Well, sorry but I can’t tell you it’s that easy or not until I come across someone with the experience.
But we have no shortage of stories about the ‘lucky lot’ who got rich overnight. I’ll tell you the story of some guy who allegedly got rich overnight and he made sure everyone recognized. One story is that sometime back the guy wasn’t anywhere close to being a member of the so-called middle income crowd. (I always am confused about the interpretation of the ‘middle income. What are the real criteria of the term in relation to our particular situation? Does a couple of thousand in the bank make someone a middle class dude? Or does it need a few millions?)
Time flies real fast, doesn’t it? Forget the fact the seconds. The minutes and the hours still run with the same pace they have been doing over centuries. It is about the feeling of time flying so fast that you couldn’t put a hand on its tail or anything. So the conventional wisdom for quiet many of us seems to be getting rich as soon as possible. All of a sudden we’re turned into philosophers. “You know time will not wait for you to catch up. So you better run while you can!” In fact time never waited for us and we seem to have never been as restless as we seem to be presently to get rich soon! Well, maybe just maybe the ‘chances to get rich quick weren’t as ‘abundant’ as they‘re supposed to be now. Are there ways to get rich soon? Well though I’m not the right person to try to answer that question I can throw a word or two from the narratives I hear as many are probably hearing. “You wouldn’t believe it; just a few months back he was so broke he used to plead with me to buy him a couple of beers! Now he doesn’t even have a few minutes for me for a short greeting. The guy has changed so much I wonder if I had missed anything about his real behavior during the many years of our friendship.”
Ok; get ready to get rich soon. How do you do it? I don’t know; I don’t really know! But if we go by the narratives about the overnight rich folks they might have some tried and tested ideas up their sleeves. The only thing and this is coming from a guy who just can’t see this whole picture f that crowd, most of them wouldn’t be problem-free or within the bounds of things you can legally do without breaking the laws and regulations of the land!
Are we seeing some kind of craze while people are trying to get rich quick? Of course, ‘quick’ is subjective. Are we talking about days, weeks, months or years? In fact so many real crazy stories we hear and we might as well add, “When we say ‘quick’ are we talking about all the overnight stories of some pretty young lady going to bed closer to the poverty line and waking up way, way above it economically stable and even inching closer to riches?” And we thought such stories were meant for Hollywood screenwriters who run out of ideas and yet have to get their daily bread writing one thing or another. “No more!” so the latest ‘conventional wisdom’ seem to have it.
You hear of stories of people who became filthy millionaires overnight.
“Hey I saw that girl with whom you went to college. From what you’ve been telling me I thought she was having a hard time getting any fair employment.”
“Yes; you could say that again. She really has been suffering! She had no means to support her family which had a hard time to make ends meet.”
“Well maybe that episode is coming to an end.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Well I saw her driving an eight-million birr car and the way she was dressed looked like some fashion diva.”
“Don’ tell me, she…she…No! I’m sure she wouldn’t go that far however bad her family’s economic problems.”
“I know what you mean. But these days it’s difficult to give the final verdict on any one of us!”
Well said, wouldn’t you say? Life goes in all sorts of wild swirls and spins and all we can do is watch. I mean it is common to hear of ladies shooting all the way up in a couple of nights and all of a sudden acting as if they were born with the gold spoons their mouths. You hear of very young guys who, with the help of some financial or administrative muscle suddenly driving the latest model cars and all you can do is speculate. “This guy must be into something very filthy or else there is no way he can have his own bicycle let alone million-birr car!”
Look there is nothing wrong with the ambition of becoming rich ASAP! We’ve taken ASAP from the medical emergency room to the financial ‘emergency’ world. Yes, no one could tell you they would prefer to get rich over years while they have all the legitimate and legal ways of achieving that goal much sooner. The problem comes when the whole plan is only getting rich. In such cases what matters isn’t how you get the riches but that you get them. Every other thing comes after that.
Recently a couple of us were talking with a few youngsters who were bent on getting rich quick whatever it takes. You have to admire their passion and their confidence that in a very short time they will go far up the ladder. But at the same time you can’t stop worrying the kids were get themselves in a lot of water and only then thy will realize the passion of getting rich alone doesn’t do the trick. What matters would be how to do it legitimately.
Look, going to some part of the city which you don’t frequent is a real eye-opener. Things are changing so thoroughly you might even wonder it isn’t all illusion and nothing more. Yes, we’re confused. “What in the world is going on?” “Am I looking at some video presentation of some other city?” There are so many rich-looking and rich-acting youngsters you wonder if they somehow have been secretly blessed to be rich ‘quick’ while you were trying to make your voice heard over a hundred and one issues and no word passed over your hairline.
Is getting rich quick as easily done as said!
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD SUNDAY EDITION 17 SEPTEMBER 2023