Issue #23: The one about our United Nations Millennium Fellows

Editor’s note: From the very first issue this year to this one, the goal of this newsletter has always been clear: to advocate for open conversations and foster a deeper understanding of mental health issues. As we approach the end of the year, I find myself reflecting on all we’ve achieved—and feeling a spark of excitement about what lies ahead. (Spoiler alert: I might be back in your inbox one more time before the year wraps up with a special year-end recap!)

Now, I know this email usually lands in your inbox on the fourth of the month, and today isn’t quite that day. Let’s just say greatness can’t be rushed. I apologize for the delay, and I appreciate your patience. Looking ahead, I’m thrilled to share that starting next year, we’ll be introducing regular webinar sessions on key mental health topics. These will be safe spaces for education, reflection, and connection—mark your calendars because you won’t want to miss them!

On to this issue’s title—it might not fully capture what this newsletter is about, but I promise it ties in. Let me take you back to when I joined the Millennium Fellowship in 2021, anchoring my application on the fourth Sustainable Development Goal: Good Health and Well-being. That was the moment the SoundAsABell Initiative was born as a mental health advocacy group dedicated to fostering open conversations and breaking the stigma around mental health. Now, if I’ve sat through a million meetings with the extraordinary individuals at the SoundAsABell Initiative, I’ve probably uttered the phrase “getting to a point where we can make a substantial impact without exerting too much effort” at least a million and one times. This is not about cutting corners—it’s about working smarter. As students, we navigate tight schedules filled with classes, part-time jobs, and personal commitments. Balancing these responsibilities while pushing for social change is a challenge, but our commitment to making a difference has never wavered.

To address this, we developed a plan: partnering with each class of United Nations Millennium Fellows to guide and support their applications and encourage them—if interested—to use the SoundAsABell Initiative as a foundation for their projects. In some cases, we’ve provided templates or forged collaborations with the initiatives they’ve created. This has allowed us to multiply our impact while working within our limits. This very newsletter, in fact, was penned by Tolu Ehinmosan, a Millennium Fellow from the Class of 2023, who chose SoundAsABell as the focus of her fellowship project. Imagine my excitement when Tolu sent me the first draft of this issue a few days ago! It’s moments like these that remind me why we do what we do.

So, if you’re a student passionate about mental health advocacy and reading this right now, consider this your sign from the universe—it’s time to start. Applications for the 2025 class of Millennium Fellows are now open, and this could be the beginning of something transformative for you and your community. You can also reach out to me if you’re interested. I’d be more than happy to help. Enjoy the issue!

We're here again, the end of another year, and with that comes lots of nostalgia and anxiety. It's always a mix, but most times, the anxiety might outweigh the nostalgia and good feelings. It's the time when you begin to ponder what you've done throughout the year: "Have I made progress?", "Did I meet my goals this year?", "Were my self-expectations fulfilled?". Questions like these might begin to weigh heavily on your mind, but I think that's totally fine because what's humanity without self-evaluation and growth?

This article was supposed to be technical. I wanted to discuss anxiety as a factor that might disrupt an individual's mental health, but I thought a little motivation and encouragement might be due, so here we are. This article has been in the works since April this year, but I began considering writing this article in January. Now, this is December, which means the article has been in progress for at least seven whole months (I promise I can explain, just hear me out 😂). I remember receiving an email from Salim around December last year. He was encouraging and thanking me for being a part of the SoundAsABell initiative. I felt really happy and nice; I wanted to be noble, so I sent an email telling Salim about how I was looking forward to sharing an article with him (I'll soon get to the essence of this story, so stay with me). Now, back in 2023, after my graduation from the United Nations Millennium Fellowship, I told myself I wanted to keep writing articles for SoundAsABell. To stay true to that decision, I sent that email back to Salim telling him I'd be sharing an article with him by July. Salim must have probably been wondering, "When is Tolu going to share the article she's writing?" (Forgive me, Salim 😂🙏). When I started writing this article in April, I decided to write about anxiety, but along the way, I thought it would be better if it came at the end of the year when anxiety would be on the rise. However, at least fifty percent of that decision was a result of my laziness. I am a very, very lazy person. It's not a nice thing to admit, but knowing one's shortcomings helps a lot, and that's the essence of this whole story. Everyone has shortcomings that probably serve as a constant source of anxiety, but admitting it is the first step to progress.

