In one of his classic quotes Forrest Gump said, “Mama always said ‘Life is like a box of chocolates; you never know what you’re gonna get.’”
To my mind this is what we experience at present.
You never know what to expect when it is announced that the President will speak tonight.
Someone said it almost feels like when your mother used to say “Just wait till dad gets home tonight.”
Eenie meenie miney mo
The past year was like “eenie meenie miney mo,” you may not buy liquor, now you may, then you may not and now again you may. You may not go to church, you may, you may not, yes you may. The beaches are closed, they are open, December holiday and they are closed, holiday’s over, it’s open.
Yet, during all these some people were arrested and charges laid against them for walking on the beach. Someone even made a meme that read “The reason why beaches are closed is because Covid comes in waves.”
From port to starboard
Well, whatever the reasons,
we feel like being sent from port to starboard, again and again.
Any business owner will tell you that the more stable the regulatory framework they need to do business in, the easier it is to grow a business. What we currently have is horrendous instability.
In a NW24 article, Rico Basson, the MD of Vinpro, mentioned that since the end of March 2020, businesses in the wine industry were prevented from selling wine for a total of 20 weeks. According to Basson, it is by now too late for many of those businesses to recover. Think of the ±R8 Billion Rand in turnover lost and the tax revenue the government is the poorer of, to not even think of all the people who lost their jobs.
Who decides our fate
The biggest concern though is that the people making these decisions about lockdown, are all government employees and not one of them has missed a salary cheque. So financially they have not been affected by Covid at all.
# Better solution?
So, what would be a better solution?
The majority of the members of parliament, have struggle credentials or fulfilled roles in trade union leadership while many others are professional politicians.
Wouldn’t it be better for everybody if all the politicians had knowledge of where money actually come from? Just think how different decision making in parliament may be if every MP had experience of starting and building a small business as credentials (excluding tenderpreneurs) before being allowed as a member of parliament.
Other people’s money
Many years ago, I had an employee who previously was a manager in a big corporate. A friend then warned me saying “You must remember that
he only has experience in spending other people’s money and not of what he generated himself.”
Perhaps the same apply for our politicians. It is easy to approve a R1m payment when it is other people’s money. Yet in fact, we should actually be more diligent when spending other people’s money than our own.
Faithful stewards
When working with other people’s money, we become stewards of that money entrusted to us. In Luk 16:2 we read about the unjust steward where his employer “… called him and said to him, ‘What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your stewardship, for you can no longer be steward.’” In 1Cor 4:2 Paul says
Moreover it is required in stewards that one be found faithful.
Have you perhaps lost your job and you don’t know what to do next? If that is you, contact me for a Career Direct Assessment (available online) which will help you know and understand yourself. It will not only show who you are, but will also point you in the right direction.
