More Related News
Sports News
International News
News
Opinion
About 10 years ago, a friend of mine was preparing for his wedding and created a WhatsApp group to mobilise contributions. Like many friends, I made a pledge. I offered three crates of soda, worth about Shs18,000 each. In my mind, I had actually budgeted to give him Shs60,000. He came into my inbox and told me that my contribution was too little. He suggested that I should contribute at least Shs100,000.
I simply replied, “Okay.” That was the end of the conversation.
After the wedding, however, he confronted me and asked why I had betrayed him. I was surprised.
I told him: “I gave you what I could afford. You refused to accept it.”
That experience stayed with me. But it is only recently that I have begun to understand the bigger lesson behind it.
Sometimes, our suffering is determined by the life we have become accustomed to.
The more I move around my community, my village and different workplaces, the more I notice something interesting.
There are people living with very little who seem genuinely content. They enjoy their lives. They laugh. They participate in community activities. They attend weddings and burials. They contribute whatever they can. They eat what they can afford and go to sleep without spending the night worrying about what other people think of them. Then there are people earning millions of shillings every month who seem to be in a permanent race against themselves.
They are stressed. They are dissatisfied. They are constantly trying to make more money.
And despite earning amounts that many people can only dream of, they sometimes feel that they have nothing.
Why?
Exposure changes our definition of what is enough.
A person who has never travelled outside their village may be perfectly happy with the life they know. But once they begin comparing their life with people living in Kampala, Dubai, London or New York, their definition of a good life may change dramatically. The same applies to almost everything. Your income may increase, but so can your expectations.
You start worrying about the kind of friends you should have, the restaurants where you should eat, the neighbourhood in which you should live, the house you should own, the car you should drive, the clothes you should wear and the schools your children should attend.
Suddenly, what used to be a comfortable life becomes inadequate.
The cost of exposure
Imagine two people. One earns Shs5 million a month and another earns Shs100,000.
The first person may have a car loan, rent or mortgage, school fees, expensive social obligations, several subscriptions, expensive restaurants, fashionable clothes, travel expenses and expectations to maintain a particular lifestyle.
The second may live in a modest house, walk or use inexpensive transport, send the children to a nearby school, own two pairs of shoes and a few clothes, and participate in community functions with Shs2,000 or Shs5,000.
Who is necessarily happier?
Income alone cannot answer that question.
The person earning Shs5 million may have far more financial resources, but may also have far more financial obligations and social expectations. Meanwhile, the person earning Shs100,000 may have almost no expectation of living like someone earning Shs5 million. That is not an argument for poverty. It is an argument for perspective.
When “enough” disappears
One of the most fascinating things about human beings is that we quickly adapt to improvements in our circumstances. The car that once felt luxurious eventually becomes ordinary. The house that once made you proud eventually becomes “too small.” The phone you once considered perfect becomes outdated.
The clothes you once loved become “old.” The restaurant that once felt special becomes your normal place.
And the income that once seemed impossible suddenly feels insufficient.
This is where the endless race begins.
There is always someone ahead.
Someone has a bigger house.
Someone drives a newer car.
Someone sends their children to a more expensive school.
Someone takes more exotic holidays.
Someone wears more expensive clothes.
Someone belongs to a more exclusive social circle.
If your happiness depends on remaining ahead of those people, you have entered a race that has no finish line.
There will always be another person ahead of you.
The tragedy of having “nothing to wear”
Consider someone with 15 pairs of shoes and 30 dresses or trousers who says, “I have nothing to wear.”
It sounds ridiculous until you understand what has happened.
They do not literally have nothing to wear.
They have nothing new enough, fashionable enough or socially acceptable enough in their own mind.
Perhaps they wore that shirt twice already. Perhaps they have worn those shoes five times.
They begin imagining what other people will think. "People will think I have no clothes."
And that thought becomes a source of anxiety.
Meanwhile, someone else may have two shirts reserved for Sunday.
They wash them carefully, iron them and wear them proudly.
They are not wondering whether someone has seen the shirt before.
They are simply happy to have something clean to wear.
The freedom of knowing who you are
There is something liberating about knowing your own financial and social position and being comfortable with it. In many villages, you will find people who contribute Shs2,000 or Shs5,000 to a wedding, burial or community activity without embarrassment. They give what they can. They do not apologise for it.
They do not secretly borrow money to impress people. And when someone gives them a soda or buys them a small meal, they receive it with genuine gratitude. That is a kind of wealth that money alone cannot buy.
The problem begins when we start contributing not according to our means, but according to the lifestyle we want other people to believe we can afford.
You earn Shs2 million but feel ashamed to contribute Shs50,000 because someone earning Shs10 million contributed Shs200,000.
You own a perfectly good car but feel embarrassed because your neighbour bought a newer model.
You have a decent home but feel poor because someone else built a mansion.
You have enough clothes but feel inadequate because someone else has a wardrobe full of designer outfits.
At some point, you are no longer living your life. You are performing a life for an audience.
We need to redefine success
There is nothing wrong with ambition.
There is nothing wrong with wanting a better house, a better car, better education for your children or a higher income. Progress is good.
The danger is when wanting more becomes the only measure of whether our lives are successful.
We should be able to improve our lives without becoming prisoners of our improvements.
We should be able to earn more without creating unnecessary expenses simply because we now earn more.
We should be able to own expensive things without believing that expensive things define our worth.
And perhaps most importantly, we should be able to say: “This is what I can afford, and I am comfortable with that.”
That sentence can save a person from an enormous amount of unnecessary stress.
Choose your level of enough
Life is not simply about how much you have.
It is also about how much you believe you need to be happy.
Two people can have the same income and live completely different emotional lives because their expectations are different. One may constantly feel poor. The other may feel blessed.
The difference may not be their bank balance. It may be their definition of enough.
Perhaps this is one of the lessons we should teach ourselves and our children: aspire, but do not become enslaved by aspiration.
Work hard. Improve your circumstances. Dream bigger.
But do not allow someone else's lifestyle to become the ruler with which you measure your own life.
Because sometimes, the person with less is not suffering because they have less.
And the person with more is not necessarily happy because they have more.
We often suffer not only from what we lack, but from what we have learned to believe we must have.
And sometimes, the greatest form of wealth is simply reaching a point where you can look at your life and honestly say: “I have enough.”
