Nature has been teaching us this lesson for ages now, but many people find it difficult to accept and embrace it. For growth to occur, there must be change. For you to progress as an individual, you must make some changes. Change in attitude, habits, pursuits; changes in decision making, changes in action and everything else.
But change is scary. Change is risky. Change makes you uncomfortable. You get thrown out of your comfort zone. All the same, letting things remain unchanged for long means you are going nowhere.
Things remaining unchallenged and unchanged for long can be harmful and means we are not progressing as a society. Allowing one political party or two to steer your national destiny for 30+ years is a recipe for mediocrity, a breeding ground for complacency, non-competence, corruption and grand larceny in administrative governance.
The human story has always been about constant improvement, inch by inch; finding new ways of doing things, doing things better, evolving our world, prolonging human life, making life worth living, making it worthwhile, making better societies.
But our constant yearning for comfort and the warmth of the familiar stalls progress.
There are people who really can’t imagine a Ghana without NPP or NDC in power and they will never do anything to make that change happen. But they will keep complaining about how difficult things are. Of course, complaining every day is easier than trying to change things.
Trying is hard. Change is a tall order. They don’t want the discomfort of changing things, and it’s a trait inherited from our hunter-gatherer days.
The man who dares leave the group in the forest, in search for better food or fruits alone rather than the ones in his immediate surrounding is a risk-taker. He is behaving differently from the majority in that group. But he can become a hero, a pioneer, a change maker. He can end up blazing a trail for others to follow. If he fails, others will learn how not to do it.
Society has many times being pushed forward by risk-takers, people who left their comfort zones, people who triumphed against the odds. We need more of such people. Are you?
Let’s do this.
By Stan Dugah
StantheStoryTeller
06/10/2021
