Bank Account

I love analogies because they are so visual. We remember the things we see and analogies make you imagine a point till you understand it. There’s one I heard once and it stayed with me. I don’t remember who gave it but I think it was The Dentist.(Joel Osteen. Seriously, the man has unnaturally white straight teeth!) I remembered it the other day and have expounded on the idea and here it is…

The bank account is a wonderful invention. Your money is safe(mostly) and earns interest and there all these benefits… This isn’t a business class or an ad for a bank/financial institution so I’ll stop there. Imagine the following scenario-you are hanging out with friends and you decide you want to go out and eat something but you don’t have enough cash on you. So you head over to the ATM. It’s your lucky day coz there’s no line. What should take a minute turns into a nightmare when you’re ATM card is swallowed! Gulp! You yell and curse the bank. Then it hits you, oh wait… It’s expired… Remember?!

Scenario two. Still imagining. You walk into the bank(let’s skip the tedious queuing bit) and head to the teller. You want to withdraw a tidy sum. You tell the teller the amount and after she does a quick check, gives you what you consider an incredulous look. She then asks you to repeat the sum and you confidently do only to be met by the same look. Now you feel insulted. How dare they! You insist on seeing the manager when she tells you that you do not have even an 1/8th of the sum you are requesting. The manager arrives, you are fuming. Fast forward to the part where the records clearly show you have never had the said amount in your account. The bank manager gives you the same look that the cashier gave you that loosely translated says, “I don’t know whether to have you thrown out, arrested or sent to a mental institution…”

You cannot walk into your bank and attempt to withdraw 500,000 when all you have is 5,000! If you have not been making deposits that add up to that amount, you’re crazy to expect it to magically appear! In the same way, you cannot give very little to the relationships you have in your life and then be surprised when they crumble. You have to make deposits into the bank accounts you’ve opened in people’s lives. Otherwise(I hate this word but oh well) be prepared for them to leave…

Let’s backtrack a little. So most people are of the opinion that I am nice and I guess I am. My biggest strength-I believe in people. My biggest weakness-I believe in people. I already embraced it and I think it’s a blessing to see who people can be and believe in that even though they are far from it now… However, there comes a time when I must not stop believing or give up but walk away for my own good.

I’m challenging myself to make meaningful contributions in people’s lives. I want to be remembered as someone that touched people’s lives and cared. Really cared. I challenge you to go out and care!