The Blame Game

Everybody is having the exact same discussion these days. We are talking about the economy, corruption, individual bar soaps for the price of rent, high interest rates, bank collapses, debt, lack of leadership etc.  Very easy to get into a doom and gloom frame of mind.  I sat around one of these discussions recently and I was fascinated at how the blame game is on.  After a couple of rounds of the game (you know where every so often someone puts a different twist on the same point in an attempt to look well versed and intelligent), it is very easy to go home and start filing for citizenship of other countries.  However I posed a question to this particular group and asked them if they had the same problems they have this same time last year.  To most they agreed. Fine, last year a bank didn’t go into receivership but they still had debt, they were still struggling with spending and expenses, they still had not taken the time to learn where to invest, they were still blaming other people i.e. employers for not paying them more money, still consumed with figuring out how to impress those around them. I am not in denial that certain things happening can make one afraid.  I am not in denial that as a country we have a lot of work and repair to do in certain areas. Yes, current events are affecting us economically in one way or another. Our leadership is well…umm…. not enough space in this column to talk about that.  But with this particular group of people and I am sure many people and groups who are having this conversation, current events have only given them an excuse to do what they were doing a year ago.  Nothing! If you have been doing nothing and continue to do nothing, you honestly do not earn the right to sit around and complain.  If interest rates went to two percent and corruption like yellow pox got eradicated, you would still do nothing and find something to blame. History has always shown that in challenging economic times there are people who thrive.  I can guarantee you they didn’t play the game blame and do nothing.

There’s a fantastic group of women we had the honor of training two weeks ago in Dagoreti.  They earn about two hundred shillings per day.  Their thoughts are not consumed with interest rates and large-scale corruption. Their immediate and recurring problem is how to put food on the table. However, even with the weight of that problem, these ladies showed up to see if they could learn something different. They decided to look for ways of cutting expenses.  Some of the resolutions were to get up earlier and walk to save on bus fare.  To spend five hundred shillings as opposed to Kshs 1, 000 per month on hair. These ladies save. They put aside amounts as low as fifty shillings a week in a chama and they decided to lend this money to each other not to consume but to invest. The opportunities that were spoken about included boiling eggs, selling githeri at the roadside etc. No blame game was played by people who have all the reason in the world to play it if they decided to. The dice that was rolled was the willingness to do what needs to be done. The dice was absent in the first group I met with. One person there actually voiced his distress over the fact that one of his loan repayments had gone up by Kshs 5, 000 as he promptly ordered drinks and a meal for roughly the same amount.

How many times have you showed up to learn something different? There’s yet another group I know who are trying to get an economist to explain to them the facts of the country’s financial situation. Better use of meeting I would say rather than complaining. People’s opinions on Facebook are not necessarily fact.  Have you looked for ways of cutting down your expenses? Perhaps if you don’t go for the poverty support group meeting you would save on expenses. When we are complaining most of the time about being broke, we are usually doing the exact things that make us broke. You may not be able to change the times, but you can change what you do in those times. Has this taught you to use debt differently? To use it for investment not consumption, or are you waiting for the interest rates to fall so you can buy your next car? Do you purposely look for opportunities? There’s investment opportunity available in something a simple as a fixed deposit or a Treasury Bill just because of the same interest rates that people are complaining about.  There are underpriced shares on the stock market, not because the companies are bad but because money has shifted to the money markets (cash based investments).  There are private businesses looking to raise money. If people, whose concern is being able to get food that day, can see opportunities what really is your excuse? We may be angry, upset, concerned about what is happening. Vent, acknowledge the facts and then get up and do something rather than having the same discussion every day. You can use your lunch money and pay that loan faster, you can manage expenses and invest in the stock market, you can test that business idea out, you can re-engineer your business you can invest time in learning something new, you can train to run a marathon. Something! Whatever we do let’s not blame our way into nothingness.