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Opinions of Monday, 15 March 2004

Columnist: GNA

Celebrating a productive weekend

A GNA feature by Hannah Asomaning

Accra, March 15, GNA - The traffic was unusually heavy with a lot of people moving about. One could not easily manoeuvre through the crowd. Then suddenly this writer heard an old man saying: "Please, help me. Today is Friday. Help me with something for the weekend."

Looking at this beggar, a myriad of thoughts came to one. What is this about Fridays and weekends that when it is Friday, there seem to be a lot of people in town? The everyday traffic seems to be heavier than usual. Even those begging on the streets seem to be working harder because it is Friday and a beginning of a weekend.

While travelling in a "trotro" from Teshie to Accra Central on a Friday a man, who was wearing a T-shirt and sneakers holding a polythene bag and sat on back seat, shouted to the Mate as the vehicle approached the Osu Ghana Commercial Bank: "Mate when you get to the Bank stop and let me get some money withdrawn, it is weekend and I need money for myself."

Everybody seems to be caught up by the weekend fever, mostly in the capital city, radio stations are more lively just because it is the beginning of a weekend and what is more, all the tension at the workplaces are reduced.

On Fridays, some workers wear different attire for work. Most workers seem to be casual in their uniform. Friday night is the time when most nightclubs, hotels, restaurants and drinking bars make most of their monies.

Friday nights in most of the nightclubs in the city could be mistaken for an afternoon; nothing makes it seem to be night. That is the time all the flashy cars in town are seen

Let's ask ourselves this question, when it is Friday, what do we achieve in terms of productivity? From the first day of the week to the Friday, can we say that we have achieved anything worthwhile? Most people at the beginning of the week have a lot of plans for the particular week, they anticipate that they are going to achieve this or that, but by Thursday they would normally not have realized what they had hoped to achieve.

It is only when we have been able to achieve what we planned to gain in a particular week that we can celebrate our weekend fully.

Many Ghanaians do not even plan their lifestyles, let alone plan their weeks or even their days. Most people do not live by what they plan to accomplish in life.

They rather live by what life makes them.

Day by day we see time moving, many days make weeks, many weeks make months and many month make years, so both as individuals and as a group we should be targeting and achieving increased productivity.

It is better that we plan our lives because it is only when we plan our lives and therefore plan our days that we could celebrate fully our weekends, week by week.

If we are celebrating our weekends, we should be celebrating productivity as well.