I am sure you been wondering where Ore went. I will try to explain. This time, it isn’t a laundry list of excuses.

One of the things I hardly talk about on this blog is the fact that I am an Accountant. Yes, I am one of those people that must write their name as “Abidoye Aramide Oreoluwa ACA”, but I don’t see myself in this light.

As a practicing accountant, I live breath and sleep in spreadsheets; prepare daily reports, weekly reports and monthly reports.

I am sure you want to know how I get through endless hours of staring at spread sheets every day. Well, I listen to “The Moth Podcast” (shout out to Mr. Johnson for recommending it). I just let a part of my brain inhabit the stories shared on the podcast and that gets me through doing the spreadsheets. Finance and Accounts is time consuming, requiring a quiet space for work to be done properly. This doesn’t happen when you work out of an open office that has people barging in every other minute to follow up on payments and requisitions, so I hardly get to work on my reports in the office. I take most of my work home and this eats into my personal reading and writing time, hence, the lack of inspirational posts from Ore.

I however managed to read some books this year. These books were my little escape pods from work: “What happens when a man falls from the sky”, “An Abundance of Scorpions”, “Under the Udala Tree”, “Pressure Cooker”, “It Wasn’t Exactly Love”, “Chasing Butterflies”, “Lean In”, “Known and Strange”, “Open City”, “The Sun and its Flowers”, “A Handful of Dust” & “June 12: 1993 Annulment”, ”This Modern Love”, ”The Bead Collector”.

The lack of work-life balance in the last few months inevitably led to me becoming unhappy and snappy. I knew something had to change but was at a loss on how to change it. I am still in the process of making the said changes, so suggestions on how to find a balance are welcome in the comments section below.

Here is what I have done so far pending when I eventually figure out what to do; I spend more time at work three days every week. Everything generally dies down at the office at about 5pm, so I put in two to three hours working on spread sheets and listening to ‘The Moth’. This makes me exhausted when I get home, but it guarantees I have my weekends free.

I have realized that I will soon have to make the decision of either sticking to corporate life, and its accompanying politics which I hate, or becoming a full time creative, because with each passing day I am discovering spaces I can fit into in the creative world. (Suggestions on how to break the news to Mr. Abidoye are welcome)

I don’t regret or disregard my experience in the last few months. I had various conversations with a few of my friends. [Side note: I have great friends. Now, back to the conversation]. They introduced new perspectives at my most exhausted times; that no experience is lost, and it is important to look beyond my exhaustion and see the lessons to be learned and focus on why God has placed me in this place.

Looking out for the lessons has brought a lot of my shortcomings to light. Instead of looking at work and its accompanying irritations as distasteful, I see the opportunity to grow Oreoluwa into a better person. For starters, I have learnt never to stretch myself too thin, to know my limits and stick with them, because within them I have the best outcome.

Quitting has crossed my mind several times, but I realize that when the time is right to leave, I will know and be ready to take the plunge.

Please let me know in the comments what your strategy for work-life balance is and how you cope with stressful situations.

P.S.

The Over Thinker has several things brewing and it makes me excited for the coming months.