Acknowledging your weaknesses might be helpful on your journey to progress, but does it really help? Using myself as an example, I already know I'm lazy; it's something I've been trying to work on. So why are you getting this article now? Why not in April, May, or earlier? That is because my laziness won. The fact remains that while acknowledging one's weakness is hard, it is actually the easiest thing to do on the path to progress or achieving set goals. It is also a necessary step because how can you fight a problem when you don't know what it is? It would be as if you were fighting air—your punches will never connect, your blows won't leave a mark. There's also something that needs to be said: just because you admit a weakness doesn't mean you'll overcome it. Sometimes it takes years to reach the desired progress, and this causes anxiety. It probably feels like you're going back and forth. It's like, "I take a step forward but 100 steps backward." While that might be true, I think you're doing quite fine. Having anxiety can be a good thing and a bad thing. When anxiety draws your attention to a need for change (positive), it's a good thing. It becomes a bad thing when it gets excessive or out of control, which is why I'm telling you not to beat yourself up too much. We're all just humans, after all, so anxiety is natural, and we can't get rid of all our shortcomings. We can, however, keep up the good fight against it and try to make the best use of our time. So whenever you feel like you're not reaching your goals as you'd like, instead of over-worrying, I hope you'll pat yourself on the back and put in extra effort to get things right.

Another aspect I want to talk about is comparison. There are lots of people we might look up to and aspire to be like. This can be healthy, but too much comparison often leads to unhealthy expectations of oneself. You must understand that circumstances differ. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying you should attribute all your shortcomings to "Circumstances." I'm just saying you should understand when a situation is out of your control. This understanding can help you target your efforts at self-development in a better manner. You can ask yourself, "Is this something I can control?" If the answer to that question is no, then stop being overly anxious or worried when you encounter such situations. Yes, that situation might indeed be a roadblock to your progress, but it is not within your control, so the only thing you can do is cope with it. An example of such a situation is the issue of power supply. Unless you have an alternative like using a solar system (which is expensive to get), we can't control how much power supply we get per day or when the national grid might collapse. So it would be definitely unwise to compare your progress (perhaps the number of hours you put into coding) to someone who probably uses a solar system as a backup plan, or someone who stays in a country where power supply isn't an issue. In essence, keep the comparison to a healthy level and work on doing your best regardless of the circumstances you might face.

At the end of the day, all these things I've said are probably things you already know, and it is always easier said than done. I have a friend. I usually refer to him as a wise sage because that's how he seems to me, and a while back, he sent me a meme. I hope I can share it with you as well because I found it very funny and true. The meme was about a friend telling their friend that they were sad, and their friend told them not to be sad. Then the sad friend was like, "Why didn't I think of that before" 🤣🤣.

What I'm trying to say is that most advice we receive from people consists of things we already know, but having someone reiterate it to us might just serve as the comfort and motivation we need to push forward. We just have to see it in the right way. Personally, whenever I feel down or anxious about something, I speak to my friends and air my heart out to them. It might not solve my problem, but it makes me feel better and reenergizes me. I hope you have friends you can lean on whenever you feel anxious, and also remember to be a good friend to them as well. Even the wise sage I told you about feels down sometimes. The best of people also experience anxiety and sadness, so I hope you can be a source of comfort to your friends.

As I mentioned earlier, it is the time of the year for soul-searching. So, don't hold back in evaluating yourself honestly, but also remember to give yourself a pat on the back for your wins. "A rod in hand for correction, a pat on the back for encouragement—both guide the journey of growth." I also mentioned earlier that my laziness won, but it seems that's not entirely the case because this article got to you 😊.

I'm happy to be able to share this article with you. Just like you, I have my shortcomings, but I will keep trying to overcome them. I am wholeheartedly rooting for you on your journey to development 🥂. Do not let anxiety rattle you or undermine your progress this far. Keep taking care of your mental health.

A companion on the road to progress,
🤗❤️