Nana Awere Damoah

Oral tradition is practised in most African cultures: ideals, family histories and legacies are handed down from one generation to the other physically or verbally. However, this system is flawed in the sense that a lot of African innovation, experience and culture have been lost, undocumented.

Nkrumah declared that we faced neither East nor West but we faced forward. But, see, we can face forward and just look at the horizon. Sometimes, as I think of Ghana, I am tempted to believe that we kept looking East and West and never made up our minds, so we just stood still.

Come to Africa and help! Wherever you may be in the world, there is something you can give back to the continent that gave you a name and an identity, at least.

This stupidity of sounding a siren and speeding through traffic with a coffin must be an African speciality.

It is only by our hands that we can build this continent to the standard that we envy and admire in the advanced countries.

Social media has helped make the world flatter and reduced the degrees of separation, leading to the situation where many can interact with people who, but for this platform, they may never have had the privilege to meet or speak with. That is the opportunity social media brings.But it does come with responsibilities. Not to take this opportunity for granted and not to throw decorum to the dogs. The line between virtual and real life is getting thinner and is lately made of morning dew.Manners matter on social media.

Stupidity, once it overcomes its initial state of inertia, is sustained by its own momentum.

Collectively, as a people, we have to upgrade our standards and expectations of our political leaders and ourselves, hold them and our own selves accountable for the promises we make, and insist on specifics _ projects, deadlines, processes, funds to be committed, and follow-up! Otherwise, we will continue to be dribbled and deceived, and nothing would get done.

Our beliefs about our abilities and the capabilities we have are usually the limiting reactants in the chain reaction of our lives.

When you have defined yourself, circumstances don__ define you _ they only refine you.

We love to quote the saying __ome was not built in a day_ but we fail to remember that Rome was eventually built, and it must have been so magnificent that when people admired it, they were told that it didn__ happen in just a day. The question, then, is: if Rome was not built in a day, how was it built? Answer: It was built every day.

The youth. The youth of Africa. The youth of this world. Are we harnessing the potential of the youth enough? Are the young ones_ giving off their best to the continent, the nation, the universe that is giving us so much? Why do we think we can only contribute something after age forty? Are we not causing wealth loss to our generation?

Don__ wait till you have grey hair before you believe people will take you seriously because scientifically, grey hair is a sign of old age and not necessarily of wisdom.

Looking around today, I see a lot of young people who act as if they have all the time in the world, and older persons who think this attitude is alright. It is unfortunate that there are young citizens who still believe life begins at forty and that life before forty is non-scoring, and older citizens who still insist that unless you are old, you have nothing to offer, equating age with wisdom.

Don__ cause wealth loss to your generation! Life is too short to be little. You have an impact to make on your generation and the time to start was yesterday.

Don__ under-rate the scope of your influence in your youth. Don__ think you have all the time to make a difference in this world. Recognize that both brown and green leaves fall to the ground.

Young men and women are causing wealth loss to their generation because they are sitting on inert ideas, bottled-up potential energy and scratching the ground when they should be gliding the skies and perambulating with the stars. These people are so disillusioned they live life without any urgency.

Our mental blocks are more formidable than the physical ones. Bob Marley said it when he asked us to emancipate ourselves from mental slavery. You first think what you become. The physical starts from the mental and the spiritual.