I have said all along that the Ghanaian tolerance level is so high that if care is not taken and it continues, our future as a nation would be very bleak. We have known through the Bible that human beings gravitate towards wrong things more than they do to things that are right, in scripture it says that we love SIN more than we do, God. That being the case with our high level of TOLERANCE, it means what other societies see as Corruption, the Ghanaian would think it is normal.We as a nation hardly confront wrongdoing especially if the one perpetuating it is an adult or has a higher standing in society. We shall even glamourise it for them to do worse. Our traditions make it impossible to say an adult is wrong because if we did, we would be classified as a BAD BOY or a BAD GIRL.
I have discovered that whilst those who have studied the BRAIN say we have two types of how our brains work thus : The Fixed Mindset and the Growth Mindset. Today, as an African, I become the first person to add a THIRD and I call it :The Blocked Mindset.
Fixed Mindset, I have said finds it difficult to operate outside the norm. It responds to what others say and do. It carries out instructions to perfection. It does not allow the setting of life goals so it is like “Do as I you go”. You respond and act according to the environment and how you feel like at anytime. Under it, productivity suffers, attitude to work is very bad, there is no motivation to achieve any potential so a lot of waste and leakages go on.
I have said, all the geniuses of this world do not carry that mindset. They are in tune with the Growth mindset which is goal oriented so objectives are well drawn out and defined, aims and goals are worked at with every fibre of strength and energy. When one goal is achieved a more challenging one is in motion. Those with this mindset do not waste precious time on unimportant things because they are always engaged in innovation, developing new ways of doing things. They want to reach their potential which is their motivation.
Now, I add the New One: Blocked mindset, it is the most dangerous of the two, because with this mindset, those with it have resigned themselves to doing anything to better their lot. They do not rise up one morning and say, I have a Blocked Mindset but society brings it about. They may have put in effort upon effort to attain or achieve something but try as they do, they do not succeed. Like in my case, all I wanted as a kid was to go to secondary school. I was successful in all my FOUR common entrance examinations from 1967-70, because my father did not have the finances, I had to drop out. I passed the recruitment process to join the Police Service in 1973 but I am still waiting for my letter of appointment. In 1974,I went through all the enlistment processes successfully to join the Ghana Armed Forces , and I had been assured that I did exceedingly wonderful but once more, my letter is yet to be received for me to start training.
These and other situations in society where the state would not give you any support to do anything constructively viable to let you reach your potential drive people to give up. They normally say “After all who will help me” They resign their fate to whatever anybody would do for them. In order for them to keep going in life, they normally Block off all the bad things that have happened to them so that they can exist. Blocked mindset has the potential of causing depression and other mental ailments to people.
They have lost the will to live,to them all their efforts in contributing to society has been betrayed by forces outside their control. As the two mindsets define people, in the THIRD, Blocked Mindsets are defined by their inability to do anything important and significant for themselves let alone those around them.The person in such a state had been the subject of sustained or prolonged society rejection and their self-worth has been compromised.You find them everywhere in our society, in the developed countries they are called undocumented just because they do not have any immigration status but in Africa and Ghana,they are the vulnerable,deprived and uncared for in our society.