TO THE ONE I ADORE MORE THAN ANY OTHER

I woke up this morning and I felt like writing a love song to my dearest love. A love song that will reveal all of my heartfelt undying emotions  that are activated when I set my eyes on you. In fact, right from the start, I knew that I have found a home for my heart. Your love completes me completely. Your beauty is like Eden's garden which was made beautiful beyond comprehension and perfect in perfection. The only difference between you and the garden is that the garden's beauty faded with time but your beauty abounds in time. Beautiful is an understatement and cannot describe how I feel in my heart when you smile upon me. With each day that passes, the thought of being your one and only floods the ramparts of my heart and the flood leaves me with nothing but uncontrollable sweetness of heart. I wish you only knew the joy you bring to my heart by the mere thought of you.
Your aura and presence are amazing pain killers and yes, you are such a sight for sore eyes. Your charming voice and abundant grace speaks volumes to the heart. I want to pronounce your name. The letter A in your name means AMAZING because that is exactly how I feel when I am with you. The letter M in your name stands for MUSE because you are my source of inspiration. The letter E in your name makes you my EVERYTHING. The remaining letters of your name I have encoded in this love song and I know you are smiling now because you know exactly where to look. I only wish you knew how my heart longs to be at rest with you. Whenever you are lonely and think that I am far away, always bear in mind that, just because I am not forever by your side doesn't mean that is not precisely where I want to be.
You are life's greatest gift to me.
This is Edwin Oko Lamptey and this is a very rare RANDOM AFRICAN THOUGHT piece. TGIF. MORE at randomafricanthoughts.blogspot.com

MENTAL CHANGEOVER

I was having a  conversation with a friend of mine and he was telling me that he had to pick his uncle from the airport some months back. On their way home, his uncle was telling him about how "Europe" was clean and how there were many sanctions against those who flouted the sanitation laws. Immediately after the conversation, he threw an empty mineral water bottle out of the car. My friend was shocked and he asked why, the response his uncle gave was even more shocking, he said, "this is Ghana". This story drew my mind to the sanitation problems we faced as a country and as a continent in general. Coming to my own country and to a popular central hub called Tema station in Accra, Ghana, you see people struggling for space to dump their refuse. Believe you me, the stench coming from this heap is beyond measure. Commuters who use that part of town can attest to this. Recently we inaugurated the National Sanitation Day,( 1 day in every month to keep our surroundings clean) that is all well and good but I asked myself, can we use just 12 days in a year to unlearn something which has been part of us for years? We must resolve to put in our little quota (daily) by keeping our immediate surroundings clean and making sure they stay that way.
 In my opinion, the place that really needs cleaning up are our minds. I think there should be a mental makeover. Sometimes when you think of some our cultural practices that we still engage in, one can only wish for a mental revolution. We have "witches" in Ghana and have gone ahead to build witch camps?. Really? I thought "Harry Potter" was just fictitious why then do we make it a reality in our part of the world? By the way what is the "measuring rod" used to verify these witchcraft claims? Who invented these "witch buster" mechanism? Female Genital Mutilation, considering the birth of twin children as a curse in some parts of the country, "trokosi" ( a form of slavery) and a host of many other practices need to be kicked out into oblivion. We must strive to unlearn our "dirty tendencies" and pick up "healthy" habits and practices. The "sanity" of the world and some of our wife's sexual arousal depends on it. This is Edwin Oko Lamptey and this is a RANDOM AFRICAN THOUGHT.
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LET US KNOW WHAT IS DUE US

