Why you should ignore some of your family’s financial problems and focus onto yours and yours alone
Friends, it also pains me that I am going to write these words, but I am unfortunate that the gift of letting the cat out of the bag for the benefit of many was placed on my shoulder. And since, just as prophet Jeremiah prophesying against his own people, I do not have choice, and then you must hear these words from me. Throw your stones at me for I would rather die after speaking a right word than living for a false hope as Diplomat (a rapper from Rwanda) sings.
It has been said that Charity begins at home and I wonder where you got that philosophy yet the first benefactors of Christ did not belong to his own people but strangers! Anyway, it is possible that you pay attention to your people (I mean your family: The mom, dad, brothers, and sisters) but be careful you do not forget yourself (Loving others more than you love yourself is a denial of the real desire and thus a sin, I mean, it is deception). Your people need you, but here is why you must develop the heart, the heart that will turn a deaf ear to their constant financial problems and focus onto your life.
You see, most of our village families have almost only one person who went to school and got a job as a teacher, a nurse, an accountant or secretary. Rarely, this one person from this one poor and non-educated family has a good paying job. The great goal of any person from a poor line of family is to break that chain of poverty and illiteracy and set up a base for a new class of people from his generation, you cannot achieve such a dream if your family’s financial requests are still on your back day in and day out.
What am I saying? I am saying that if you keep listening to those ‘small’ financial requests from your mother, father, brothers, sisters, and relatives and fight hard to meet them instead of fighting for a greater good for the whole generation, then your family line might go with poverty even to the eternity. I do not know how you perceive my message but I just hope you understand me.
For those who follow my articles, you know very much how I value my family and how I love mother, father, brothers, and sisters. So many of you reading this know me well, some are my relatives and family and you know my heart so well and so you know I am not being too hash but trying to do my duty of telling the truth and helping the world live through it. The other day your brother stole someone’s motorcycle and you met the police bill, the other day your father did not pay the Sacco’s debt and you were called and responded with a cheque, the other day your aunt called you that she needed to top up fees for a child and you subscribed in, tell me when are you going to open up a child’s account for your own child?????
You may pretend but you know what I am saying. It is nice to help and stay close to your family (after all that could even be the reason why God chose you among them all and gave you the opportunity of education and job) but remember that your sacrifice of your greatest desires as a means of serving God is the greatest sin of man. We shall not break this poverty chain if we cannot close our eyes, make a heart, and push towards the greater dream, instead of being blocked by the tempting family’s requests.
What should you do exactly? Tell your family that you will help where you can but remind them that you have a life to live too. You need to grow up, dress well, build a house, marry a woman, own a car, and send your child to school. That is your life and missing it could be a sin (we shall discuss how deserting a desire becomes a sin). Explain to your family that you have other responsibilities; you cannot meet all their requests and still stand among great men. Fortunately, most of our parents understand this; the trouble is our brothers, sisters, relatives and friends.
Finally, I am not teaching you to leave your mothers on theatre table with hospital bills uncovered mbu you are planning to buy a car next month, I am telling you to use your brains and know hen to help or not. I am not telling you to sacrifice your families for the riches of this world (remember, riches will end with the world), I am saying that you do not sacrifice your joy and pleasure for others, including your family. Go where you should go, do what you enjoy, live your lives, others will live theirs too.
I love you mom and dad, I will do everything I can to make you proud of me, but I won’t forget my life. I am sure this is good for us all.
The Complete You Project