A choice called poverty (3)

Take a lesson from the ants, you lazybones. Learn from their ways and become wise!

Though they have no prince or governor or ruler to make them work, they labour hard all summer, gathering food for the winter. But you lazybones,how long will you sleep? When will you wake up?… Proverbs 6:6-9

I know that in all probability, you would have seen an ant colony. The largest ant colony on earth was discovered in Argentina in 2000. It housed thirty-three ant populations which had merged into a giant supercolony housing millions of nests and billions of workers. It was over 3,700 miles wide!

From the Bible passage quoted above and from observing and studying anthills, there are several lessons to learn from the ant about wealth and poverty.

The first thing that struck me about this passage is that ants have no ruler or governor to compel them to work. They are self-motivated and self-propelled. They work so hard and so effectively, yet, without supervision or anyone breathing down their necks telling them what to do. Have you ever tried to dislodge a line of ants? They scatter in different directions, but only momentarily. Instinctively, they move around or over the obstacle you place on their way and in no time, have formed another line. Yet you don’t see any of them calling the shots to guide that process! Self-leadership is the foundation of all leadership. The favourite style of the poor is to blame someone for his predicament. This manifests in statements like, “I have no connections” “There is no one to help me” “I come from a very poor background” “I didn’t have good education” “The government is not supporting me” “Nobody is encouraging me” “I am waiting to be led” “I tried but people discouraged me”. The poor will always find one excuse or the other that shifts responsibility from him to someone else who should have done something to remedy his predicament. Poor people love to be motivated but the only problem is that they hardly generate any internal motive! External motivation is meaningless without an internal motive.

I have taken time to study the lives of successful people. They are highly motivated and will usually take the initiative and responsibility to go after what they desire. While the poor wait for things to happen or for someone to make things happen for them, the rich simply make things happen. Rich people are purpose driven. They hardly engage in activity that leads to no meaningful end. If you see anyone who is frivolous in his spending habits especially if he comes into some money, he is a poor man who temporarily has cash. Note it, people like that always end up losing the money to smarter people. Financially successful people are propelled by power habits of self-discipline in every significant area of their lives viz, health, personal development, time management, resource management, relationships, even leisure. The poor love money, but they never want to pay the price the rich pay in diligence. Do the rich have indulgences? You bet they do, but that never stops them from keeping their eye on the ball when it comes to the pursuit of a worthwhile goal.

Contrary to the belief in some circles, work is not a curse. The first manifestation of the blessing of man at creation was the corresponding responsibility of work. He was given a garden to cultivate. Poor people love to daydream about money and what they will do with it if they have it. In fact, one of the reasons why they are angry and bitter against the rich is because they loathe seeing the rich do what they (the poor) only fantasize about. Envy is admiration turned upside down. What the rich do is to work themselves out of a job. Then they continue to work to keep themselves out. Work is different from hard labour. We were all created to work. Work is the platform that God has given to every man to put his imprint on the sands of time and bring glory to His Maker. God honours honest work because it solves problems for humanity. The quantum of the significance of your work and the diligence that you apply to it will determine the quantum and quality of your reward. For the poor, money is a pursuit to eke out a living. For the rich, it is a reward for contribution.

Ants are out in summer to gather food for the winter seasons when they will be holed in the colony because of the harsh weather. Last week, I talked about the saving culture. Poor people love to consume value. The mantra is, “let us enjoy life today and spoil ourselves silly. Afterall, it is what a bird has eaten that sustains it in flight!”. Compulsive consumption is the pastime of the poor. This is why someone on a salary of N100,000 a month would get into debt to own the latest version of iphone Pro Max that costs over N600,000. For him it is about who he can impress now! People with a poverty mindset hardly think about delayed gratification or about laying away for the future. So, they don’t think investments.

Recently, there has been an upsurge of attempts on social media to raise money to rehabilitate many of Nigeria’s entertainment veterans who had become almost derelict, with many of them sick. Truth be told, many of them made money in their heydays when the klieg lights of fame were on them. But the wine, the women and the glamorous lifestyle ate it all up. For some of them, their promoters helped them to spend most of it on appearances. I have a background in the world of entertainment, a mostly make-believe world. So, I know.

Many years ago, I called a friend of mine (now of blessed memory) who was a frontline Nollywood actor and asked him what his plans were beyond the screen. He was very famous and had made good money in acting. But unfortunately, he had nothing to show for it. He did not have a car. He had no house and could not boast of one plot of land anywhere under the sun! Highly talented, he had not even considered producing any movie for himself. I was shellshocked when he told me that he was living in his mother’s house! I looked at him and I told him that his time would soon be over and like that world always does when it has taken away the best of your energy and sweat, it would junk him and move to the next big name. I gave him a maximum of two years of fame if he was very good! He confessed that it was already happening. What happened to all the money he made? Women, wine and image, the three vices of the famous! He left my office sobered. Unfortunately, two years later when I saw him, he was yet to change a thing! His death a few years later was very painful for me…. Continued.

Remember, the sky is not your limit, God is!

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