There is one thing I’ve realized about people, especially when they want to make you part with your money. They use this sort of reverse psychology on you, making you give your money to them even when you don’t want to. It could be for any reason at all, maybe you don’t have enough to spare, or you simply don’t want to give them.
Anyway, they do this, and by the time they’re done, you’d find yourself giving it to them, against your wishes. Once I realized this pattern, once I saw that many of them were basically feeding on our ego and fear, using our own insecurities against us, just to get us to part with our money, I got better at saying no. The last thing I would ever enjoy is being manipulated into giving money.
This year, one of my resolutions was learning how to say no. And also learning how to admit that “I don’t have money.” Honestly, with the way things are going in the country, with the amount of responsibility I have to shoulder every day, no one has any right to hold that against me. I don’t feel bad for telling someone that I don’t have money, especially people who want to take my money from me.
For me, I see it as a polite way of telling people no. This is because by bluntly telling them no, you could imply that you do have the money but you just don’t want to give it to them. By saying you don’t have it, you’re simply telling them to go find it elsewhere. But then, there are those who still won’t believe you. They think you’re lying.
One time, someone wanted me to donate to a project in the church. However, it was coming too late. The project was happening the next day, and I was only approached the night before, asking for anything at all I could afford to give. Despite the impromptu nature, I told them that I could only spare 2k at such short notice, but Madam told me I could make it 10k, which would at least make it more substantial.
Omo… I told her point blank that I don’t have money, and even the 2k sef was now off the table. She said that I shouldn’t say things like “I don’t have money”, it was negative, and I could unknowingly be surrounding myself with negative energy. I saw it for what it was, though.
The thing is, I’ve never been one of those who believe that there is power in the tongue. There only seems to be power in the tongue; the real power lies in the mind. It lies in what the individual believes. You can say something a billion times, but if you don't believe it can happen, you’ll just be repeating the same thing over and over again. You claim things and work towards them, that’s how miracles happen, and that’s how you manifest good things in your life.
So, saying I don’t have money doesn’t mean I’m never gonna have money ever again in my life. It just means that I don’t have money at the moment. Saying otherwise is not going to make my bank account any more buoyant. My life isn’t just gonna crumble just because I said a string of words, in the same way that it won’t magically get better because I keep saying only positive things. That’s not how life works, bro.
Once I came to this realization, knowing that what I believe is more important than what I or anyone tells me, it was easy to free myself from all those insecurities. You can say whatever you want to me, but as long as I don’t believe it, your words have no power over me. And I can also say some things, but what matters the most is what’s going on in my mind. What I believe. What I know about myself.
So, guard your mind. Don’t let a string of words be the driving force that makes people so predictable. It’s never a good look.
