is in the living attending the digital service and I’m here on my bed, with a laptop in my lap, music in my ears, and a story in my heart.
So here goes.
I began the year with one mission: to make enough money to live an easy life, I believed the easy life belonged to those who were smarter and more skilled. I remember how simple and pleasant life was in February. It seems distant now like it was in another year or lived by someone else.
I wanted the calm seas, the sunny skies, and smooth sailing. But suffice to say, the year ended up being a hailstorm with thundering skies, tornadoes, and crashing waves.
At times like these, I remember the Eagle; majestic with its wings. Growing up, I admired the eagle, I wished I could fly as they do.
You see, the Eagle is unlike any other bird in nature. It often flies alone because it soars higher than any other bird and that takes a lot of effort. To make things easier, the Eagle searches for the one thing every other bird runs from…storms.
My first storm came in March when I got fired from my job. I had no backup plan and no money saved; I was disoriented with no ideas on what to do. I’d barely regained my senses when I found myself flying towards my second storm…quite literally.
In the first week of March, I found myself in a plane 35,000 feet in the air, cruising towards the North-Eastern part of the country where I’d spend three weeks in a training camp I dreaded.
The months that followed were tough. From the illness that abruptly brought me back to Lagos, to learning to accept and live with a new family, to trying to find a way to make money, to dealing with a raging pandemic; my skies were dark and thunderous.
I’m not here to talk about how bad my year was, I’m here because of the Eagle. You see the Eagle searches for storms because as scary as they could be, the Eagle knows they are the only thing that can lift it skyward. It is only in a storm that the Eagle can relax its wings and glide majestically while being buoyed up into the sky.
The storm is terrifying, it’s filled with harsh winds and lighting, and thunder, and fears that make us shrink back, that make us doubt ourselves and run. And even when we have to face the storm, because we all do at some point, we don’t spread our wings.
A few months ago, I sent out a newsletter to my people who read them, titled: Sweet, Sweet Lemons. In this letter, I told a story about four people and how they responded to the lemons that life gave them.
In my story, the little boy who made the most of his lemons went home happy and grateful that he was lucky enough to receive unwanted lemons in the first place. It’s hard to be grateful for the challenges. It’s hard to look back at everything that’s happened this year — the pandemic, the economic crashes, the deaths — and be grateful…Nonetheless.
Storms help the Eagle soar, so he seeks them out, runs to them, and is grateful when he finds them.
I began this year wanting the easy life, thinking that if I were smart enough and skilled enough, I would see nothing but calm seas and sunny skies. Now, I know better. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want a perpetually turbulent life, but I’m curious to see how high the storms take me.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that storms will come, whether I like them or not. But now I expect them, I embrace them, and I think you should too. Now, I’m grateful for them, and I look forward to the storms of 2021.
That’s the way of the Eagle, and it is good. I’ll see you in the skies.
