Lifestyle
You Stumble on Your Passion
The piece challenges the contemporary culture of 'finding your passion' as a prerequisite for meaningful work, arguing instead that passion is a transient feeling rather than a fixed calling. It proposes that success actually precedes and generates passion, not the reverse.
No One Size Fits It All: On Choosing the Right Measure for Each Moment
Life's circumstances are not binary—neither purely desperate nor purely normal—and they demand different emotional and strategic approaches. The writer argues that we must learn to consciously shift our mindset, resilience, and energy according to what each situation actually requires, rather than defaulting to habit or waiting for crisis to force change.
Stop Looking for Reasons Not to Be Great
A reflection on how Cameroonians habitually manufacture excuses—infrastructural, political, social—to justify inaction, and how this collective fatalism undercuts individual and collective potential. The writer argues that greatness is not reserved for the exceptional few but requires applying principles of discipline, transparency, and accountability in whatever sphere one occupies.
On Stumbling Into Purpose: Why Passion Is Not a Plan
Against the cult of passion-finding, this essay argues that passion is a fleeting feeling, not a fixed destination. The writer proposes instead that success builds passion—not the reverse—and that meaningful work emerges from seizing the opportunities already at hand.
A Well of Greatness: One Woman's Journey from Body Shame to Self-Love
Enang Karen recounts her experience with body shaming from adolescence through university—the isolation, failed weight-loss attempts, and psychological toll—before finding liberation through self-acceptance and going on to compete in pageantry. The piece is a direct testimony to how internalized criticism can fracture identity, and how deliberate self-love can rebuild it.
The Strength of Weak Ties: Why Acquaintances Often Matter More Than Close Friends
This essay challenges the cultural valorization of tight-knit friend groups by examining the sociological concept of weak ties—casual relationships with acquaintances, former colleagues, and distant connections—and argues that these overlooked relationships are often more valuable for career advancement, opportunity access, and personal growth than the strong ties we tend to prioritize.
Diane Audrey Ngako: The Art of Doing More with Less
A portrait of how Diane Audrey Ngako launched her podcast
The Art of Doing Much with a Little
A reflection on perfectionism and its costs, contrasted with Tino Foy's pragmatic willingness to create with limited resources. The writer examines how high standards can paralyze, and argues for embracing action over endless preparation.
Be True to Who You Are and to Your Skin Colour
A personal essay challenging the widespread practice of skin bleaching among young African women, framed as a failure of self-esteem rather than aesthetic choice. The writer draws on her own experience, medical evidence, and the example of celebrated dark-skinned figures to argue for acceptance of natural complexion as an asset and identity marker.
I Am Not My Hair. Or Am I?
A reflection on the writer's four-year natural hair journey, sparked by reading Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's *Americanah*, and a broader meditation on how Black women navigate beauty standards, hair choice, and what it means to celebrate International Women's Day with intentionality rather than aesthetic display.
At War with Our Bodies
A personal reckoning with lifelong body shame—from a childhood defined by weight and an unfortunate name to the discovery that self-worth cannot be reduced to size. The writer traces how cultural messaging, family anxiety, and media imagery became internalized as self-judgment, and how a chance to listen to others' stories shifted the entire frame.
The Work-Life Balance for a Single Woman
A young professional in Yaounde reflects on her deliberate choice to leave the office at 3 p.m. each day to pursue studies, choir practice, creative skills, and rest—rejecting workplace pressure to equate presence with commitment. She argues that building a life beyond work is not a luxury but a necessary investment in one's future self and relationships.
The Art of Starting Over
The writer reflects on multiple restarts across his life, most significantly a return to Cameroon five years prior with minimal resources. He examines the psychological barriers to reinvention—chiefly the fear of others' judgment—and offers practical wisdom on how to move through that fear and rebuild.
The Art of Starting Over
The writer reflects on returning to Cameroon five years prior with minimal resources and the psychological barriers to reinvention. Drawing on personal experience—abandoning a music career, leaving Florida for Yaoundé, and rebuilding from vulnerability—the piece examines how fear of judgment and self-doubt keep people trapped, and offers practical counsel on moving forward.
Leaving the Comfort Zone: On Refusing the Prescribed Life
The writer reflects on a painful lesson in music—being exploited by a foreign artist—that forced her to release an album hastily, only to discover it was the bravest and most beneficial move of her life. She considers what it truly means to step out of societal patterns and build a life on one's own terms, without apology or perfectionism.
Vision Boards and the Work They Represent
A practical argument for making a vision board in 2020—not as magical thinking, but as a tool for reflection, visualization, and accountability. The writer urges readers to ground their boards in realistic goals and honest depictions of effort, not fantasy.
