This or That?

If there's one thing I've come to realize, it is that being poor and being rich both affect the way we think, and often times we find ourselves saying certain things that we do believe at the moment but, unbeknownst to us, are being influenced by our current condition.

_{photo by Julia Taubitz}

A rich man could swear on his life that there are certain jobs he wouldn't do ever in his life, but then life hits him, and when he loses everything, he finds himself running to that thing he had sworn against, simply because that's the only way for him to survive. The same happens to a poor man too, and what's fascinating about this is that at that moment when we say those things, we truly believe we're being honest and speaking from our hearts (which at that moment could be true), but I guess that is why the saying “Never say never” is a very important one.

While thinking about this topic, I remember a conversation I had with a friend of mine some many months ago. On that fateful day, we both were gossiping about a mutual friend of ours who had sent a particular amount of money to a lady friend of his.

While we were talking about it, this friend of mine made a statement that I couldn't help but disagree with. He had said that even if he had all the money in the world, he wasn't a guy who would send money to a lady, hoping to get her to notice him.

Now while what he said made a lot of sense, I didn't disagree with him because I was in support of him sending women money; I disagreed because I knew he simply was saying all of this based on his financial situation at that moment. I had told him that if he had all the money in the world, someone like him would even do worse than that.

And unfortunately, he didn't take long to prove me right (he's the friend I wrote about who sent money to a lady and got duped a while ago). And the reason I said he proved me right was because since that conversation, he had sent money to about two ladies, and both events had happened when he had a good amount of money on him.

So he didn't even have to be rich yet to go back on his words; all he needed to change his thoughts was a few hundred thousand.

I guess at the end of the day, all I'm saying is that we need to understand that our current situation does tend to influence our way of thinking, and rather than swear publicly that you wouldn't do something and then end up doing it, therefore making everyone see you as a liar, you could as well just shut your mouth.