#InsideLife of an AIESECer's fall from grace

Also my thoughts on the quantity vs quality trade-off of frying dodo.

Hello guys,

Hope you are doing well. I’m doing okay, Alhamdulillah. I overslept so completing all the things I need to do today will be a tad more difficult. I usually write this newsletter on Sunday mornings and schedule it to go out for mid-day or early afternoon. Typically, I don’t prepare in advance, even though that would be a wise thing to do. How do I mean? It would be so much easier if I wrote a draft on Friday evenings for example, and then put the finishing touches just before I publish on Sunday.

So why don’t I do this? I read somewhere that the longer you allow a topic to linger in your mind, the more creative ideas come out of it. I don’t remember whether it was from a book or podcast, but I do remember committing to trying it. So when I have creative tasks to do (writing an article, putting together a presentation, etc), I may begin to think about the structure and themes very early, but would not put pen to paper for the actual content till the last minute.

Has it worked? I don’t know. To do a proper comparison between the quality of my articles and presentations when I prepared them straight away and when I delayed till the last minute sounds like a lot of work. Hehe but you know me, I just might do it. I’m already thinking about the timeline, evaluation metrics, and the people I can drag to help. 😅

Anyhoo, the problem with leaving the newsletter till the last minute is I can’t predict how I would feel on a random Sunday morning. I wake up sometimes and think ‘Newsletter time, leggooo’. But many other times, I wake up and think ‘omo I no get energy for this thing today’. Then there’s also the quantity vs quality trade-off. If you make a commitment to doing anything regularly, there will definitely be dips in performance. Someone that fries dodo every single night will probably burn the dodo 1 or 2 nights a week. It’s normal and to be expected. But someone that fries dodo once a month is much less likely to burn the dodo (assuming both people are equally skilled in the art of frying dodo). The effort and attention the once-a-monther pays to the dodo would be significantly more, and probably translate to higher quality dodo ceteris paribus.

But then, frying dodo is a private affair. At most, your friends and family would make jokes about the burnt dodo. Writing a newsletter, on the other hand, is a fairly public affair. So do I want to be a fairly consistent writer who inevitably sends out a low-quality newsletter every few weeks or a once-in-a-while writer who tries to share only top-quality stuff? For now, I’m still leaning towards consistency. But as my time gets more and more constrained (I’m already struggling to keep up tbh), there will likely be a switch at some point.

Haha this is probably the longest intro I have ever written. Okayy, let’s get to the newsletter.

Image from AIESEC.

Do you recognize that logo?

If you have ever passed the top floor of the University of Lagos Faculty of Arts on a Friday evening, you would likely have seen some very excitable people.

One person standing at the front of the room would have shouted, ‘HEY AIESEC???’

And then a couple dozen people would have shouted in response, ‘WHAT’S UP?!!’

Your first thought would have been, who on earth are these crazy people?

Today, I am going back many years to share some lessons from my enjoyable time with the crazy people. 😜

In my first year, my sister was always trying to get me to do more things. She thought (and rightly so too) that I was not getting the most value out of my university experience. I was studying, watching a ridiculous amount of series, and hanging out with my friends. Otherwise, I was doing nothing. She first dragged me to a recruitment event for Airtel Campus Ambassadors. I didn’t care too much, but what did I have to lose?

After some registration (were we interviewed? I don’t even remember), the Airtel team mentioned that they couldn’t take anyone without a CGPA. As I was still in my 1st year, I only had results for one semester so that didn’t count. Fair enough, I thought.

A few weeks later, she said I had to join AIESEC. And what was this AIESEC? She encouraged me to come check out a meeting. So there I was on a random Friday evening, watching some seemingly very loud and happy people do random things in the Faculty of Education’s auditorium when I could have been watching The Flash.

** side note: There is no reason on earth why anybody should still be watching The Flash. If you do, I am embarrassed on your behalf.

If you googled AIESEC, you would see the following.

AIESEC is an international youth-run, non-governmental, and not-for-profit organization that provides young people with leadership development, cross-cultural internships, and global volunteer exchange experiences. The organization focuses on empowering young people to make a progressive social impact.

And all of it would be true. But AIESEC is also a community of high-energy and super passionate young people who love having a good time while simultaneously worrying about a social cause. And so I joined AIESEC. I was interviewed by someone we shall call Zandra, who asked questions to test my understanding of AIESEC’s history, as well as motivations and how I planned to contribute.

I was assigned to the MAC (Marketing & Communications) team, where I reported to Lojo and worked directly with Damilare Adebola (of blessed memory). Dami and I were supposed to help promote AIESEC’s digital image, so we did random things like taking pictures at our events and reviewing articles. It was not a lot of work, and it was fun so I settled in quickly.

** side note: While writing this newsletter, I have looked at the clock maybe 20 times. I want to share this particular story, but I don’t have the time to do it justice. Then it hit me. Who said a newsletter must have a complete story? And so in typical Super Story fashion, there shall be a part 2.

See you next week!

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If you found this newsletter useful, please share it with your friends. Have them read it and subscribe. I like to share personal stories and life lessons I am learning. They will be super random, but common themes will be around business, personal development, human relationships, and Islam.

Gracias, and see you around.

Hameed

** I am sometimes going about my regular day and randomly remember Damilare. To say we were really close would be a lie, but we did have a good relationship. I called him PTNG and he called me ATNG. My favorite memory of him is from an ISL football match in JS2. I was the coach and we were losing, so I brought Dami on as a sub. I don’t remember all the details, but I do remember that he scored a late equalizer and the game ended at 3-3. Then he ran half the field to jump on me. 😅

That is the Damilare I choose to remember. May God grant comfort to his family, close friends, and indeed all of us. 🌟