A thunderous shout woke me up in the heat of the night. I opened my eyes to realize that  the Electricity Company of Ghana had put our lights back on. I checked my time and it was a quarter to ten pm (per the schedules, the light is supposed to come on at six pm). Ever since I was a child, there have always been "shouts of joy" when the lights come back on after a period of being off. Today, I want to ask, what have we been shouting for? We are not begging for the power are we? Don't we know that per the fact that we pay our bills, the onus lies on the authorities to provide us power? I work with a Telco and sometimes I myself marvel at what the customers tend to believe when I tell them. Are we just loudmouths? I give them flimsy excuses as to why they are unable to use their airtime to make calls or surf the internet and they accept it and don't question why they have bought airtime with their money and cannot use it. Don't we know that the onus lies on the telcos to provide service? We say we know our rights but I think we are sometimes ignorant of our own rights. Maybe I feel when people fight for a wrong done them they are tagged as " I know my right". Then again, should you chicken out of fighting a just cause when you know you are right just because of some "tag"?. We have in a way become "cowards". Our ignorance of our rights sometimes beats my imagination. We are the same people who would jokingly say, "you cannot do this in Europe" and truth be told, you cannot because people there don't just accept things at face value. They enquire, ask for explanations and demand for the errors to be corrected. We cannot copy everything that is done in "Europe" but I think this aspect is worth copying. Let us know what is due us and hold the responsible actors to book should anything go amiss. It is what is due us, we the people of the world. I am Edwin Oko Lamptey and this is my challenge to all of us RANDOM AFRICAN THOUGHT ®
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DO NOT ASSUME; TAKE ACTION

I always knew I had some ability to write even before I went to high school. Some of my friends knew of this "ability" of mine. It was only when I started writing these RANDOM AFRICAN THOUGHT®  pieces that I realized that my friends' knowledge of this my ability was only an assumption. The popular question was "are you writing these yourself?" Some of them thought I was cutting writings  from other sources and piecing them together and presenting it as my own. Others thought I was forwarding the messages from another source. Others, on the other hand sounded their appreciation and how proud they were of me for my efforts. I was sitting on my bed trying to "piece" my thoughts together and I came to the realization that your "assumed" ability means nothing to the world till the world sees evidence of achievement from that ability. Simply put, your ability means nothing till you take action. Your ability, talent, knowledge, qualification will only be known to only you till you do something worthwhile or something worth knowing. Relating this to the world of work, I have noticed that employers no more employ people based on qualification but based on experience and this experience came about as a result of action ( working). Same way, you can profess your love to a woman using all of Shakespeare's romantic language. All your "sweet words" would come to naught if she does not see evidence of your ability. Your ability is what probably earns you a living so if you do not make it known how do you expect to get paid? Let us let our skills and abilities do the talking and there would not be the need for us to open our mouths. Even in an altercation let your ability do the talking. It bores me to death to see two people arguing and insulting each other when their ability (fists) should be the ones arguing. When I happen to chance upon such a scene all I do is yell "People, please stop the lyrical and get on with the physical". It works like magic, everyone walks away leaving the "fight" in a stalemate. It always turns out that they are all cowards and loudmouths anyway - just on the lighter side. On a more serious note, let us all strive to let our achievements speak for us. If it is the case that we have not achieved anything yet, let us persevere and win some achievement trophies. It is the sure way to success and respect. This has been a RANDOM AFRICAN THOUGHT and my name is Edwin Oko Lamptey.
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EFFECTS OF PARENTAL GUIDANCE

I love my parents. They are one reason I am who I am today. Their guidance and coaching in my developmental years was top-notch. This fact notwithstanding, there were some times that we got off on the wrong foot considering my adolescent tendencies and all. Our parents are amazing life coaches. To some of us they are the only role models we have. I realized one thing about some parents as I grew up and I think it is worth analyzing. I realized that some parents tend to live their lives in their children's. This has been the undoing of some children. Some parents, who for one reason or another could not live out their dreams tend to use their children to attain that dream. You would often hear a parent tell their friends about how their child would be a doctor, nurse, lawyer and so on. These parents normally plan the lives of these children from pre-school right up to the time they take their first salary like they would have lived theirs. When that child is lucky, he or she ends up with a career they might love or not. On the other hand, that child may be stuck in limbo if it is the case that when he or she gets to the stage where his or her parents failed, they cannot coach that child anymore because they did not take the time to find out why they failed in the first place to be able to coach their child to succeed. This child would therefore have to carve for himself or herself a new career path thereby wasting some years. We all have our career choices and more often than not, our choices change as we grow up. Our parents must guide us to select the right ones and not select for us.
I also realized that some of our parents are the reason why tribalism and ethnocentrism abounds. You would often hear a parent tell their child "I do not want you to associate or marry from this or that ethnic group" due to their personal experience with that particular group. This hasty generalization adopted by our parents goes a long way in determining our future partners. This too must stop for our own good.
Finally I realized that some of our parents are so strict that it has affected the children. I had a female friend who had to save my name on her phone as a female because of what her dad would say when he saw it, seriously? The strict upbringing makes us disciplined but timid. We cannot stand up to authority even if they are wrong, we dare not talk about sex. It is we  these same children that are bewildered and lose our cool when sexual issues hit us out of home. Dear parents, please loosen up a bit because you are not always right. Not everyone would agree with me on this, that is why this is just a  RANDOM AFRICAN THOUGHT. My name is Edwin Oko Lamptey. Y'all have a great week. More at randomafricanthoughts.blogspot.com
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IT IS A MATTER OF PERCEPTION

