The second beggar
I met was a young boy, a teenager, who came up to me suddenly while I was
walking on the road. He asked me to give him some money to buy ice blocks to
ice his soft drinks for his business. I was like, what’s my own if you want to
buy blocks for your business? I asked what he did with the money he made the
day before, and why he had to be begging as a business man. But I stopped just
short of judging him and labeling him a bad businessman.
I eventually
gave him all the change on me (about N100), but I kept wondering if I wasn’t like
that young business man/teenager when I sometimes also run out of cash, partly due
to lack of ‘flow’, or simply poor money management skills, and I have to run to
friends and family for help. How many times do we sometimes run into such
difficulties too in our day-to-day business dealings, and then we need to
literally beg others for help in the form of a raise, loan, or money gift?
The beggar’s principle states that at one point or the other through life, you
will have to beg others for something you need/lack that they have.
It is okay
to lack. It is okay to beg. It isn’t okay to steal or cheat others. And it is
definitely not okay to wallow in depression and self pity, when there are many
out there ready to lend you a hand to hold, and a lifeline in case you are
being overwhelmed temporarily by the waves and tide of the financial seas. All you
need to do is swallow your pride and call out to them. You might be a beggar
today, but you won’t remain a beggar forever.
So raise your
voice, stretch out your hand, receive help, because no man is an island and the
beggar’s principle applies to us all.
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