Michael Affare - sharing my journey

I'm Michael Affare; I am an application support engineer (computer engineer) in Ghana, West Africa.

About me; I was born in Kumasi, Ghana (I love that place - Will do well to show you some beautiful things from there).
I was the kind of kid who would run around, learn to do a back-flip, draw comics, play the flute . . . I had loads of energy to spare.

As the last of 5 children born to two head teachers it is rather hilarious that it was only until 5th grade (class 5) that I figured out that school was not three fun break times with boring resting periods in-between! After I figured out that school was for learning (. . .how I figured that out is a story for another blog . . . ), I got very curious to know things. My reading and spelling were really poor at the time; I could spend several minutes trying to read a page and whenever I got to the end of a page, it felt like I was on a yacht in the Bahamas.

After a year, I figured I was pretty smart; at least much smarter than I was proving by my academic work. The more I did better the harder I worked; and it was fun. I started to top my classes (after the ever smart Marigold quit school . . . lol), became almost family with some of my teachers and ended up taking some leadership roles in school (head prefect). I lost my dad in grade 7 and that was tough. It was in that same year that I became aware of the Christian faith; my mum's personality sold the best pitch for Christianity to me in those tough times. This was all in Junior High School.

Senior High School was good for me. Mfantsipim School; the premiere senior high school in Ghana with a rich history and Methodist (christian) culture. I met some of the best people there who challenged me A LOT. I learnt what it meant to be a gentleman and a christian even more in Mfantsipim and I made some of my timeless friends there. I was voted the Deputy Head Boy in charge of Academic affairs, christian student who is proficient in mathematics, best Sunday School teacher and a one time gentleman of the year.

Okay now I am probably sounding narcissistic, but the point is. . . . Senior High School discovered and shaped some of the best parts of me. It also broke me the heaviest, when my mom also passed away in Senior High School when I was barely sixteen years old.

The faith she had nurtured in me was probably the only reason I was able to keep it together. My future became rather unpredictable very fast; for I was left to 4 siblings who were also now finding their feet in life. But these siblings were the best to me; they supported me every step of the way. And this allowed me to dream . . . . .

The dreaming and persistence fueled by my christian faith helped me one step at a time. I had some disappointments but I am glad those even happened; I wanted to read medicine and become a pediatrician, but that didn't work out since I had a B in Biology. I was offered my second choice, computer engineering, and boy am I glad I experienced that. My first code was written in the university; serendipity you might call it. I love what I do now, computer geek-ing; the pervasiveness and the open-mindedness technology inspires is surreal. I became my class president (classRep we called it) and finished the course with a decent grade. I even went on to become a teaching assistant for national service with software engineering being my fetish. Soon enough I landed my first job as a level 2 application support engineer during a merger period of two top telecommunication engineering companies in Ghana. The learning experience has been marvelous since.

I dare to dream a lot. I dare to believe many things for this world. I push myself to prove that these dreams are possible and I strive to get people on board as they grow from just dreams to plans.

I looked on the internet for influential people in my part of the world who have documented their day to day experiences that led them to their successes and I found very few (actually none). I tried to find blogs/vlogs that show detailed steps and personal experiences people have when starting a business or campaign and there is none for where I come from. All we often see is the finished picture, the success and sketchy interviews where our 'influencers' say the little they can remember about how they got there. But then there is steemit!

I saw @tj4real on steemit and I loved his work. Not just that someone is making an effort but is actually capturing and sharing the process with people; to inspire them.

My campaign on steemit will be to capture most of my journey on the way to my success. I will be exploring local businesses as social experiments. I will be pointing out potential business areas to explore. And I will dare to do some of the simple things that people wonder how to start.

I know I will make several mistakes; I will share them so that other people will avoid making those same mistakes. And I am so optimistic that I will get results so that people don't just see a very successful young guy, but have something to look to; a blog/vlog that captures as much of the struggles and decision points as possible so they can be inspired.

If you are wondering why; this is why: I strongly believe that one of the best ways to honour God is to equip people to do better in this world. To nurture knowledge that can make a difference in the quality of life of another person.

Let's treat each venture as a series with episodes. Let's explore business/self-improvement opportunities in Ghana together. Catch you soon!