"I am fine!"

Things can't be better than they are!

Never forget how it feels to be hungry. — Handzinspired

Whether we believe it or not, there are people who are doing so well in spite of what the general populace is going through. These ones are not affected by the fuel prices, or the price of groceries and floating berries. There are people like that, just like you and me.

This is another category of people who answered the question of "How are you?" that I asked in my letter to you two weeks ago. They responded with how everything is going on fine in every aspect of their life, and they are living their best lives.

Some people just got a scholarship to study in the choisiest of schools. Some just gained the long sought after admission. Some just won a lottery, some just got a new job after months of searching. Some just got married to the love of their lives, some just birthed a child after 5 years of waiting.

There are some of you that just moved to your dream houses at almost no expense to you, earlier than you ever thought possible. Some became the first in a long line of family to purchase a vehicle.

There are some of you who have been traveling around on all expense paid trips. You're eating real good, and you wish the world will just pause on this moment of your lives. You're surrounded by good friends who push you further and cause you to excel.

You have found purpose, and you're working and walking in it. There's fulfilment in the work that you do. Your businesses are thriving and lines are falling in pleasant places everywhere you step, every second of the day.

In fact, you cannot even remember a time when you wanted for something. You can't remember how it feels to be hungry. You can't relate to 'broke people jokes'. You wonder why people won't just work. You think, perhaps if they work, everything will work out for them, you say, and you say this because it is all working out for you, and you're very fine, you're exactly where you want to be.

This is the most beautiful feeling of all, truly, but it comes with two major dangers. The danger of coasting, and the danger of loss of grace, as we have seen in so many people.

The danger of coasting is being so fine with where you are, you become comfortable, and then you stop pushing yourself to grow. It is simply in the fact that you feel you have what you deserve now, and you have 'arrived', except that, the Arrival Mentality is similar to the Mentality of the Dead.

When you think you have arrived, you settle, you coast where you are, and you don't see the need for growth anymore. Being too fine is being too comfortable. Being too comfortable is simply dwelling in your comfort zone, with no goals to hit and nothing to push you anymore. And when nothing pushes you anymore, you stop growing. No growth? Sounds a lot like someone who died.

The danger of loss of grace, on the other end happens when your being fine starts to translate into thinking you're better than everyone, more hardworking than everyone who don't yet have your results.

It is in forgetting how hunger feels, thinking that you worked for every single thing, and every other person who doesn't have your result simply either lacks the mentality or mental altitude that you do.

Loss of grace comes when pride overshadows your senses and clouds your compassion for others. Simply put, you forget that there are times and seasons.

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Not to dull your sense of groove, we all want to be fine, we all should be fine, but we must also maintain the hunger for more growth and resist the urge to be complacent where we are.

Don't mistake this for selfishness, greed, and the wanton need for more. No. We can be content and still push to grow in who we have become. Contentment is being appreciative of what you have, loving what you have and who you have become enough to grow further than you are now.

Also, in being fine and loving where you are right now, don't forget the decency of life.

Don't forget what it is like to be in need, as it will help you give to people in need.

Don't forget what it is like to hurt, as it will help you remain compassionate.

Don't forget what it is like to for things to not work even while you're working hard. It will give you a birdeye view of the fact that there are other forces at play beyond hardwork.

Don't lose your grace.

Remember times and seasons, and remain humble, compassionate, and grateful, because there are more people out there who deserve what you have more than you do, and they don't even have half as much as you do.

Let this keep ringing in your head: Pride won't let you grow. Pride will put you above growth, and then snuff the life out of you.

As you relish in the good pleasures of life in the moment, seek for more growth, and remain graceful.

To your growth,

Abiola Okunsanya,

Handzinspired. ✨