Courage And Being Intentional

It's day 43 of documenting 2025.

I'm up and ready to type.
By 4:58 am in the morning.
Actually, the alarm woke me.

I slept by almost 2am tho....
And I don't feel groggy like I should.
It's probably because I slept through the evening yesterday.
Like from 4pm to almost 7pm....more than two hours of sleep in the evening.
I know how my body works with sleep so I figured I wouldn't feel sleepy by 11pm.
I didn't.

I stayed up late to do the next lesson in my certification course.
Normally, I would do it after the alarm wakes me up, then type the post for today.
But doing it then made it easier, because I get to type this post early.
Why I did it this way? Reason is, I'm going to finalize my registration for the JAMB exam today.

Meaning, I will go out in a few hours time.
I don't want to get caught up in making this post by then.

Anyways....
That's all about reasons.
I've got juicy gossip to share with you today.

Scratch that! 😅
There's no gossip.
Just Duon in a world of words.
Juicy gossip....
That's probably what you would hear in entertainment news.
The latest about celebrities, the drama and the drip.
I'm digressing, right?
Back to the main point.

I'm simply sharing updates on how the former day went.
It wasn't so eventful tho....
I didn't go out, was in bed most of the time due to period pains...
And I slept through the evening.
(Already said that!)

On the flip side, by nighttime,
I thought about being intentional with my actions.
And the trigger is from an app.
So, there's this app I have called, Habit Checker.
It allows you to set up tabs on actions you want to check ✅.
It has small boxes for each days of the week where you tick if you did the action for that day.
Few days back, I set up a new tab and I named it, 'be intentional'.
Weird, right?

I set up the tab beside the already existing one, 'Weekly Books'
(Story for another day...)
Then I added activities I wanted to be intentional about.
Funny thing is, when an opportunity to do that action came up, my mind would be screaming,
"Be intentional! Be intentional!"
I would either do the action or ignore the voice.
Well, I didn't ignore the voice...
I did one of the activities!
The goal is, to do as many of the activities as possible in one day.
Yesterday, I did just one.
It counts 😏

After 'being intentional', I did my lesson for today in the course.
That was yesterday.
Before I slept, I did a little brainstorming session with ChatGPT about a new idea I had.
Duon and her big brain 🧠
ChatGPT gave some really valid points that I'm going to build on later.
I copied the insights for my idea into a Google Docs for safe keeping.
It's a great idea, but I'm not going to act on it now. It's safe, till the time it will be most useful.

Shoot! 🤦
I wasn't tracking the last 30 minutes I spent typing.
Can you believe that?
At this point, you may be like,
What's she talking about? 🤨
The thing is, I usually track the time I spend typing each blog post.
Everyday.
It's kinda like a must-do for me.
I'm still on this time tracking thing and sometimes, it skips my mind to start the darn timer!
I started it anyways.
I'm still tracking 'some' of the time, if not all of it.

By the way, the app I use is called, aTimeLogger.
It's a pretty cool app for tracking the time you spend on everyday activities.
You can even customize the activities and set goals to reach a particular timeframe.
You should try it out!
Check your app store and type, aTimeLogger.
(Hope you find this helpful 🙂)

Oh yes! Before I forget,
I would like to share some points I highlighted from the book, The 5 Second Rule.
By Mel Robbins.
The chapter I read talks about everyday courage.
"Less yapping, more sharing...."

"Everyday life is full of
moments that are scary, uncertain, and difficult.
Facing these moments and unlocking the opportunity, magic, and joy in your life requires tremendous courage.
Courage is precisely what the #5SecondRule gives you."

"Courage is a birthright.
It is inside each and every one of  us.
You were born with it and you can tap into it anytime you want.
It’s not a matter of confidence, education, status, personality, or profession.
It’s simply a matter of knowing how to find it when you need it."

"After all, courage is just a push.
When you push yourself, you may not change the world, the laws, or spark a civil rights movement but I can guarantee you’ll change something equally as important; you’ll change yourself."

Mel ended the chapter beautifully with this:
"There is only one YOU.
And there will never be another one.
That’s your power."

Everyday courage....🤔
How will I apply it today?
How will you apply it today?
Let's see it goes.

That's all for the quotes I wanted to share.
One more thing, there's a new poem coming out.
In the spirit of Valentine's, I wrote two poems...one about love in the online space and another about heartbreak and self love.
I'm sharing the latter now.
The former will be out on Valentine's Day, that's on Friday.
Right on time 🥰

Mind you, this is just the preview.
I usually upload the poems in carousel form on my Instagram poetry page.
Username: MysticVerses.
I haven't uploaded it, nor designed the carousel.
Hopefully I'll do it before today ends.

Speaking of endings, today's post ends here.
Thanks for reading, my friend 😊
I'll see you tomorrow, bearing more tales of everyday exploration.
Who's writing all this?
It's Duon Ada.
And she's documenting 2025.

Loving Me Is Better

The scars you gave me, like ink on my skin,
Soft words that faded, yet cut deep within.
You whispered “sorry,” said, “I love you,”
But love’s not meant to leave me bruised.

Your knife split more than just our cake,
A heart once whole now lies in ache.
So I left my piece and walked away,
No more games, no more delay.

Then love’s own day, sweet Valentine,
No flowers sent, but I felt fine.
A box of chocolates, wrapped with care,
But this time, they were mine to share.

I hugged myself, then tore your face,
No ghost of you will haunt this space.
For loving me is warmer, true,
Than ever feeling loved by you.

To see more amazing poetry like this, visit MysticVerses.