What is my own is mine!

Feb 07, 2014 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

Old people say never to let other people’s property “fatten your eye”. But that warning has more often than not been ignored. There are individuals who like to “eyeball” what others have in the hope of coveting it. And when you try to take something from somebody that does not belong to you, you are flirting with danger.
Just last week, a fifteen-year-old lad, who should be eyeballing his school books was shot dead after he and his associates entered the property of a businessman and robbed the man and his family at gunpoint. While his two friends reportedly went downstairs with the businessman to relieve him of the earnings of his shop, the now dead fifteen-year-old, armed with a scissors, stayed upstairs and proceeded to tie up the man’s wife.
Why do you think he stayed upstairs and why was he tying up the man’s wife? He has his own plans, except that he did not cater for the woman’s husband returning upstairs – after his friends had fled – and confronting him. He believed that with the scissors as a weapon, he was invincible. He is now dead and as sad as that may be, the lesson he did not live to learn is that what belongs to someone else is not yours. Do not allow other persons’ possessions to “fatten your eye”.
There are a lot of problems in this country. And heaven forbid, there can be improved governance. But the biggest problem is this tendency of dishonest individuals to covet what does not belong to them.
Stealing is a major problem in Guyana.  It is not just a case of persons entering your home and stealing from you, or of being mobbed and dispossessed of your valuables.  There is a serious problem of both blue collar and while collar crime experienced by persons who own businesses.
Do you know the amount of losses suffered, both knowing and unknowing, by the owners each day? Do you know the stealing that employees commit on employers in this country? It is hard enough to run a business amidst unfair competition, much less to contend with the pilfering by employees.
But the cruelest cut of all is when someone invades your private space to rob you of your possessions and to take advantage of your family.  An individual may work hard to earn his keep. It may have taken that person many years of savings and borrowing from the banks to acquire some material possessions, only to have some other person decide that they have a right to take it away.
Those who steal from others do not understand or appreciate the sacrifices that those persons have to make to acquire things. They do not know your indebtedness to the bank, and if you cannot payback what you owe you can lose everything. Yet they want to come and take what you have away from you, because they feel that you have too much while they have nothing. Or because they are greedy and want more than they have. Or because they are just wicked and do not want to make the sacrifices to acquire what they want.
That is nonsense. It does not matter how much I have. What I have is mine. No one has any right to come and deprive me of what I have earned.  There are hard-working people in this country, and they have every right to decide what to do with their money. If they want to build a nice house and surround themselves with expensive things, well that is their right. If that is what makes them happy, then so be it!
There are others who do not work so hard, but who have it good, because they may be lucky or belong to some rich family or have persons overseas who are helping them out. That is their luck. Good for them also!
And then there are some individuals who spend all day looking at what you have and deciding that they want some of it, or they feel that because they feel you have more than you need, you have a right to share it with them.
There are some persons in this country, however, who feel that they have a right to tell you how to spend your money. They know you may have a lot more extra cash than you may need, and they decide that it is their right to ask you to pass off some of what you have to them. And when you say no, they hurl insults at you.
Well sorry, folks. My money is my money. Whether I have too much is my business. I have to decide what I want to do with it. I have a problem with those who feel that because I have more money than I need, I should give some to them.
Sorry, that is not my philosophy. If I want to give you something, I will give you something. If I don’t feel the need to give you something, then that is my choice. Do not allow what I have to “fatten” your eyes. Do not try to tell me how to spend my money. You have no say in that!