PROVERBS 21:20

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Lemme start this article by saying that this article will not be pretty. It marks my second phase of my internship and a little bit past it. To make it more palatable, I will start with a high note. Three months into my internship and I  was on top of the world .I thought that all was well. I loved my work and was getting rewarded for it. I thought that my life had forever changed. And it was me thinking like this that probably what caused me the most grief…thinking that I would be superman. Now that I had “a lot”, I was capable of giving back to the community. It is at this point that I would like to educate my soon to be colleagues who are to get into the Job market. Im not saying don’t give back to society.I am saying, be financially literate before you do. Because if you do not, you just might end up relating to this article, which is not what I want you to do … at least not in an intimate capacity.

I was at least smart enough to invest somewhere. The business is still killing me before making me. Mostly because of all these taxes and government fees that we are to pay all the time but knowing this country, this is the norm for the youth and it shouldn’t be something I should be complaining about. After all, there are people going through worse. However, back to the main point…you cannot be a financial superman until you are first financially literate. It was a harsh lesson that I learnt waaaay too late. And the funniest bit was I have always been a mean kid growing up. Who knew, it was poverty keeping me so? And who knew it was the same thing that poverty suppressed in me that has gotten me back to poverty again once I had CBA money in my account…generosity. Blind generosity. Very, very blind and very foolish.

By the fifth month of my internship, I was turned into a bonified walking ATM matchine for all my family members and a few friends to use as shamelessely as you would a tissue paper. Piece by piece until left with nothing but soiled paper and when the white had been entirely exhausted,the brown of the roll was left emancipated and emaciated.I remember the phone calls blaring daily.. “Help Me with this…”, ” I need this for this…”,. ” I’ll pay you back when I get it  next month…” More of the same kinds of calls popped up bearing similar messages of ” Give Me money. I’ll say I will pay but I really will not because I Know you will not ask for it back.” May be it was because of my personal trauma as a child , my Christian upbringing or just plain stupidity but I kept dishing out to every open mouth that needed food and every hand that needed help. Like an idiot. And like an idiot, the money soon  left me. Because …and here is lesson number two for the incoming interns…money needs to be respected for it to stay with you. Disrespect it in any way , either by financing your bad habits or being a Mother Teresa that doesn’t think or run a proper charity, then my fren’ ,money will depart from you.

Proverbs 21:20 of King James Bible “A fool and His money are soon departed.”

What a great Bible verse this is…only that it popped up when its too late in my daily devotion. Almost Ironically, this was just a couple of days where I would have declared myself officially broke and dusted.

When it came to teaching me a harsh life lesson, one that would bring me to my knees and get me to understand the true meaning of the words broke, hurt, alone and ultimately depression, Corona couldn’t have come at a better time. Just as I was just completing my internship Corona hit the country proper. Businesses shut down and so did mine. I didn’t wait too long until I soon became the open mouth that needed feeding and the open hand that needed help. But to my surprise, no one cared enough to do much of anything. “Izzah bro,” “Kuna MSHWARI Loans,” “We usitense, Sir God atakuokolea.” All the while the proclaimers of these words were busy eating beef and pork, having forgotten about me and here I was sleeping hungry. Regretting having helped anyone that I did during that time I had anything. Nobody cared if I woke up or not ,if I had a roof on my head or not, if I ate or not…Mother Teresa was now paying for her kindness. “Asante ya Punda ni mateke.” (The Gratitude of an Arse is a kick). Who would have known that the people I mostly knew happened to be donkeys. And its true what they also say about hungry men.Because I turned to be very angry and resentful of everything and most especially, everyone.I had mentioned up there that this article would not be pretty.I guess you have an idea why.

I kept applying everywhere, nobody was hiring. My business was halted, had no cashflow coming in. I was distraught. I had no choice but to move back home. Whether I was well recieved or not is beyond the scope of this article.Unlike most people I do not like talking about my family problems but I can tell you for sure, it wasn’t an easy time for Me. I left home a doctor, got back home a failure. And most people didn’t care to hide it to my face. The same people that siphoned whatever I had at one point in time.That is when it finally hit Me. I wanted to be good to others so I can achieve a filling of a void that has long since been there ever since I was a child. I wanted to be loved genuinely by someone and some silly, subconcious part of Me thought that buying my way into peoples hearts would be the solution to my problem. This isn’t something new.It’s a common millenial problem  ( thats why most milenials have a deficit in either giving Love or recieving it. Our parents generation had their own problems and we were to suffer for it. I wonder how “Generation Z” will turn out with Us as parents. All that garbage and trauma they will recieve from Us, I shudder at the thought of the future ) .After all, I thought I was disliked because I was broke. Who knew that I was disliked because I just wasn’t likeable enough to many growing up? Its the thing about nerds. And if you are one, here is a reality check for you…lesson number 3. The world hates smart people. They will use what they can get from your intelligence but will hate you for simply being intelligent. Could be from Jelousy or low self esteem but it does happen and You are going to have to get used to it enough to not care  You being a doctor must have experienced this at some point. People will be Proud of you but will not genuinely Love you. They will use you for what you can do for them but as soon as your usefulness is terminated in their life, you are nothing more than a useless brain to them. Which is a downgrade from being a brain with potential.

Oh Life! What a way it has of putting you to sleep when you have everything and waking you up when you have lost it all. My only chance of “kuomoka” and I had wasted it. Or so I thought. Let Me ask you this question. Are you a bilieve of the divine?

