My father is a businessman, and may I say that he earns enough to give us a little more than a comfortable lifestyle. Yet, all through my growing up years he made me believe that there is nothing fabulous or even remotely good about having money. He kept telling me that professions that are more noble, a teacher, a doctor, an artist or a writer, you earn respect. And that earning is more valuable than any amount of money. So, all through my childhood I thought that my father had the worst job in the world. Only money. What was it any good?!
Then I grew up, went to college, made friends - “Your father is a businessman. Wow!” (I found nothing ‘wow’ about it, because I never got any extra money to splurge. I want through the usual students’ routine of saving up through the month, sometimes cutting down on my outings to buy things I really fancied.) I also remember an atrocious, one-time acquaintance recount her break-up story to me. “Oh come on, it was never meant to be”, she said, “He works in a bank and my father is a surgeon!!” I was suddenly being exposed to a whole new way of thinking; something I was completely unfamiliar with. Had my father fooled me all this while? Is money the only important thing in life? Could it also buy enviable kilograms of respect?
Today as I keep my increment letter in front of me and read it over and over again, I really want to believe that my father was right. Money is not everything after all! It’s the respect you earn from a noble profession that matters. Like that of a teacher, a doctor, an artist or a WRITER!!