We all have our perceptions about life and life's situations. Our perceptions go a long way in determining how we approach issues in life. My little cousins have a friend called Kojo Baker. We were at a get together and it so happened that we had to play school so I asked all the kids gathered a question. I asked what is 1+1? Kojo Baker shouted "me, me, I know, I know" so I said "ok Kojo, go ahead". "Eleven" he shouted. I can tell you I had the laugh of my life that night. It was only until recently that I realized that his answer was probably based on his perception of the question that was asked. I am sure he thought, if you put 1 and 1 together, the figure you aim to create is 11. Kojo Baker was a genius in my eye because I hadn't even thought of it that way myself. The situations of life do not change but our approach to these situations are not one and the same. It is your approach that will determine whether you would come out top or bottom. It takes longer for some people to get over misfortunes you might  consider that misfortune not to be a big deal; it is a matter of perception. Some people react differently to the same situation. You would be doing yourself a great disservice if you thought that the solution I applied to my  situation would also work for you. It is a matter  of perception. You would hear people say "when would you get over this or that issue?" I would say it is a matter of perception. Take all the time you need to get over that situation or find a solution to that "equation" because no one is chasing you. You want to come out of that situation a better person so why the rush? Believe you  me, when you are faced with any situation in life, the best thing that anyone can do for you is to sympathize with you and that is all. You have the power to overcome that situation or get over it. This fact notwithstanding, let us be realistic when we are faced with life's situations and adopt realistic approaches to solving them. This is a RANDOM AFRICAN THOUGHT. Thank God it's Friday. My name is Edwin Oko Lamptey.
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WE MAY NOT BE MOTIVATIONAL PEOPLE

Some people are motivated easily but for others, it takes a great deal of effort to get them motivated. Motivation is very objective; what motivates one person may not motivate another. I hear money is a general motivator but even that is debatable. I have an adorable twin sister who is almost all the time motivated to carry out house chores but myself, it will take the grace of God for her to get me motivated to join her carry out the weekend chores. I do not really know where she gets her motivation from. I realized that more often than not people who are motivated tend be of the view that people around them should be equally motivated. I said early on that motivation is objective. These "motivated" people tend to think that the "unmotivated" ones are lazy and cannot find the zeal to carry out an assignment. MOTIVATION IS OBJECTIVE. When next you happen to be "beefed" up for an engagement but others around you are not, take it easy, their motivation is coming. We may not be motivational people but what I know is that we are all born-leaders. Everyone of us is a leader. Leading is a natural phenomenon. I know some people will be thinking otherwise but if you looked at yourself critically you would realise that there is a great leader in you. We start leading from infancy. You are a leader if you have to lead if you had to hold the hands of your little siblings and take them to school. We all have the skill of leadership. We just have to fine-tune our leadership skills as we go through life. You may be the leader of your church band; do it with passion, you may be leading a group discussion; do it with passion; you may be leading in the race to win that girl's heart; do it with passion, you may be leading a visually impaired person, to a lecture hall; do it with passion. No matter the situation, if you find yourself in a position of leadership, do it to the best of your ability. You may not know who is being motivated by your leadership. If we learn to pick up these qualities and know that we can lead in our own small way, whenever we are entrusted with much bigger responsibilities, we will not disappoint. We may not be motivational people but we sure are all born-leaders. Let us go through life with this in mind that you do not need to have a great position to influence people but you can influence people greatly in any position you find yourself. THIS IS A RANDOM AFRICAN THOUGHT. I am Edwin Oko Lamptey.
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THE SELF-EVALUATION TEST

