There is no financial future to the lazy in the land of the living. To expect so is to insult and violate the laws of life and nature. Surprisingly, there are still people who believe that can achieve anything in life just by sitting, wishing, and praying. Not even God answers prayers made by lazy people.
Laziness is what triggers poverty in a person’s life, and if you embrace it you will invite poverty to your life too. That is why it should be avoided like leper and any other highly infectious disease. And one the things that you should do is to avoid hanging around lazy people, believe me they are contagious.
Without you noticing it you start behaving like them, having the same habits that they have, talking like them, complaining like they do (and that is what they do best). So if you treasure your life and the future of your children, run from lazy people.
Laziness and poverty are best friends, in fact they are very good comrades. It’s impossible to be lazy and financially free at the same time. The laws of financial freedom only respond to diligent work, they do not bow to idle people, in fact they disdain them.
The title i chose for this article was extracted from the book of Proverbs in the Bible, let’s see the whole portion:
Prov 6:6-8
6 Go to the ant, you sluggard;
consider its ways and be wise!
7 It has no commander,
no overseer or ruler,
8 yet it stores its provisions in summer
and gathers its food at harvest.
NIV
The portion of scriptures that i just quoted is pregnant with valuable truth and wisdom for human beings, in this article we are going to look at some of those wisdom nuggets for all of us to learn from and apply.
Appreciating The Value of Diligent Work
Diligence in life pays, only the diligent are well rewarded in this life. A man who is diligent in his works shall stand before kings, says the Bible. If you are a diligent person, it is just a matter of time before you are rewarded for your hard work.
While the opposite of poverty is wealth, it does not mean that because you are a hard work you will be rich. That is far from the truth, because there are so many other variables that when mixed together will produce the desired results. However, the joy and the rewards of hard work are better than the curse of poverty.
As a matter of fact nobody is celebrated for being lazy, normal societies have an aversion to laziness. And the societies where laziness is tolerated, poverty also abounds. If we want to change the destiny of our nations, cities, and societies, we need to begin instill in our children and young people who work is an honorable thing.
I still can’t understand how can a young health person can be sited and complaining that there is nothing for him to do, when there is so much that can be changed around him. Young people should stop thinking that the world or the government owes than something. In fact nobody owes you nothing, you owe it to yourself to hustle until you make something out of your life.
Even the bird hustle, i have never seen a bird going to sleep hungry, but why do humans do? And before you start flooding me with a myriad of excuses and academic explanations for why this happens, still i don’t think there is a reason for that. We can all make something out of anything, and there is a lot in our surroundings to explore and make something out of it.
Being Proactive
The ability to act and make choices and decisions without being told to do so. This is my simplistic definition of pro-activity. There is a reason the Bible tells the lazy to go to the ant, and it says that she has no boss, no supervisor, nobody to tell her what to do. The ant doesn’t think, yet instinctively knows what to do to make ends meet.
We should all learn from the lessons offered to us by the ant, even though very insignificant to us, yet she is pregnant with wisdom to teach humans that were made in the image and likeness of God. And if we can’t learn from the ant, we are doomed.
[tweetthis]if we can’t learn from the ant, we are doomed.[/tweetthis]
Storing Up For the Future
One of the lessons that we learn from the ant is that she doesn’t eat everything, she stores up food for winter. She uses the best days of summer to store up food, because she knows that there are days that she won’t be able to work. And she works hard at it while she can.
We have a lot to learn from this as humans who have the capacity to think and plan. First it teaches us that if we cannot distinguish between the productive times and the least productive times of our lives, we are no better than animals. This is bellow an animal like behavior.
As humans we should all be capable of identifying both the summer and the winter days of our lives. Both the good and the bad days. And if we can we should use the good days (summer) to store up all that we will need to survive on during the winter (the bad days).
Using this analogy, the summer time is the most productive time of your life, it is the time in which you still have the strength, the health, the motivation, the dreams, the energy, and the vitality to do the work that you were called to do on earth. These are the times in which you have to capitalize to create the future you want.
The challenge however, begins with having that future, or rather, having a vision for the future that you want to have. Once you are clear about it, you have to start working towards its fulfillment. And you do that in your summer days. This applies also to your financial life, in fact it applies to every area of life.
[tweetthis]Peter Drucker said: the best way to predict the future is to create it.[/tweetthis]
Peter Drucker said: the best way to predict the future is to create it. And i agree, to do this you have to start working now. Do not let your best years go by while you are sitting doing nothing. The best time to do it is today, do it now and do not wait for tomorrow. You have no business with tomorrow, it is not in your hands.
[tweetthis]The best time to do it is today, do it now and do not wait for tomorrow.[/tweetthis]
Stop Making Excuses
The Bible also says that the lazy man does not go out, for he says there is a lion outside. This is to point out that a lazy person has all the excuses in the world no act. One of the biggest hallmarks of laziness is the propensity to make excuses. If you meet a person who is always making excuses for not doing what he or she is supposed to do, is because that person is lazy.
Excuses such as it is too cold, the weather is not good, the government does not care about us, this government is corrupt, my parents do not love me, i came from a poor family, i am a woman, i am the only child, i do not have the right education, i cannot speak properly, i cannot write properly, i do not the connections, it is not what you know its who you know. Sound familiar? You can add your own there.
While there may be merit to some of the issues mentioned, the fact is that they are all excuses. They have nothing to do with who you are and what you are becoming. They might have had an impact in your past, but your future is in your hands.
[tweetthis]…your future is in your hands. So stop looking for scapegoats.[/tweetthis]
Stop Blaming Your Environment
This is a big one. The reason i am poor (dumb) is because i was born in Africa. Shame on you if you think like that. Africa is no place for dumb people, the most brilliant people are found in this continent. And just because some ill-intentioned people have taken the continent at ransom, does not mean that we (Africans) are like that.
[tweetthis]Stop making excuses about being born in Africa, it is a privilege to be born in this continent, and if you cannot value that, perhaps you should vacate. Go to China![/tweetthis]
Stop making excuses about being born in Africa, it is a privilege to be born in this continent, and if you cannot value that, perhaps you should vacate. Go to China! Many people blame their negative situation on the environment in which they were born or live at. Our environment should not shape us, we should shape the environment.
Ok, i have spoken. What’s your take? Leave your comments and let’s talk.