As much as I hate saying this, but most of Africans live a miserable life. I am an African myself and in order to change our current situations, we’ve to know where we went wrong and hopefully working hard to change it for the better. As an African, I’ve noticed these factors contributes to making Africa a ‘dark continent’.
1. Little to no self-esteem
It happens most of the time when we meet with people from other continents. We don’t believe in ourselves and tend to feel worthless. The only real difference between Africans and people from other continents is the geographical location of where they call home. All other things can be trained through repetitions. There’s no excuse for not doing something that will contribute to making the world a better place for us all. If they can, we can too.
2. Blaming too much and being irresponsible
That’s right! We’re very good at blaming on why things don’t go our way and at the same time, we take no action. We weirdly think that someone else is responsible for our problems. Well, we might be right and that “someone” usually means “no one”.
3. Selfishness
The only real race in the world is the “human race”. Our backgrounds, beliefs, ethnicity, color, gender and so on. None of those matters due to the fact that we need each other. No country, tribe or group is self-sufficient. As Africans, we need to understand this more than anybody else. This is not the time for us to be self-centered as there’s no better future for doing so. Teamwork is the way to go.
4. Neophobia
We are afraid of trying new and unfamiliar things or experiences. This may seem insane but I believe it’s a major setback to our prosperity. In order to grow, we need to be open to new experiences and try out new things. A brain that is always repeating the same bunch of stuff is limited to its thinking and creativity capacity and on our way to prosperity, we need both of them.
5. Consumer mindset
No offense but when we see these revolutionary advancements in technology, statements like “Oh my god! This is magic. Only the whites can do this” are very common in Africa. I’ve been there not once but many times too. I came to study on how people achieve great things and it came down to these three simple words of knowledge, strategy, and execution. Nothing difficult in understanding the formula. But in order to achieve what we set to accomplish, we must think not like consumers but producers. We can absolutely do nothing under consumer mode than consuming.
We as Africans have to know where we’re making mistakes and immediately take actions in fighting the setbacks at any cost for the better future of our Africa.
“The only real difference between Africans and people from other continents is the geographical location of where they call home. All other things can be trained through repetitions” – ISMAIL M
Here’s to the bright future of Africa and its people. Please share this article if you find it helpful to those you care about with a hashtag #CHANGEBYAFRICANS
Sourced from: The African Exponent
Last updated in November 2024
