Being a Nigerian can feel like a lot sometimes. There are simply too many things capable of ending you. This is why it’s important that you take every opportunity to give yourself a fighting chance.
The journey of a thousand miles starts with one step, and taking five minutes to do any of these things can improve your life.
Clear out your overflowing inbox
Only psychopaths have more than 20 unread emails in their inbox. Why do you have 8,963 unread emails?
Start clearing that thing before we alert Interpol.
Block your online haters
It’s unhealthy to give your haters access to you so you have to reduce the odds of those weapons fashioned against you. Scrutinise your social media accounts and block anyone giving you bad vibes.
Update your haters’ list
And because you can never run out of haters, fish out the upcoming ones and schedule them for future blocking. Seriously, never give room for bad vibes.
Return all those phone calls you’ve been dodging
Of course, as a Nigerian, you’re dodging phone calls because that’s where the devil of billing resides. But you can’t hide forever and you need to return some calls to hear the voices of your loved ones like your mother, barber and the person you’re owing urgent ₦2k. Onigbese.
Learn something new
Acquiring new skills is useful for refreshing your mind. It doesn’t matter if it’s how to make a TikTok video, or use a fire extinguisher or change a generator’s spark plug. Always carve out time to learn something new.
Exercise
The hustle is cool and all that but are you taking care of yourself? How much exercise are you doing? Even if it’s frog jumping or skipping, take some time to loosen up your tight muscles. It may serve you well in the future agbado army.
Cancel subscriptions
Sapa is in town and it’s useful to keep track of all the expenses you can do without, like your premium TrueCaller subscription or that streaming platform you only ever use once every two months.
Sit quietly and catch up with yourself
There’s too much going on in the world and you’re jumping from one panic to the next. It’s important to take timeouts every now and then to just sit there and think about your life and what the point of everything is.
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Zikoko Citizen’s Game of Votes newsletter is a weekly roundup of this situation we call Nigeria — the good, the bad, and the extremely bizarre.
The newsletter will wade through all the stressful news to help you understand what’s really going on in Nigeria and why you need to care. And all of this is done in five minutes or less. You can subscribe here.
