Growing up as a boy, my grandparents thought me the importance of hard work as part of the process in making you a useful and responsible adult. Be it house chores, homework, even playing with my siblings, it all hinged on winning fair and square but with smartness and a dint of hard work.
Added to that was integrity and contentment. Perhaps the biggest virtues my late Granny inculcated in me. “You won’t always live with us, so make sure you become a good ambassador for us wherever you go to. Don’t envy anybody. Just manage with the little you have and people with plenty will rather envy you”, this was like a national anthem whenever the floodgates opened for advice. So all my life growing up, I knew that being a man of integrity, learning to be content and working hard were some important keys in achieving success. I imbibed it and it’s been key influences to my little success as a young man.
But fortunately and unfortunately for me, I am growing up in a generation where all these key values which used to be the central themes for success in the average Ghanaian society are being washed down the drain. My generation is so fixated on winning without even playing. My generation is looking to achieve success without breaking a sweat. My generation is more concerned about how rich he looks outside and not how rich he looks inside. My generation is being told to make more money and more money and more money without being taught how?
The average young man of my generation is being rejected by ladies because he can’t pay for a GHC 500.00 shopping voucher. They call him stingy because he has refused to use his hard earned money to sponsor the lavish lifestyle of a lady who can’t even read and comprehend this piece not to even talk of writing one herself. That is my generation!
Why on earth should two teenagers kill a ten (10) year old boy all in the name of getting money? That is my generation. Why should even teenagers be so concerned about riches? That is my generation. What at all do they want this money for? iPhones? Sleep in expensive hotels? Eat at fanciful restaurants? “Eat” slay queens? But that is my generation we’re talking about!!! The obvious question is na who cause am? All of us cause am! The system cause am! You and I cause am! And below is how we cannot we recuse anybody of blame and the earlier we look at this the better.
MORAL DEGENERATION
The moral decadence is at an all time high today. The extended family system which seemed to have served us so well in helping shape children in the socialization process has now broken down, making way for the now new nuclear system of father, mother, children and sometimes house help with kids at liberty to misbehave anyhow with little to no control.
Teachers can’t even correct their students lest GES sends them a query for putting the name of the service into disrepute. It’s worst in the private schools where parents sometimes question teachers for disciplining their wards. There seem to be no measure of decorum left in most of today’s children.
Kids misbehave at will and no one has the effrontery to bring them to book because whereas every child used to be every adult’s child back in the day, the dynamics has changed. Who are you to correct someone’s child this day? You dare not try! The results? That is my generation!
INTERNET & SOCIAL MEDIA
For emphasis, the internet and social media is perhaps the most important inventions man ever made. The opportunities and advantages are there for all to see. But the harm it causes cannot be underestimated. At a time when fraudsters are being heralded and praised for flaunting their ill-gains beautifully tagged as “hustle” on IG and Snapchat, what do we expect?
At a time when agenda boys and trend teams are being paid to promote any nonsense, what do we expect? At a time when insanely talented musicians are trampled upon for fraud boys-turned by force musicians, what do we expect? At a time, when grown women tell us how the “Papa Nos” saved them from the “Kofi Brokemans” and still make a public spectacle of their foolery on social media, what do we expect?
The pressure on these platforms is just high and if you don’t have the mental fortitude to understand that life is not a competition but a race, you’ll be in a haste to win either fair or square like these teenage boys. But of course, that is my generation!
FAKE MALLAMS/SPIRITUALISTS ALL OVER
This has been better addressed by ace Sports Journalist, Saddick Adams and award-winning blogger, Kobby Kyei.
Kobby Kyei writes on his twitter timeline as he posts the sad video of the Kasoa incident,
“Most digital news platforms are interviewing fraud boys with mansions!!! Why won’t these young boys be influence? Huge platforms are given to fake Mallams to talk about money rituals on live television. I feel very sad when I think of the next generation”. He adds, “There’s No Respect For “Hard-work” in this country. Some don’t trust the process!! Which ever means just get the MONEY, Not considering the Consequences!!! Let’s all be guided.”
Saddick Adams beautifully concludes,
“We need to wake up one day, and embark on a radical mission to ban all these spiritualists on TV engaging in money ritual business and or sort of things. We simply don’t know the message we sending to the youth and our kids. We will pay for it in future”.
UNEMPLOYMENT
At the crust of this issue is the unemployment situation we face in Ghana. The Holy Book craftfully addresses this in Proverbs 16:27a, “Idle hands are the devil’s workshop”. (NLT).
Unemployment is never a pleasant experience. It leaves people between a hard place and a rock. In a Ghanaian economy which seem to be getting worse by the day, unemployment can really whip you at the back so hard. This is forcing people to reap where they have not sowed and leading them into paths they never dreamed of treading.
That is one of the difficult situations young people in my generation find themselves and like the Bible puts it as stated above, the devil will find work for the idle hands and the Kasoa incident is a clear example.
We can go on and on with blames and whys for the actions of these teenage boys, but that won’t negate the fact that there is something wrong with out society and the earlier we all paid attention to it the better. But the most important one is you reading this, you owe it to yourself, your children and all of us to help correct some of these ills in society. You can blame almost everyone for not doing their work but my question, WHAT ARE YOU ALSO DOING TO MAKE GHANA BETTER?
Happy Easter and may the risen Christ touch our hearts and cause a positive change in us all.
Source:Benopa.com