A THOUSAND TIMES MORE

The value of life lies not in the length of days but in the use we make of them: a man may live long, yet get little from life. Whether you find satisfaction in life depends not on your tale of years but on your will (Montaigne essays)
There is this friend that I made in the university. We are still very good friends. This friend of mine has great ambitions and aspirations but one thing that is lacking is the fact that he bases all these hopes on the wealth of his father. He has a very rich dad and he talks non-stop about how his dad must see to it that he accomplishes all his dreams. That is all well and good and also in the right place considering the fact that he was still a student then. What I find worrying also is that he intends to sit back, relax and take over his dad's properties when his dad is no more so that he can manage his dad's properties. Tell you what, my friend's dad has not even stepped in a classroom before yet he is rich. I am not in anyway saying that you cannot acquire wealth if you do not have an education because there are countless world-renowned personalities that have unthinkable wealth but do not have any form of education. There is this female friend too whose dad is a university lecturer but has a bad habit of drinking. He literally drinks away his salary and leaves the family to survive on the ingenuity of their mother. Both these friends of mine have one thing in common. They are of the view that we are LIKE our parents (they base their assertion on a popular Akan proverb which translates "a crab does not beget a bird") and more often than not, we end up like them. The guy thinks he is going to be rich LIKE his dad and the lady thinks she is going to be "wasteful" LIKE her dad. Now here is what I think. People may see us to be LIKE our parents by virtue of the fact that they gave birth to us and that they are our immediate role models but in actual fact, we are more than our parents in every possible scenario. If our parents were able to be successful with only diligence and determination on their CVs, we should be able to surpass them with our various educational qualifications coupled with diligence and determination. If our parents were considered well-read and informed having just a small community library which they had to walk miles to access, we should be considered scholars by having well-equipped libraries, mobile phones and the internet. We should be able to do a thousand times more what our parents did. If your parents are millionaires aim to be a billionaire. If your parents own a hotel aim to own a chain of hotels. If your dad is a carpenter, aim to own a furniture company. If your dad is a mason aim to be a real estate developer. If your dad always rented apartments, aim to own a house. Even if your dad is a drunkard, aim to own a drinking spot ( like we say in Ghana). Whatever your dad is, aim to be a thousand times more ( in the positive light). For those who do not also have dads for whatever reason aim to live dignified and prosperous lives. We should not harbour ambitions of being like our parents. We should think bigger and become better than they are . Whatever  be the situation we must consider ourselves as barrier-breakers and line-crossers. We can do more. The limits of our parents should be our halfway mark. Let us break some barriers. This is a RANDOM AFRICAN THOUGHT. My name is Edwin Oko Lamptey and  yes I aim to be more than my parents. More at randomafricanthoughts.blogspot.com