“Grow up child, study hard, find a good paying job, give back to your family” A mantra probably instilled in most filipino children.
How could a word be so fulfilling and yet so heartbreaking. In a perfect world, giving is supposed to give you happiness, but to some giving is expected as soon as you receive your first paycheck. I’m sure you know what I mean by now.
This is an important topic, one that we should discuss now, never later.
To the youth
Giving is good, but never give everything away. Set limits to what you can only give. When you receive that first paycheck, your first priority is yourself. You do that by stashing a part of your income towards your savings account, until then you don’t worry about expenses, or your family’s needs. You worry about your savings first. Then, you can use up or give away the rest. That is the simplest act of thinking about your future. We are obliged to give, especially if we come from a poor family, but you are also obliged to give a part of your income to yourself. But remember that the portion you give to yourself is never for your indulgence. It is for your future.
It is important that you make this plan known to your family. As difficult as this talk may be, we are talking about the future of you and your own family.
A cycle to be broken
When we grow old to be financially independent, only then can we break the cycle. Your primary goal would be to break the cycle, and be financially free, so that you could raise generations who will be financially free as well.
To those who brought us up
We love you. We do. And we will forever be indebted towards you. We could never repay the hardships you’ve been through to raise us up. But then being wealthy is never achieved overnight. It is a series of good financial decisions made by generations. You made a good decision when you decided to stop incurring debts. When you probably invested on a home. And we also need to make good decisions for ours and our future generation’s future. We need to build up funds for our dreams.
For success
Ideally, life should never be all about consuming. We used to be farmers and took care of our crops which brought endless bounty. We used to be fishermen who took care of the seas because it brought us food. But then we started consuming more than we needed. And that’s when scarcity came upon us.
