SCALING THE WALLS OF LIFE PART ONE Chai, same to you abre. During Christmas I wished many people Merry Christmas and they replied same to you, during New Year, I wished some friends Happy New year and they said same to you. Kikikikikiki, just this morning, I wished a friend whose birthday falls today and she responded same to you, meanwhile my birthday falls on September 23. Anyway, last year, around this time, I wrote this article as my New Year gift to the youth of this country, and I want to republish a revised edition especially for those who could not read it. In the past few years, I’ve had the opportunity to counsel some of our young ones who are going through challenges of diverse magnitude, to the extent that some had thought life is not worth living and had wished they were dead and long gone to their graves. And it’s this heartbreaking issue that has compelled me to attempt to write this motivational essay. I am not a motivational speaker and I don’t want to pretend to be one. I remember a comrade asked me whether I’m a historian when I started the “Ghana in Retrospect Series” and my answer was that, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” And I think that is my secret. In this treatise, I’m going to be a bit practical and cite real life experiences to support my write-up. Most of these experiences are going to be my own life story, this will not be an attempt to be boastful or show off, but an effort to give hope to our dear young ones who think all hope has been lost. Many, many people think the only major ingredient for making it in life is money, but I beg to differ; I will choose IDEAS over money because ideas bring money. You can have abundant wealth, but you can lose everything if you lack ideas. I know parents who bequeathed to their children massive wealth but the children are now filthy poor because they lack ideas. To continue, one will ask, “How do I get ideas?” And my answer is, begin to dream! Folks, I love dreaming. It doesn’t cost to dream so please dream some wai. As much as dream is not expensive, all ground-breaking feats and innovations became possible because someone dreamt. People can now step on both the moon and foreign continents, travel at supersonic speeds for war and pleasure, and to navigate the globe for fun and profit because of the Wright brothers’ dream of inventing an airplane. We can travel in cars and lorries because two Germans, Carl Benz and Gottlieb Daimler dreamt of inventing a car. The mobile phone has become an indispensable tool in our lives because of the dreams of Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Watson to invent a phone. The list can go on and on. The above inventors were human beings like us, God created all of us in His image; the Bible talks of the fact that we are fearfully and wonderfully made, so we are also special and can do even more than the inventions I have enumerated above; so dream, and dream big! Dreaming also has some spiritual benefits and it’s powerful. What you churn out in your mind is what you get. If you keep on thinking you are poor, you’ll always remain poor. You may experiment this: assemble a group of people and let them repeat a Bible quotation many times silently in their minds ,and they’ll begin to fall down! According to “The Fourth Dimension” a book written by the Korean Evangelist, Pastor Dr. David Yonggi Cho, you can enter the fourth dimension by dreaming and creating things with your mind because things that stick in the mind has the ability to create. People have criticized Pastor Cho and termed his fourth dimension principle “Charismatic Witchcraft.” As at 2007, Pastor Cho’s church, Yoido Full Gospel Church (Assemblies of God) was the world’s largest congregation with membership of one million. Personally, I don’t think the principle is magical or occultic; it’s Biblical! In Proverbs 23:7, the Bible says that as a man thinks, so is he. I believe you also remember the Story of Jacob in the book of Genesis where Laban cheated Jacob and allowed him to work many years for Rachel for a wife. Hehehehehe, I’m sure the Labanese are the descendants of Laban. In Genesis chapter 30 versus 37 to 39, Jacob took fresh-cut branch from poplar, almond and plane trees and made white stripes on them by peeling the bark and exposing the white inner wood of the branches. He then placed the peeled branches in all the watering troughs, so that they would be directly in front of the flocks for the streaked images to register on the minds of the flocks when they went to drink. When the flocks were in heat and went to drink, they mated in front of the branches, and surprisingly, they gave birth to streaked or speckled or spotted young ones! Pastor Yongi Cho shared an awesome testimony in his book. The husband of one of his church members got himself involved in a fatal accident and fell into coma for several days. Doctors declared his condition hopeless, but the wife didn’t lose hope. Based on the teachings of her pastor, she launched into the fourth dimension and imagined herself walking to the hospital and seeing her husband on the hospital bed with his eyes opened welcoming her with a smile. She did this for weeks and one day, after entering the ward where her husband was hospitalized saw her husband with his eyes opened and smiling! I want to issue a caveat here that dreaming is not a substitute for praying; they must go together. Also, I want to believe that the fourth dimension must work according to the will of God. It is not magic, so like prayer, it doesn’t always work as we expect, and I have an experience to share: some months ago, the District Chief Executive position of my district, Kwaebibirem became vacant, and I was one of the applicants. I applied all the rules of fourth dimension, prayed and fasted, but the position went to someone else even though I came extremely close. Coming back to my main subject, ideas are the greatest ingredients one needs to go into any venture. If you look around critically, you’ll be shocked that there are many things you can make money out of by generating ideas geared towards solving problems of your community. Many years ago, iced water was sold in cups, and it was a common sight to see an iced water seller serving many people with the same cup. Someone identified the health implications in this and came out with the idea of selling iced water in polythene bags. After sometime, it was observed that before the polythene bags could be opened for the water to be put in, one had to blow air mixed with saliva into the bag, and so the idea of sachet water was created and we now have bottled water. Those who conceived these ideas are now multi-millionaires. TO BE CONTINUED Anthony Obeng Afrane
Posted on: Sat, 03 Jan 2015 17:39:25 +0000