It’s amazing but not surprising the apparent universality of financial struggles individuals and families go through. Statistics shows up to 95% of us live desperately trapped in the vicious treadmill that defy education, race or status.

You have probably heard of the adage, about tyranny being like boiling a frog in a pot of water. You have to turn on the heat progressively and gradually or the frog will jump out. The analogy though ridiculous, captures perfectly the slow slide into habits and circumstances that props and informs the rampant sorry financial mess folks wallow in.

A typical individual would begin earning around the age 25, often with an educational loan to settle (ever heard of degrees on credit?) and some pending parental responsibilities to inherit. The need to settle down is urgent and consequently a significant portion of income is channeled into the basic necessities of living. Unfortunately this hitherto innocent and appropriate desire acquires a life of its own as every achievement births a motivation to go for the next possible “asset” on the list. The excitement of independence and the notion about enjoying life takes a completely new dimension including the desire to conform and impress. Gadgetry and fashion are considered serious and thoughts about the future are suspended for the moments of conquest. No significant financial planning is undertaken at this stage as financial commitments and decisions are haphazardly handled kneejerk.

The next phase of life is bumped into often like an accident, usually with unfinished financial baggage from bachelorhood or spinsterhood. The youngsters romp into this phase with its attending demands and family obligations still propped on the promised delivery of a pay slip (two if both partners are working). The newlyweds discovers that the disposable income has significantly dried up as junior shows up shortly with his own set of financial demands.

It’s at this point that a conspiracy to find way to earn more is reinforced, in the deceptive belief that earning more will fix it. A nominee is picked to go back to college for more “papers” often on borrowed money. By this time every imaginable loan is handy as the young family steps into the vicious treadmill.   With luck, the effort pays off often with a reward of a promotion and a “commensurate” payrise. Unfortunately these folks are already heavily indebted and the raises do so little if any to cushion the mortgaged payslips. The new status too come with own set of “expectations”, lifestyle adjustments and often increased spending.

Time passes by and a wise idea to secure a family house becomes urgent and gets priority. Another loan becomes handy, this time a mortgage. And……….. how fast can time fly,—junior and his cohorts, one after the other are demanding fees from the already stretched budget for their own path to intellectualism. Phew, it looks like just a brief episode, but time has passes by slowly and surely, and months have turned into years as Johnny* and Mary* are staring retirement in the face. There is consolation of the basic achievements and the struggle is passed on to the next generation.

So much for a seemingly irrelevant analogy. While the description might not be perfectly representative of an average lifestyle, it captures the spirit of financial tyranny that I believe is very relevant to most of us. The tyranny we can and must, if we have to survive like the frog in the old story, jump out of the pot, before we boil to death!

It’s a conscious deliberate choice to defy the usual and take a different calculated path to dance to a different drummer that would make the whole difference here. Unfortunately a lot of times, folks who are reading this will still be immobilized with other tyrants, the allure of false comfort and paralysis by analysis and the accompanying cynism. The guy who is endowed with analytical ability and subscribes to the idea that all, – ALL- risks must be eliminated before any move is taken. My wonder to this mindset is, whether there is any risk-free circumstance this side of life. This reminds me too of a scientific fact I heard from my Pastor this past Sunday about bumble bees. That according to science, the insect’s wings are so thin that aerodynamically speaking they can’t fly. But the bumble bees are not aware of these facts, and so they continue flying anyway. Alas, could this explain the reason why a significant percentage of the world’s financial success stories are of the bumble bees’ type “ignorant”.

The academic analysis that search for  perfect and riskless condition for taking decisions will lull our initiative and stop us from taking action. ACTION will produce results.

Bernard Were is an Associate Financial Advisor at Waumini Investments. You can read his blog here and follow him on Twitter

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