It all started early 2020. I had just completed my 300 level final exams and a very toxic political administration in school, and to make matters worse, I got robbed in my hostel few days after. So I parked all my things and moved back to my father’s house in Lagos, this was February.

Moving back to Lagos, I was full of hope. I had it in mind to intern at Alausa Secretariat at the Human Resource Department as I had someone, who was at the moment willing to help me with the process. All I needed was a letter from my HOD in school and my transcript. Well, I neither got the letter and the transcript wasn’t exactly up to that. But that wasn’t the issue. After my phone was forcefully taken from me in February by some of Satan’s pawns, I couldn’t get in contact with the person who would have helped processed my internship and then Covid’19 happened.

I stayed at home for weeks, trying to gather resources to get a new phone when one morning I remembered my dream of becoming a voice of morality to people. And I remembered that I had interest in blogging, even if I didn’t understand the process. So there I was, in my father’s house during the beginning of lockdown trying to find something to do with my time and voice of interest. I picked up my mum’s phone and started watching multiple videos on how to begin a blog on YouTube – and oh, it looked so easy.
After watching a few videos, I took out the challenge of going to blue host to create my own blog! Yipee!…. It didn’t end there though. During the process of opening the blog, I had to purchase some things like a domain name and all. I took up my ATM with the mindset of having a one month trial, that is las las I go just use #2000 pay, see how the blog go be. Well, if things could happen the way we think, we all would have been successful. My ATM card was declined; ahn ahn devil doesn’t want me to do this thing o. That guy is a liar. I stood up from my bed, determined to succeed, I walked over to where my mum’s purse was and took her ATM. And glory be to God! Her card was accepted. I ended up ignorantly paying for a year subscription which was over #40,000 – my mother’s market money… AH! But that wasn’t the plan o.

Now that was the beginning for me. How would I tell my mum about this? What would I tell her that I was doing? That one na rough play o. I began to sweat all over; I was literally sweating in my brain. I called some of my close friends because I had less than 25k in my account. My ex roommate, Ebube helped with some amounts (God bless you baby), and those that weren’t financially buoyant helped me emotional (A quick kudos to Anu, Annie, Moses and Okunuga Lekan.)

Eventually, I returned what I could to my disappointed mother that night but not after doing something stupid. Before I had the mind to return the money, I contacted the BlueHost customer care for a refund and accepted the less than 20% percent given back to me with the condition that I would give up all rights to the domain name and the blog in general. So yes, only #10,000 was refunded back. So I lost over #60,000 just within few hours of panicking and stupidity.
You must be wondering now, how come I am blogging… well I went back to square zero and started a free plan on wordpress.com which I am still using till now. So Ethical Gist With McCool started out of emotional disorder for me. But I started anyway and I had he drive.

I had the support of most of my WhatsApp contact list on my first post and I was happy at the turn out in my audience as weeks passed by. It was discouraging, but I strived until the borrowed phone I used to blog started malfunctioning. Oh God! It was like the world had turned against me! That was when the hunger deteriorated. I had no mentor, no likeminded partner; I wasn’t the one to open up my feelings to people; all my written plans and strategies just went out of the window. And after a while, I stopped writing. I just couldn’t do it, it was like everything I wrote wasn’t good enough… so I stopped trying. I also became distant to some of my close friends; I was that friend who wasn’t considerate or the proud one when in fact I was too scared to relate with them. I also got involved in different bad investments that didn’t bring about any returns – losing both capital and interest (probably due to greed from my end…. Or fear of being poor in the future.)

Majorly, fear dominated me. My blogging had failed; the voice I wanted to use to contribute to the moral standards in the society had cracked. I tried writing again but I just couldn’t. Everyone around me either through my whatsapp list or in the physical was succeeding and it was as if I was stuck in one place. Maybe I was…. Maybe I wasn’t. At that moment it didn’t matter. It wasn’t until the second day of 2021 that I realized that I wasn’t going to give in to the failures of life. Yes! It took me till this year to realise that blogging isn’t all about writing but much more. I had goals and whilst I might not have worked on them due to fear, I wouldn’t give up on them now. I haven’t even started and I was scared of losing already.

But nevertheless, even in this my trying times and bad decisions, I had memorable moments with friends turn sisters, and a new family all together. People sacrificed for me, opened hands to help me. However and with a sincere heart, for you to succeed in life you have to meet people who are experienced in your field, learn from them and build yourself. While your friends would support you, you need professionals to upgrade you.

I think I will stop here but before I do, I’d like to thank everyone who supported me one way or the other in the journey 2020. I don’t know if I would be here today if it hadn’t been for you. To Mr. Femi who sponsored my blog to go into a premium plan, I won’t fail you. I won’t fail you all who believe in me.

What I learnt in 2020 from my experience is to have mentor(s); someone who can push you, encourage you, advise you and show you the way. And above all, believe in yourself. If you don’t, who would believe in you? Giving up is easy… don’t take the easy way out. I would like to ask you for a favor – and it might be a selfish one- please help me to be better. Support me to ask ethical questions that can help resolve the decaying smell of immorality choking the world.