I  always knew I was  intelligent and took school work pretty easy because I always came out top of my class no matter how hard I tried. Believe you me, this "thought" of mine was just an assertion because when I changed schools, I realized that I was not that "intelligent". I had to struggle to come out    twelfth in class a couple of times till I sat up to be able to compete with the "brains" in my class. Competition changed my way of thinking. I know I suck at soccer but whenever I had to play and more so, when I happened to be on the same team with Gabriel (a friend of mine), my confidence sky-rocketed because I knew that guy was a "disgrace" to the beautiful game.
Whatever you think you are good at, someone will always be better at it and whatever you think you suck at someone else will suck more. That is life, truth be told. The question is, how do you deal with these situations when they confront you? Do you get inspiration from the competition to do better or do you "die" of envy because you think you can never be like your competition?
No matter how hard you try, someone will always be more pretty, lucky, intelligent, wealthy, worthy, successful, friendly, annoying,lazy, stingy and so on. Whenever I am faced with a "competition" in any aspect of my life, I  just channel whatever envious motive that is driving me into positive energy and encourage myself to strive harder to be like or surpass my competition. I know people who have caved in due to competition in one aspect of their lives or another. The reason they caved was because they valued themselves even lesser than how the competition valued them. Competition is good though there are some exceptions but competition should not be the reason why we give up. We should be able to stand our ground and when your "hard battle" is fought and won, you would see the need to tell someone " why envy when you can be more than what you think of yourself?" This is my motivation and this has been a RANDOM AFRICAN THOUGHT.
Edwin Oko Lamptey
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THE WATER DISPENSER

We have a community centre in my neighbourhood where we meet when we have time to chat, play board games and generally socialize. There is a water dispenser at the community centre. This dispenser was always filled with water from a particular mineral water company with the company's name embossed on it. The water was preferred by all who visited the centre. A new mineral water company had come to town and started supplying water to the town centre. We all had been used to the old mineral water so "patronage" of the new one was very low (not that the water tasted any differently). The caretaker of the centre did something and only revealed it to us two weeks before his retirement. Due to the fact that he knew what appealed to us, he always poured the new mineral water into the old mineral water's container ( unknown to us). In our minds, we were still drinking the water  we preferred. This drew my mind to something. Sometimes we are too interested in the container and forget about the content when it should be the other way round. We often tend to judge people by their appearance and not by what they can offer. Some of our relationships fail because we judge by the container (you know what I mean) and not the contents. We say "appearance is deceptive" but you and I know that appearance attracts us first. We also say, "do not judge a book by its cover" but we do. We are all culprits one way or the other. Being a guy I would normally judge a lady I see by her "container" (most guys do that) because external features of a woman appeals to most (given our changing trends in sexual preference) men.  More often than not we throw the contents to the dogs. This analogy can be applied to many aspects in life from business, marriage, education, jobs and the list goes on and on. I am only saying that it is high time we critically looked at the things we deal with in our everyday lives and pay close attention to the content and not the container. The containers in life are very appealing but it is the content that makes or unmakes a man. Food for thought. This is another RANDOM AFRICAN THOUGHT and I am Edwin Oko Lamptey. More @ randomafricanthoughts.blogspot.com
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MY VIEW ON VALUE

