"If you're not interested in what they're selling, do not stand there and give them the opportunity to convince you into buying it. ~ My Dad"
About thirty minutes ago, I had said those exact same words to a friend of mine, after he had told me of how he's been disturbed lately due to the fact that he's not where he wants to be financially yet.
Some few minutes ago, I had walked outside to get some fresh air when this friend of mine began to tell me about another friend of his who was celebrating his birthday today. The birthday boy had gotten himself a car as a birthday present and had posted it on his WhatsApp status, making my friend feel like he was a failure.
He began to open up to me, telling me about how he is the first child of his parents and has to do well for himself in order to be able to provide for his younger siblings who are constantly calling him on the phone, asking him for money.
Mind you, the birthday boy is a known fraudster who may or may not have done some diabolical stuff to make his money (if you believe in those kind of stuff), while my friend is a painter who goes to work everyday, trying to make a honest living....and does well for himself, just not well enough to buy himself a car on his birthday.
By the time he was done lamenting, I could see where the whole conversation was heading to. It was obvious he wanted the life his friend was living and was seriously leaning towards their direction, the fraud direction. The moment I noticed that, I had told him about a quote my dad used to tell us when we were kids, the same quote that I had used at the beginning of this post.
Urging him to do himself a favour and block that guy's status from ever popping up on his phone ever again. I had told him that it was absolutely fine for him to want more for himself, but the moment he starts to get envious of the guys who got their money illegally, he would find himself wanting to do the exact same thing those guys are doing.
That is why the right thing for him to do is to do is to stop giving those guys the opportunity to even convince him that they're living the good life.
Hopefully he heard what I said and would do as instructed and also doesn't get involved in fraud, but if he ends up getting into it, I seriously won't be surprised because fraud is the order of the day here...almpst everyone is into it.