I mean, we all must at least believe in a supernatural being somewhere evidenced by some of the inexplicable things that have happened in your life . If so, have you ever felt awakened spiritually? A deep desire to understand why this world is as is? What place you have in it? Why you are here? If there’s another world or power out there? Your relationship with this power? I believe this is where one becomes more in tune with his sorroundings, his relationships, his life and His soul. Have you ever had such an awakening in your life? Because thats exactly what happened to Me. I feel as though no wisdom can easily enter the mind of a rich man since some journeys require suffering to understand the full concept of living. Even if one doesn’t understand everything, at least one will possess the questions that are to direct him/her to the answers he/she seeks. And that is a good place to start, in my opinion. One should be worried when he/she has no questions to ask about life. Life is not meant to be too comfortable. The journey must always have pain for it to be worth it in the end.

To cut the long story short, this awakening led Me down the road to sef improvement. Identifying and dealing with my childhood, teenage and adult traumas, learning and killing all my bad habits ( still a working progress in that one but we killing them a habit at a time), learning to be most comfortable with who I am as a person and accepting all my flaws that come with Me as well as working on maximising the best parts of myself, fixing my relationship with myself ,Spirit and my Diety, becoming one with the universe as I understood how connected we all are (tools making the world go round are people afterall), valuing my time and using the most of it to fix what I can in myself (physically, mentally, spiritually) and accept what I cannot , and of course improved my financial inteligence. I didn’t know it yet, but I was apparently following what the japanese call “The path of Kaizen” (The path of becoming a better version of yourself everyday)  which is the first step to becoming a person of purpose and for those that care about money ( we all do, even when we pretend we don’t), a person worthy of wealth.

Now, dear interns and colleagues, I Know we are professionals and professionals are known to make money but do not like to talk about money. Economists and the government take advantage of this because they know most professionals do not like learning about financial literacy. That’s how they get to take most of the money that you earn and you just take it painlessly not knowing that there are legal ways of minimising this. I will let you discover how on your own.This is just an introduction to what I am to say here, and a point to the direction in which you should go to to improve your financial health .To the point though, I know you have heard of the pyramid of needs. Just as so ,there is a pyramid of wants in which for most people money is in the top most pyramid . Now thats why most people don’t get rich, especially professionals because money should be at the bottom of the pyramid and self acceptance and development should be at the top.Let Me explain using the Economists guide to wealth.

Have-Do-Be

Most people when in presence of money (like most interns and some colleagues do) would like to do things like move out and living life so as to feel like they are becoming people of substance. This was my mistake in my internship and I suspect has been the mistake of many of Us that have been interns before. It was a mistake based on financial ignorance and is not our fault, especially if we didn’t take business in highschool. Again ,professionals are known to make money and not talk about it. They don’t talk about it because they are unfarmiliar of it or dont want to appear greedy, which in both cases is detrimental to our financial health. Its difficult to develop interest in something you do not talk about and learn from others hence the desire to look for that information ourselves only goes to the daring few.Our school system wasn’t designed to make any professional rich, it just taught Us how to do our jobs well with the automatic return of your value . Money respects a professional enough to come to him/her. But as long as the professional isn’t worth longterm repect of money, money will run away from Him/ her.

Be-Do-Have

This is theultimate financial lesson I learnt in the abyss of poverty after having a taste of money. You have to become a person worthy of money’s longterm respect first by becoming a person who respects money so that you can do things of value that are worth return of the invested money, so that you can have and accumulate money.

This is the right financial path  to longterm wealth that I wish I knew when I got my first CBA bank balance.

I am teaching you what I wish I was taught so heed carefully. Ignoring it will only let you learn it the hard way. If you will even learn it at all by not becoming bitter about situations happening to you (stoicism, another thing I learnt in my poverty journey) and taking every small win as motivation and every Loss, Big or small, as a lesson.

Class is out of session.

So I conclude this article today by saying, this. I haven’t made it yet but I Know I will. I just opened my mind now to other opportunities after I realized that my depression to not getting a government Job was blocking me from other paths that would lead me true purpose, now that I have discovered it. Yes, if I got a government Job it would be a great leep towards that direction. But this country is too underhanded and corrupt for that. We may try to deny it but the truth is plain to see. The system is against the youth  in this country. Especially smart youth with no god-father or mother in the system. Its not just a national problem but an international one in 40 percent of the world ,world-wide according to the latest statistics. It is our reality and it isn’t fair. But life isn’t fair .This doesn’t mean that we are worthless. It just means that you have to become the person meant to do what it takes to get what you want. How long it takes for that to happen is completely dependent on you. System or no sytem, Im prepared to go against the wave now. Whether the system sees my usefulness or not to put Me in it, shouldn’t be a reason why my life should halt. And it shouldn’t for you either.

If you’re a struggling doctor, chin up. Things clearly can’t get any worse, so be better and do better.This is not a pretty article. It is to make you realise that there is struggle for most of Us, maybe including you. It is to help you realise that maybe you need to change your mindset and become a better person capable of going for what you want and the reward will come naturally. It is to remind you that life has infinite possibilities, that there is no one fixed way of getting what you want. Njia ni nyingi. So long as you become the person capable of doing what is needed, given discipline and patience, you will get to where you’re going. It’s not a hypothesis or “kujiconsole”. It’s a patterns obsevered and studied in many and thus can be said to be facts. It’s only a matter of time.

Be-Do-Have.

By Dr. Carboplatin.