WAY OF LIFE… It’s the eighteenth (18th) day of the month and a few days to the pay day given that our accounts are normally credited on the 25th day. Whereas, there is hope that my hands will be oiled very soon, the current situation is not pleasant. Both my account and pockets are so dry and Iam only surviving by debt servicing. I must borrow here to pay there and do the same thing over again. It is not that Iam extravagant or some money was stolen from me. The truth is that our work place is located in the middle of Kampala city and with the high cost of living; the monthly salary is not enough. This doesn’t apply to only me. Infact Iam in a better position than most of my colleagues since I don’t have a family or any dependant to spend on. Iam self-contained and all I make belongs to me. Most of my colleagues who have families are in a sorry state to the extent that a number of them are even borrowing survival money from money lenders where they pay abnormal interest rates. Having spent two (2) years in this work place, I have now mastered the way of life. Most if not all of us are happy in the last five days of the month i.e 25th to 30th because it is the only time our accounts have credit balances. From the first day of the following month to the twenty fourth, it is disaster. All accounts are dry and every person`s face is wrinkled. The unfortunate part of it is that we have to count heaps of money on a daily basis and we can`t take home any coin. As if that is not enough, many people out there look at us bankers as loaded people due to our good appearance but on the contrary we are as poor as church mice. The search for cash is on everybody`s lips and generally we are not as happy as people think. While Iam busy working on my computer, one colleague (who works as an office assistant, a humble of saying messenger) brings me a signed withdrawal voucher where the customer needs Ugx 100,000,000= (Uganda shillings one hundred million) an equivalent of USD 40,000 (United states Dollars Forty thousand). “Oh…. That is quite a sum,” I think to myself. Iam sure that it is one of the corporate customers and Iam wondering why he hasn’t used a cheque to withdraw. On rushing to check who the account holder is, Iam shocked. It is the messenger’s name and his account has never had a credit of more than Ugx 2,000,000 (Uganda Shillings Two million) /USD 800 but here he is busy filling a form to withdraw such a big sum of money. I rush to check his current account balance and as usual, he has a credit balance of Ugx 500 (Uganda shillings five hundred). I turn to him and ask in Luganda, “GWE MANI…. BINO BIKYI? LWAKI OJUZA ESENTE ZOTARINA KU AKAWUNTI? OKYIMANYI NTI ABAHINDI BWEBAGYIRABA BAYINZA OKUROWOZA NTI OYAGARA KUBA BANKA YABWE?” (Gentleman, what is this? Why do you fill an amount of money on a withdrawal voucher that you don’t have on your account? Do you know that if our Indian bosses land on this they may think that you want to cause fraud in their bank?) He replies, “ANTI NDINA EKYIROTO KYOKUBA OMUGAGA KATI NDI KWETUREYININGI MUKUJUZA BUNO OBUPAPURA” (I have a dream of being rich and so Iam practicing on how I will be filling up these forms). My neighbors listen to him and burst out in laugher. Most of them assure him that no banker can ever “gather” such a sum of money out of his sweat right from the cleaner to the managing Director. They add that a banker can only get loans, build a house, buy a car, pay school fees for the children, retire and die. But as for saving such money, it is impossible. The discussion continues and everyone is discouraging the guy from harboring such a dream in his mind. He insists that one day, he will withdraw such a sum and nobody seems to back him up. At the end of it, his arguments are over ridden by the majority of us who are pessimistic and he walks away to continue with his work. Three years later, my thinking has totally changed. I no longer subscribe to the school of thought of my former colleagues because I have discovered that for most of the things that happen to me, I have seen them before in my mind. I have personally come to learn that your feet can`t take you where your mind has not been. Well, there are miracles on this planet but they don’t happen every day. Most of the things that happen must have an origin in somebody`s mind. Thus, it was okay for my colleague (the messenger) to dream of holding such an amount of money because it would motivate him to work harder. He may have not “gathered” that money today but if he keeps up that dream, chances are high that he will accumulate it. A dream or Vision should sound unrealistic to you and others. Otherwise if is easily achievable, it is a mere plan. It is better to target hitting the sun because if you fail, you may land somewhere in the stars which is far better than not getting any where closer. For goodness` sake, we don’t part with anything by dreaming big. So why do you shrink your dreams?
Posted on: Thu, 23 Oct 2014 07:40:48 +0000
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