There is this lady at my office, she is very disciplined and takes her work very seriously. She has never put a foot wrong when it comes to seeing to it that work that she assigns us is done ( she is my boss just so you know). Recently she had an issue at work and my other colleagues actually had a field day when news of her unfortunate predicament broke out at the office. On my way home, I was thinking of the whole situation and I realised that more often than not, people tend to judge others based on their values more than their character. I say this because I know the way the lady is. She wants every job to be carried out perfectly and due to the aggression she puts in to see to it that the job was done, we tagged her to be 'too knowing' and people actually hated her for that. More often than not if a guy hears a lady say " I do not date people I work with", that lady would be tagged as "too knowing". You would often hear, "who do you think you are?" as  a response to that statement. In my opinion, it is the lady's values that makes her not to accept proposals from her colleagues because she knows she cannot cope to have her "man" interrupting her during working hours. When a guy says " I do not like this" or "I do not like that" others think he is too "picky and choosy" but the point is his values will not allow him do anything at anytime without making certain considerations.Many African leaders fell out with their citizens because they(the citizenry) judged them by their values thinking they were over-ambitious and they saw these leaders as dreamers. But their values which they held onto sent them to their graves and the repercussions of our actions(being judgemental) are gravely being regretted. I noticed that the people who did not punish us for our wrong doing especially at work appealed to us more than those who did. Reason is, we hate people with values; I mean good values. We see them as slave drivers when they in fact are the ones we should be applauding and taking examples from. I think if we all learnt to get our own set of values, we would be treated with respect and we would as it were, add VALUE to our lives and that of others. Let us all get some values. I am just saying. This is Edwin Oko Lamptey and this is my RANDOM AFRICAN THOUGHT. 
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THE FRIDAY WEAR ANALOGY

THE FRIDAY WEAR ANALOGY
Today is Friday and in Ghana today, we would be clad in our beautiful African prints  or Friday wear as the dress and day have been blended and crystallized to mean. I for one, has always wondered why we as Africans would proudly wear what is ours on a single day. I have always been of the opinion that we as Africans should proudly put on our amazing African prints on more than a day of the week not one. What I do not understand is the fact that no other day but Friday was selected for such an "August" occasion. Going back in time, growing up as a child, I  saw Fridays as a day when little work was done, when games and P.E (Physical Education) were the reasons we hurriedly went to school. It was a day when the weekend breeze was beginning to set in; in fact other people had their weekends beginning on Friday. My analogy here is, why must we show who we are on the last working day? why do we save our best for last?  Why do we  present what makes us African on Friday? A day I consider to be the last day of the working week. We must be proud of our own and gladly "flaunt" it to show our solidarity. I am just saying that if we take ourselves and what we stand for seriously, we would be treated as such. This is food for thought. I sign off here. My name is Edwin Oko Lamptey and this is just a RANDOM AFRICAN THOUGHT.
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THE ART OF MANIPULATION

THE ART OF MANIPULATION
I strongly believe that when intercontinental trade began, it was ideally meant for the exchange of goods. I believe that slavery and  slave trade were not the first items on the list till the Whiteman discovered the way the African perceived. I always asked myself, how come Africa contributed so many slaves? I began to be convinced that the African mind was easily manipulated. I realized that our forefathers were wooed by the ingenuity of the Whiteman and easily accepted to exchange human beings in return for goods. This art of manipulation from then on has  contributed immensely to the stunted growth in development in African countries. Even more deadly is the fact that we as Africans have also adopted  the manipulation tool and tend to use it on our fellow countrymen.
We sometimes use or position, wealth, family status, and little privileges we have to "lord" ourselves over others. This art of manipulation is in all aspects of life and yes I have been manipulated several times by people I wanted favours from. The private sector capitalizes on the scarcity of jobs to manipulate their employees. A girlfriend uses sex to manipulate her boyfriend. A boyfriend also capitalizes on the fact that a poor girl has fallen for him to be manipulative over her. Governments have myriad ways of manipulating the citizenry. Manipulation has done us more harm than good. It has caused as to live in slavery for fear of losing someone or something we deem a need.
If you feel you are being manipulated in anyway at all, please speak up and walk out of whatever thing it is that is manipulation you. You will never realise your full potential if you stay. You will always be undervalued if you refuse to speak up. More often than not, people who tend to be manipulative are cowards and by standing up to them, this art of "neo-slavery" will stop. There is nothing more sweet than being treated fairly and being dealt a fair hand per your skills and qualification. We should not allow anyone undervalue us. We should always appreciate our self worth and break free from our timid psychological make up. If we don't, low self-esteem and inferiority complex will forever be a name tag on us. THIS IS A RANDOM AFRICAN THOUGHT and I still remain Edwin Oko Lamptey.
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THE AFRICAN MINDSET

