Scatterbrains

I though to challenge us concerning a very interesting topic, investments, though I will still look for spiritual parallels.

I once read a book I think everybody should read, though I do not know where I can get it.

It was called Victory at the Supermarket.

It explains the strategies they employ to make someone buy what they do not need as they are looking for what they need.

Have you realised that essential items like food are always hidden from sight and placed as far away as possible so that you will walk through so much enticing stuff to access them?

Have you also realised that the things you do not need (must not have) are placed so strategically that you cannot fail to see them if you tried?

Why do hawkers always fight to stay on the streets and on visible places? And why is there an influx at the end of the month.

Impulse purchases are the prime reason for that.

The closest we get to it in the scriptures is the lust of the eyes.

That display will drive us to make impulse decisions against better judgment.

But this message is pointing at something beyond a splurge after receiving a salary though it also deals with it.

Allow me to give a sad aside.

How many are in horrible marriages because the packaging was irresistible at first ‘sight’?

That is what advertisement is all about, using sights and sounds to market something someone may not need, at least at that point in time.

I want us to think about land because, at least in our country, owning it gives you a higher status than most.

Yet do you realise that there is an influx of real estate charlatans who are playing the hawker game to simply take your money?

And I am not talking about those who will take your money and flee.

I am talking about those ‘genuine’ ones who will give you a title deed for your property.

But your property is so removed from anywhere that it may take the next fifty years for your investment to be barely feasible.

These characters will go to a place so remote that they can buy a huge chunk of land for a song because no normal person will buy it.

They will then subdivide it into very many plots and use the power of advertisement to market their ‘prime’ property selling for a very affordable price. And with very flexible payment terms.

Their ruse could make them the upwards of 1000% profit. Leaving you with a property even your grandchildren may be unable to profit from.

All because someone convinced you that there was an investment that was irresistible.

Yet it was made irresistible because you refused to give yourself time to think through the whole thing before committing, many times because they do not require you to make any deposit because doing so will allow you time to look at the illogical nature of buying land more remote than land in a foreign country.

And the same applies to car loans that will entice you to buy a car you not only do not need but that will completely mess your economics.

In our time there was the check off system mode of higher purchase where the same principle applied.

Come with a payslip and get whatever furniture item you need (or do not need). And you will probably pay three or more times the market value, just because you did not think to save first.

You do not need any discipline. Discipline is touted as a weakness if one has a stable income because to those practitioners saving before spending will kill their businesses.

This is because one who has saved will apply due diligence before spending those earnings just as he applied discipline and self denial to save.

There is nothing wrong with buying land. There is nothing wrong with raising our real estate portfolio.

But having a million acres of land in the Sahara Desert without the ability to use it borders on folly. Unless I have some strategic partners ready to invest in my dream (if it is one)

It is funny when you see some low and mid level civil servants buy plots in places where the marketers will take them using aeroplanes, hired vehicles and motor bike taxis to see the land, some needing two days to complete the seeing.

How do they get there once they purchase those properties? How will they develop or even use those lands using their measly earnings? And how will they access them when they retire as that seems to be the end goal of most?

Thinking long term before making those pivotal decisions is key to making them.

Praying through those offers could very quickly kill that irresistible bait.

That is why they will want someone to commit immediately after their sales pitch.

Refuse that bait.

God has rescued me from many such because I established long ago that I will not rush through anything before getting adequate time to pray over the irresistibility of whatever.

And I have burnt fingers when I decided that the world would end if I do not commit immediately as is always forcefully pushed.

Sadly, most of those con games are run by believers, some even getting solid footing in churches, even being touted from pulpits. That is what makes them so destructive.

Remember in the not so long past when church leaders pushed those pyramid schemes that fleeced multitudes?

This could be a repackaging of a similar thing where a pastor is paid the advertisement fee or is foolish enough to market something he does not understand.

But the flock being fleeced are not innocent as well since they are supposed to also have a relationship with the Chief Shepherd.

A similar thing happens in church all the time.

I have written of preachers who preach partial sermons to encourage their hearers to buy their books to get the full message.

There are those preachers who make giving them the do or die decision, sometimes above salvation.

And the planting of seed and tithe doctrine peddlers fit flush in this corruption.

What am I saying?

Stop being played.

Pray before investing.

Pray before buying that book or ‘gift’.

Pray before giving.

You will not die if you delay your giving by a few days. You will not die if you do not buy that property or make that investment.

But you could very easily die from stress when you realise that you have been fleeced by that pastor or brother or sister.

You could die from depression when you realise that your prime plot is a swamp.

You could die from hypertension when you realise that you created a crisis for yourself when you were enticed to satisfy another’s greed.

Pray until God clearly gives you direction. Then make a sober decision, a decision you can coherently explain to your children since they are many times the reason for that investment.

There will always be land. In fact, there is more unoccupied land than occupied, at least in our part of the world.

Stop the rush