Looking at possible causes for ‘Unhappy Ghanaians’

My concern as a transformational coach and Healing of Memories trained is not with the 2018 World Happiness Report and how Ghana was placed per say but the years of denial that all is not well is my greatest worry.

Our means to discuss such aspect of our society is very limited. We have grown very intemperate in so many ways. Our tolerance level is in the reverse gear. Our fellow feeling tendencies have nosedived

We have been snared into extremism of politics that we are being suffocated. If your party is in dismay you are gagged not to talk or express dissatisfaction.

If your party in government is not doing well you are gagged from expressing it. Such examples causes people to be very unhappy and they look for avenues to pour it. It creates frustration and painfully it is contagious.

Indices of economics say we are making progress but in packet logarithms, it is not factual and experiential. Corruption cases makes many who love to see Ghana grow run into despondency and demoralization. The rich and politicians hardly fall on the left side of the law but there is swiftness when it involves ordinary Ghanaians.

The growing of insecurity in the nation but quick politicization dwarfs all measures to curb it. If you want to test if we are happy people, go to the passport offices, DVLA offices, Banking halls, attempt at getting a new or renew any ID card.

Frustration in doing business with the government agency if you know no big man or having your party in power. How driving is done on our street and the almighty sanitation management.

The pain to have your initiative and ideas to get government accent is just frustrating as dealing with tooth decay.

Unemployment has caused chronic headache for parents and migraine for the young people as against affluence exhibition by politicians

Many more experiences have betrayed our empathetic spirit, check Maj Mahama’s death and how it has died out,

Check how heartless many were in sharing the gory of Ebony demise. Check our zeal in fighting the galamsey

There are many of these in the past that shows how we are sliding into heartlessness. Majority of the messages from the pulpit does not edify the soul and spirit into love, hopefulness, laughter, zeal, transformation etc. But fear and blame game to happenings around us.

Many people experience gross neglect in the house of God, some experience deliberate and purposeful segregation in church. We have demonized our extended family and hometown so much so that there is no bond of belongingness. Now we don’t want to travel home to just cool off.

Many recreational parks and avenues have been occupied by huge buildings so no space to even sit at and just observe to distress. The malls, spars and gardens not affordable by many.

There is a certain foul air blowing in the corporate enclave especially telcos, banks, real estate etc called “Pressure” to meet targets. These entities have not assessed the damage ongoing because all they want is more 0s. I found out these when I led Zoweh Glob Consult to conduct interviews and survey when we were developing our training package “Enhanced Workplace Communication Training”.

Our roads have become a pain to travel on and worsen by huge traffic. So our lives are encapsulated by pain to get ordinary things done. Young people don’t know where to turn right after JHS, SHS and university.

As a society we have really not paid critical focus on these situations that cost us our level of happiness.

If we talk of development and growth and it does promote citizenry happiness then I wonder what development is that. As a nation our development is in the opposite direction of our social fiber.

The media is trying but balance, facts, social examples, harmony, right resource persons, unscrewed topics not tainted with political interest and disinterest etc are not up there. The media appear to be more on sensational stories, stories trend and for a week we move to a new one. So we don’t follow up when the fire die down.

Ghana can turn these around if we acknowledge the knowledge made available of how unhappy we are.