Let's take a little walk down memory lane today. Before we set off, let me ask these questions, what does accountability mean to the African? Secondly, do we remember things in the past and use them to advice ourselves? In lane one, if  what goes on in our morning talk shows or paper reviews is anything to go by, our leaders and ex leaders only talk about who did more bad than the other and exhibit the successes they chalked at being incompetent when they were in power. We freely add our voices by calling-in to contribute to the mess. Point is, can't we ever for once build consensus by coming together to build our country devoid of party affiliations? We only think about ourselves and look at the need to build consensus like a child who copying his notes from a classroom blackboard and covering his work because he does not want his sitting partner to see what he is writing. In their minds, if we help each other, it will go against them, well isn't  it the same country we are all planning to make great and strong?
Lane two, we spend most of the time paying attention to other matters and ignoring pertinent ones (in my own view). We pay great attention to fur coats and if it is unisex or not and forget that a mother is still crying because her newly-born baby is still missing. We pay attention to wrong doers by debating the merits and demerits of their wrong doing and forget that whatever committee we set up to probe gross spending is just a mere formality amounting to nothing. Do we blame this on the actors or victims? The demand for Accountability must be a social responsibility. This is not about taking sides, it is about making our sacred national anthem and national pledge a reality. We the people should not forget our power. We too the people, we are too unconcerned! We must demand that the right things be done and see to it that they are carried through. We seem not to care and are only interested in staying in our own small corner. We the people deserve better. We deserve results, progress, continuous development and most importantly economic freedom. We should not give  audience to anything less. THIS  IS A RANDOM AFRICAN THOUGHT- Edwin  Oko Lamptey

REFLECTING ON A MISFORTUNE

As human as we are, there was a time when we had to deal with a misfortune at a particular time in our lives. Misfortunes are here with us, they are a part of us, and it's quite unfortunate but they are inevitable. Death is a misfortune, sickness, losing a loved one, being the only bread-winner in your family and losing your job and so on.  Misfortunes come in different sizes and shapes and they are objective. Not finding my socks in the mornings when I am getting ready for work is one of my great misfortunes because I know I tend to be careless more often than not. Yesterday, something dawned on me and I thought it wise to share. Sometimes the things that happen to us which we consider unfortunate are the very things that we tend to find strength and inspiration from. Picture this, you break up with someone you felt was very likeable, someone you loved, someone you gave your all to; I mean your ALL to. Due to this, you cry and stop believing in love. But see this, it is in this same thing called love that you would realise that before you can love someone, you should first learn to love yourself and understand that the greatest love of all is being able to love yourself first. That way, you would have enough positive energy to find yourself falling in love again.
As a Ghanaian, in my opinion, I consider the erratic cuts in power supply as one of our greatest misfortunes as a nation. But personally I have benefited greatly from this misfortune. I tend to be very careless but due to the power cuts, I have become very organised. I iron all my clothes, ensure that whatever I need are put at the right places. I have become very economical. We have learnt how to manage with whatever short time of power supply we get. We have come to learn to expect anything at any time. I know others can say same in other areas of their lives. What we consider a misfortune has thought me and probably others a great deal. I am not in any way glorifying misfortunes or justifying our erratic cuts of power supply. I am just saying that if we looked deeply into our "misfortunes", we might find an inspiration and not give that misfortune the joy of seeing us stay down forever. As you face your misfortune today, ponder over the fact that most of life's greatest inventions were as a result of a misfortune. My name is Edwin Oko Lamptey and THIS IS A RANDOM AFRICAN THOUGHT.

