You are not rich after 50, so what?
What you need to know:
- The crux of the matter is that we are all running on different lanes. Run yours faithfully, and even if you are past 45, you could overtake some. Run your race as if you just started!
The notion that one should live in opulence, stinking rich by age 45, is a misnomer. The human concept of wealth is so flawed and indeed ephemeral that it would take eons to drum it into our stone-thick heads.
Last week, I was commuting from Ferry to my home when a woman burst into a justified tirade with another one sitting next to her. I am not in the habit of eavesdropping on other people’s conversations, but this one was touching.
She narrated how she had taken her very sick mother to, ostensibly, one of the hospitals. The healthcare providers nonchalantly asked for Sh20,000 before the poor woman could be admitted. She did not have it, and the poor lady had to sleep on the floor.
The algebraic truth you can take to the bank
This brought to the fore the true definition of wealth, what it amounts to, and our obsession with materialism as opposed to physical, mental, and spiritual well-being as indicators of wealth.
Some wishy-washy thinking has taken this notion a notch higher—that one should own this or that by the age of forty-five. Wrong! For those of you who toyed with elementary algebraic number lines (I did this in class five).
For a person starting from -45 to get to zero, there are 45 steps to take. Some people started at -45. It is not the same as a person who started from zero because, assuming that they both moved at the same pace, the man or woman who kicked off at zero will have reached the 45th mark. Many people did not start at the same point in life. Take my word to the bank.
Athletic truths you can bet on
An athletic field track is oval. I come from an athletic superbrand nation, and I toyed with 200m and 400m races. At the start of the race, the start marks seem to be placed a distance from each other to compensate for the bend.
When the start gun is fired, it seems that the athlete in the lane at the far end of the track is winning because his lane is further ahead of other lanes until they come to the point where the lane is straight. That is when you get to know who is who and who the real winner is.
The crux of the matter is that we are all running on different lanes. Run yours faithfully, and even if you are past 45, you could overtake some. Run your race as if you just started!
