The reality of the economic woes in this country cannot be underestimated. I now drive on Spintex Road at different times of the day and do what I couldn’t do this time last year – zoom with my car from one end of the road to the other because of less traffic on the road. People just don’t have money to buy petrol like they use to do, so fewer cars are on the road. Go to a forex bureau on Spintex Road and comment on the unusual nature of the free-flowing traffic on the main road, and the attendant will point to the 4 x 4 car behind you. How a well-dressed woman who owns the car, parks it outside their shop every morning to take a trotro to work, and comes back to pick up her car after work since her home is near Spintex Road.
And yet power is defined as “the ability or capacity to do something or act in a particular way” or “the capacity or ability to direct or influence the behaviour of others or the course of events”.
In a financial context, when discussing the economic woes most Ghanaians face due to the state of the economy, what would happen if millions of citizens did just that? Become citizens for themselves by empowering themselves to have the ability or capacity to do something or act in a particular way when it comes to their finances. Or within themselves, develop the capacity or ability to direct or influence the behaviour of others or the course of events in their lives.
I say this because as a self-made entrepreneur who re-entered Ghana with just under 500 dollars to my name at some point in my early thirties, I didn’t sit around waiting on better economic conditions externally. But I built a website from a domain I bought; and one by one attracted particularly international clients who could afford the invoices I self-generated from my old laptop at the time.
Opportunity is created in this life, for no one gives it to you. Like power, you have to take it yourself! After all, we have no safety net in this country like the U.K, which has Universal Credit for housing benefit and a monthly bursary when any citizen loses their job.
The benefit of being self-reliant as a Ghanaian citizen, particularly during an economic down-turn, is that lack gives us the ability to go where most have not been before – within!
To think, create, strategise, and roll out with whatever resources we have, a way to charge for goods or services on our own terms in a way that attracts clients. The sky is the limit when you strategise. Even from the desk of your current employment, let your mind fly away to what you want to become, and use your subconscious mind while awake and asleep to come up with a plan to economically liberate yourself.
For I tell you another mystery, reader: power is taken, never given in this world; and if you sit around, waiting for someone to save you – particularly any form or party in government – you can wait your entire life. Be made well in the fortune of your desired future by rising from within. For as the prophet said over 2000 years ago: “Stand up, pick up your mat, and walk!”
As endearing as it may be watching the tears that fall from many of our citizens faces as they bitterly complain on radio and TV about just what this government is doing to them in terms of how tough the economic conditions are in this country, the truth remains you are not a prisoner of your mind or life. Write a new story of your life, one where you are successful, self-generate resources; and move step by step with what resources you have to your desired reality.
If you remember nothing else from this article, remember these few points as further expanded in the book 48 Laws of Power:
- Never put too much trust in power outside yourself, they [government or individuals] will betray you more quickly because of your naïve belief that they are there to help.
- Enter action with boldness.
- Do not commit to the system, become your own system.
- Concentrate your forces to get what you want in life.
- Make your accomplishments seem effortless.
- Re-create yourself by not accepting the roles that society forces on you, forge a new identity by being the master of your own image and fortune.
- Plan all the way to the end.
- Make your accomplishments seem effortless and control the options – get others to play with the cards you deal.
- Become like government, play to people’s fantasies.
- Master the art of timing.
- Like government, get others to do the work for you, but always take the credit.
- Win through your actions, never through your words.
- When asking for help, appeal to people’s self-interest, never to their mercy or gratitude.
- Crush your enemy totally.
- Think as you like but behave like others.
- Work on the hearts and minds of others.
- Do not go past the mark you aimed for; in victory, learn when to stop.
Make no mistake reader, Wakanda is not a dream. We create Wakanda even within this country by rising one by one and looking to ourselves in order to be saved.
