Roots.

One very obvious-yet subtle-thing about me is the fact that I’m restless. Physically, mentally, spiritually — along any spectrum you can measure my sense of balance, it’s off the charts.

I found out recently that I walk a minimum of 12,000 steps on a slow day, mostly to burn energy and to allow myself think uninterrupted on the streets of Lagos. When I’m at work, I’d walk downstairs, take a quick stroll round the office, chat with several staff members whenever I cross another item off my checklist or when I’ve been hit with a new idea.

My girlfriend says I have a lot of energy (‘too much’ is the word she used.)

It’s difficult for me to focus on anything for longer than ~ 30 minutes, so I used to try to do multiple things at once, cycling across a series of tasks as interest waxed and waned (turns out that’s very inefficient so I’m learning singularity of focus nowadays.)

I’ve changed jobs six times in four years.

I do not have a lot of friends, and my therapist told me once that it’s because I haven’t yet found it necessary to do the work to keep friends.

Last night, while reviewing my romantic life so far, I realized that what I’ve displayed so far can be summarized as the “skittishness of someone who wants to visit but doesn’t want to spend the night.”

I woke up tremendously tired this morning. I realized that my life — from birth to this very moment — has been punctuated by the same strain of ‘living’ passed on from my parents: a nomadic, itinerant lifestyle.

I never lived anywhere for longer than two years, never made friends, got used to the fact that you cannot count on my parents having the same mood two days in a row.

Now I’m not trying to be a cheap psychotherapist and suggest that the imbalance and uncertainty of my childhood shaped me into the man I am (flighty, likely to disappear on arrangements, not willing to commit to anything), but this is the man I have been for a while, and the man I’ve been trying not to be.

This post is less about me, and more about the (presumably)small fraction of other people like me.

You need the roots, even if you’re conditioned to run from them.

If I wanted to wax deep, I’d say that we’ve become so afraid of being stuck in a bad arrangement, getting so deep in things we cannot escape, that we actively avoid anything that looks like commitment.

(I could tell you how this is a frame of mind I unconsciously arrived at from watching my parents’ marriage for over two decades)

I’ve been reading about ‘Skin in the Game,’ and it has allowed me think differently about this neurosis I have, and one I’d invite you to shed.

We need roots.

We need friends we can’t cut off in seconds; they are the ones who won’t bail on us either.

We need relationships and commitments that come with risk and responsibilities. Those are the only ones that give true, long-lasting rewards. I look back at my past with wistful regret sometimes, knowing that had I stayed in something a little longer, it may have worked out, grown or done better.

Putting your skin in the game of things means taking on the risk that comes with it, which gives you an incentive to throw your back into it and do the work.

In this article, I said “ while a rolling stone gathers no moss, it sure goes places,” seemingly to suggest that people get the most of all their opportunities, do as much of X as they can, not let anything keep them transfixed.

I realize now that I may have also been telegraphing my deep-seated fear of roots.

If you’ve read this far and realize that, like me, you are afraid of roots, this is an invitation to try, to spend a minute longer than you would in that room, with that person, be less hasty to ‘fly’, to put more skin in people’s games, and see if this isn’t a more excellent way.

To a different experiment.