Finding Joy in What Already Is

When you look with fresh eyes, abundance has been there all along

Dear Human,

When you look around at your life, what gaps do your eyes immediately find? What missing pieces seem to be holding the full picture hostage?

I've been caught in this waiting room of incompleteness—complaining about absences, wondering when certain someones or somethings would finally arrive, questioning when life would transform into the version I've sketched in my mind.

And then this week, like a flower that had been silently gathering strength beneath the soil, a thought bloomed that's helping me fall back in love with my life:

"Everything I have right now is beautiful in its own way. I don't have everything that I want, but everything I have is useful, beautiful, and colorful in its own stead. Everything I have comes together like ingredients in a bowl of ramen—making for an efficient, beautiful, and complete life."

This Week's Reflection: Reclaiming Your Present Life

Find a quiet moment with yourself and consider: How is the concept of "your best life" stealing from your current life?

What treasures might be hiding in plain sight, overlooked because they don't match the picture you've been carrying of how things "should" be?

The question "what if you have all you need?" has been floating around my mind like a gentle, persistent breeze this week—especially as I dance with this feeling of loneliness while surrounded by possibility.

I have friends scattered across the map of our world—some in Nigeria, some in Hungary, some in the USA, some in Kenya, and pinpoints in other places too distant for casual Sunday brunches. The geography between us makes it hard to have those shared meals, spontaneous jam sessions, and all the in-person shenanigans my heart craves.

I want to fall asleep on the couch with Hadiza after talking until our words get sleepy. I want to cook for a whole country at the other Hadiza's house (yes, there are two Hadiza’s in my heart). I want to make chocolate cookies with Sarah and go for coffee dates where we ask each other the serious questions with Roxi...

This is how colourful my life was, and I miss those particular hues. But here's the kicker—when I lived surrounded by these beautiful souls, I still desired other things. I loved my life but saw it as lacking.

I don't think it's wrong to have desires, to reach for more. But I'm learning how sad it is when those desires become blinders, preventing us from seeing what's already in our hands.

Let me give you an example from 2022:

I had two amazing friends, Joshua and Uyi, both lovers of music who carried melodies in their fingertips. If I had asked "who can I make music with?" instead of sighing "I have no friends to make music with," I would have realized I could have created sounds with these two music lovers all along. But because I was trapped in that "I don't have this in my life" mentality, I wasted precious time that could have been filled with harmonies.

Now here's my 2025 chapter—still being written:

For three months, my internal monologue has been a broken record: "I wish I had friends... I wish I could host brunch... I am so alone..." I've been wandering through my days with hunger pangs for connection, seeing only what's missing instead of what's possible.

Then Thursday came, and something shifted. Instead of stating what I lacked, I asked a different question altogether:

"Who would love to bake?"

The simplicity of it almost embarrasses me now. Two hands went up in my class—two people I've sat beside for months and could have built connections with. We gathered in a lovely kitchen on Saturday afternoon, flour dusting our clothes, laughter warming the space between us.

We made our first apple pie (gluten-free because of my restrictions, which they accommodated without hesitation). A kitchen counter that had witnessed so many solitary meals suddenly held apple pie batter and steaming ramen bowls prepared by many hands.

All this time, I've been sitting on a goldmine—a classroom filled with international students whose hearts are also searching for belonging in this new place. But I was too busy sketching the perfect friendship in my mind to notice the community forming right around me, with all its beautiful imperfections.

It took me three months to flip the switch, but yesterday, I finally remembered the sound of my own deep belly laugh! And we created our own little tradition—something we're calling "Rosanas" (Rosé mixed with Bahamas tropical juice because two of us prefer sweet drinks over dry wine).

See what happens when we accommodate our differences instead of waiting for perfect matches? Something entirely new emerges—something we couldn't have planned or imagined, something with its own peculiar beauty.

So if you're feeling the weight of absence in your life, try this: flip the question. Stop inventorying what's missing and start asking what's possible with what's already here. The abundance might not look like what you'd imagined—it might be better, wilder, more surprising.

Voice Memo

This week's song is from the archives—one of the first two-minute songs I ever wrote.

Summer 2021, around a dinner table in the afternoon, a friend challenged me: "Write a song to the words 'dragon love'." Just like that, on the spot.

I've always enjoyed these spontaneous songwriting moments—when someone throws random words at me and I turn them into music right then and there. There's something playful and honest about it.

So I'm bringing this little tradition to our newsletter.

If you have any words or phrases you've always wanted to hear in a song, send them my way. Your suggestions will become next week's voice memo—simple as that.

Sometimes the most unexpected words make the best songs.

Till next week,

With love and laughter, Oibiee