Fashion Blogging in Cameroon: The Case for Substance Over Mockery
The writer examines a Facebook platform styled after 'Fashion Police' that covers red carpet events in Cameroon, arguing that its reliance on mocking captions and cheap laughter represents a missed opportunity. Rather than critique outfits constructively, the platform reduces fashion discourse to insult—a shortcut that demands nothing of creators or audiences alike.
Choosing Your Battles: A Lesson in Protecting Your Vital Space
A motorcycle fare dispute in Yaoundé becomes the occasion for reflection on when to engage conflict and when to let it pass. The writer argues that preserving one's energy and peace of mind is more valuable than winning every small disagreement, even when principle seems at stake.
Sandra Borno and Molonga Naturals: A Portrait of Passion Over Hustle
Poise profiles Sandra Borno, founder of Molonga Naturals, a natural hair-care brand built on deep product knowledge, ingredient transparency, and freely shared expertise. The piece celebrates her as an exemplar of entrepreneurship driven by genuine passion rather than commercial ambition, and situates her work within the broader cultural movement of Black women reclaiming and celebrating natural hair.
On Finding Your Passion: A Counter to the Passion Industry
The writer challenges the popular notion that success requires discovering and building a career around a singular passion. Drawing on the observation that passion is fleeting rather than permanent, the piece argues that passion is best understood as an outcome of skill and mastery rather than a prerequisite to achievement.
Six Things You Need to Do to Make It in Cameroon
A practical manifesto for individual agency in Cameroon, arguing that language competence, self-directed skill-building, continuous education, personal accountability, conscious spending, and realistic ambition are the tools available to anyone seeking to improve their circumstances regardless of systemic barriers.
Lessons from Virgil Abloh: The Polymath's Path Beyond Credentials
A profile of Virgil Abloh's rise from screen-printing to artistic direction at Louis Vuitton, tracing his journey through mentorship with Kanye West and the founding of his Off-White brand. The piece extracts three core lessons: prioritizing passion over formal qualifications, building solidarity with peers who share unconventional ambitions, and maintaining rigorous self-critique.
Why We Insist on Making Things Harder Than They Need to Be
The writer observes a recurring scene at a local secondhand shop where cars are dangerously offloaded using makeshift wooden ramps, when a proper metallic ramp would solve the problem. This sparks a reflection on a deeper Cameroonian tendency to valorize difficulty and resistance to practical innovation, even when easier solutions are available.
A Letter to My Daughter: On Beauty, Integrity, and Unexploited Potential
A mother writes to her daughter from an unpaid internship, offering five hard-won lessons about finding life's beauty in struggle, holding fast to integrity despite judgment, anchoring faith in God, dreaming with clarity and persistence, and recognizing the untapped reserves of potential within oneself.
A Letter to My Child: On Happiness, Self-Knowledge, and the Weight of Becoming
Glen Amungwa writes to his child with counsel on what truly matters in life: not technology or external validation, but self-knowledge, genuine relationships, and the courage to learn from failure. He frames this letter as a legacy document, passing responsibility forward with both gravity and faith.
A Mother's Letter on Beauty, Education, and Becoming Yourself
In a letter to her daughter, a Cameroonian mother articulates a vision of beauty rooted in inner virtue rather than appearance, urges scholarly ambition without apology, and frames love and faith as conscious choices rather than overwhelming forces. She weaves together practical guidance on education, relationships, spirituality, and self-belief into a document that reads as both intimate counsel and a quiet manifesto for young women.
Letter to My Daughter: On Beauty, Integrity, and Unexploited Potential
A mother writes an intimate letter to her daughter, offering five lessons drawn from her own life: that life's beauty lies in its challenges, that integrity matters more than others' judgment, that faith anchors ambition, that big dreams require both vision and persistence, and that every person harbors untapped potential waiting to be claimed.
A Letter to My Son: On Love, Mistakes, and Becoming Yourself
Written as an open letter, the writer distills hard-won wisdom for his son—advice on self-love, the necessity of mistakes, the courage to speak truth, and the importance of defining one's own path rather than chasing external validation. The piece moves across love, work, strength, and character with the tone of someone who has lived enough to know what matters.
Online Etiquette: Intention and Research in Social Connection
The writer argues that social media friendship should be purposeful rather than reflexive, and that meaningful connection requires basic research, clear intent, and respect for others' time. Vague greetings and idle openers are a form of disrespect that signals the sender hasn't done the work to know who they're approaching.