ON THE ISSUE OF LOVE

I promised a good friend that I was going to do a piece on love for her since she said we were in the month of love- February.
 Thinking of love and a lot of things come to mind. For some strange reason, the first thought that came to mind was "we love those who hurt us and hurt those who love us". My love life has been one hell of a ride. Honestly, if you asked me what my view on love was, I'd say love is the only thing that keeps me alive, it is my hope, my inspiration, my satisfaction, it is what makes me think, what makes me go to work, what makes me feel good about life. In short love is my life. One day a lady asked me, how are you able to love so deeply? This is my love secret and this is what I told her; When I am in love, my lover is my only priority, I look at her just like the first day I fell in love and that is how I see her all the other days that we are together. In short, I find ways of loving my lover more deeply with each day that passes. Well, that has been my undoing in my relationships. Now transferring this mentality into life, when you love something or someone, you give in your all, it shouldn't necessarily be emotional love, it could be religion, your job, future aspiration, business idea, even a hobby. If we resolve to love these engagements with the same kind of passion I'd have for a woman, many of our dreams would become realities and guess what, come the end of the day, we are going to love what we do and also profit greatly from doing what we have come to love. I went on to say that love has also hurt me ,made me cry on certain days, made Alvaro taste like urine, papaye, like sawdust but through it all I didn't give up. In the same vein when our plans turn out undone or didn't go according to how we pictured it, we should resolve to fight to make it better the next time.
I observed for a while that though love is sweet and all, we misuse it. Often times we tend to love other things more than we do people. Like our jobs, money, gadgets to mention but a few. We must strive to love people more. That is the difference between a human being and being human
Sometimes love is used as a tool. In my findings, I came across two types of lovers Some people tend to be natural lovers and others assumed lovers. Natural lovers tend to be slaves to love and assumed lovers; the slave drivers. A natural lover is cool, very collected and highly emotional and would move the world to see a lover smile. Assumed lovers are just natural lovers who were hurt and grew into bitter people who use hasty generalization in love. Natural lovers are often manipulated because of their tender emotional make-up. Assumed lovers normally pretend not to love but in the end, we all meet people who make our worlds go round. I know you were thinking of a particular person while you were reading this piece, don't worry, so was I. THIS IS A RANDOM AFRICAN THOUGHT( Inspired by Ama Yedua Arthur). BY Edwin Oko Lamptey.
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THE THING ABOUT DREAMS

You cannot daydream a dream into reality; only positive action   has that power over our dreams.
We all have dreams; dream jobs, dream salaries, dream cars, dream husbands and wives. Even more detailed with young ladies is the dream of how their weddings should look like right from start to finish. Dreams are good, we should all have one or more but the question we should ask ourselves when our minds are flooded with these fantasies (because they are not yet realities) is that can I work my way into making this dream a reality? This is a story about my dream. There is this lady I know, I always fantasized getting married to her and living together, going to shows together and having all that crazy fun anyone can imagine (meanwhile I had not even said a SINGLE word to her the whole time). Anytime I saw her all sorts of thoughts rushed through my head. All she ever was to me was a sweet thought. Hmmm, next month, my dream girl is getting married. Don't congratulate me, she is not getting married to me. She is marrying someone else. Someone who saw an opportunity to turn his dream into a reality. That is what will make the difference, because from next month, this guy will be going home to a wife and my dreamer self, well, I will be going home to my old laptop. Some of us have wild dreams, they may seem herculean at first glance but just like the way this guy snatched my "dream" girl ( I don't even know the guy but I already hate him with passion),all our dreams are surmountable. All we need to do is to think positively and act likewise. Action is the only thing that separates dreamers from achievers. Let's stop driving Lamborghinis past our enemies and splashing water on them  in our minds and make it a reality. Let's take action. THIS IS A RANDOM AFRICAN THOUGHT - Edwin Lamptey

The broken plate theory

Growing up as a child, I always wondered why my dad was never shouted at or punished in someway whenever he broke a plate at home. I thought to myself, was this man not to blame for the same  crime I am shouted at when it was committed? I also wondered, even after committing such a "heinous" crime he still enjoyed all the best part of the chicken soup on Fufu Sundays. Why was it so? As a young man now, I sometimes blame our inability to question authority or even hold them accountable for their wrong doing on the mystery of my father and the broken plates ( I am still trying to unravel that mystery). Sometimes I wonder if there would ever be a "successful" uprising in Ghana where our demands for accountability can see the light of day. One, some of us grow up in the "broken plate" mentality and are even afraid to question ourselves thoughtless of questioning our "higher ups". Two, we are too busy whitewashing our "Ghanafuor y3 hospitable and peace-loving" gold medal while we suffer in poverty. Some of us are also busy making babies because in the absence of electricity, sex is one great form of entertainment- that's on the lighter side. Here comes the amazing part; just like Fufu Sundays, our leaders who we can't hold accountable   enjoy the ramparts of our economy and even have pet names for them- ex-gratia, rent allowance, petrol allowance and the like. We must demand accountability come what may. We must break free from our timid psychological make up. Our children's wellbeing and future depends on it. Posterity will painfully judge us if we don't realise our power as the people.
THIS IS A RANDOM AFRICAN THOUGHT- EDWIN LAMPTEY.

Doors

Just like the problem with doors; our problem is not with finding a door of opportunity, it is with knowing whether to push or pull that door- Edwin Lamptey

Accountability

Good morning... I woke up this morning feeling all beat up. I for one, I really pretended not to support the Black stars deep down, I am a die hard supporter of the senior national team. I hate to say this but what is done cannot be undone and I really share the grief of our soldiers out there. You fought a good fight lads. Hmmm, now let's take some lessons from the Afcon 2015 finals.
First of all, we should not allow history to get the better advantage over us. Before the match, lots of people were skeptical about our chances of winning ( including myself). We used the past to determine our fate and I am sure this got to our players. More often than not, we tend to base our present actions and future aspirations on the past. Past relationships gone bad, business plans that failed,promises that were broken and so forth; these experiences make us skeptical about our bright futures and causes us to take a laid back approach to try harder, to forge ahead, to defy the odds. Point is if you chicken out of an opportunity just based on past experiences, chances are you will experience the same fate or worse if you have that experience "in your head back" ( bukom banku: 2013). You failed the first time so what? It is high time we rose up to the occasion and tell the past that " I am trying this again, I will put in my all and yes I will be the one smiling when the deed is done, just watch me". If we have this mentality, no dream or aspiration which was failed at the first try will yield same results upon the next attempt.
Whenever we have a deed, we must see it out when we have the opportunity, we must build a strong winning mentality and see that the duty entrusted to us is carried out. I never imagined the game going all the way to penalties. Speaking of penalties I have watched many penalty shootouts and the side that gives up the advantage is the side that often loses. Same applies to life. Whenever we have an opportunity to do something we should always strive to make it count. That opportunity might be your make or break moment. Trust me, no matter the successes you have chalked in the past, the whole world would judge you just with the single chance and that moment based on results your action in that moment produced. Let us all strive to make every little opportunity life presents to us count. THIS IS A RANDOM AFRICAN THOUGHT - Edwin Lamptey

Good morning... I woke up this morning feeling all beat up. I for one, I really pretended not to support the Black stars deep down, I am a die hard supporter of the senior national team. I hate to say this but what is done cannot be undone and I really share the grief of our soldiers out there. You fought a good fight lads. Hmmm, now let's take some lessons from the Afcon 2015 finals.
First of all, we should not allow history to get the better advantage over us. Before the match, lots of people were skeptical about our chances of winning ( including myself). We used the past to determine our fate and I am sure this got to our players. More often than not, we tend to base our present actions and future aspirations on the past. Past relationships gone bad, business plans that failed,promises that were broken and so forth; these experiences make us skeptical about our bright futures and causes us to take a laid back approach to try harder, to forge ahead, to defy the odds. Point is if you chicken out of an opportunity just based on past experiences, chances are you will experience the same fate or worse if you have that experience "in your head back" ( bukom banku: 2013). You failed the first time so what? It is high time we rose up to the occasion and tell the past that " I am trying this again, I will put in my all and yes I will be the one smiling when the deed is done, just watch me". If we have this mentality, no dream or aspiration which was failed at the first try will yield same results upon the next attempt.
Whenever we have a deed, we must see it out when we have the opportunity, we must build a strong winning mentality and see that the duty entrusted to us is carried out. I never imagined the game going all the way to penalties. Speaking of penalties I have watched many penalty shootouts and the side that gives up the advantage is the side that often loses. Same applies to life. Whenever we have an opportunity to do something we should always strive to make it count. That opportunity might be your make or break moment. Trust me, no matter the successes you have chalked in the past, the whole world would judge you just with the single chance and that moment based on results your action in that moment produced. Let us all strive to make every little opportunity life presents to us count. THIS IS A RANDOM AFRICAN THOUGHT - Edwin Lamptey