ATTAINING ECONOMIC SECURITY


By Oyagah Stephen

These are difficult times in the world-businesses collapsing, people losing their jobs and many losing the hope of better life as well. This has left humans pondering on how they can sustain themselves? For the employed, the quick fix is to completely rely on the company or jobs-work harder, get longer or permanent contracts and so on. For as long as the company is doing good, that makes sense but it all equals to short term thinking.
Economic security goes beyond doing the right things in a successful organization, it includes a plan B. let me draw your attention to Lehman Brothers. Two years back, I decided to research about investment banking and it’s when I came across the Lehman Brothers. For close to a century, it was a leading investment destination in the world- a model of employee and business excellence. No wonder when the company collapsed last year, the world was officially declared to be in recession and whatever was left was to listen to a black immigrant sing “Yes we can”.
Yes, great companies can fall and great jobs can be lost too. Now ask yourself; “what will happen if my company goes down the same drain?”, “where is my economic security?”The answer to that is intrinsic. It’s time to consider the following;
Think. This involves forming an idea about something. Imagine something you can do apart from your current occupation-are you good at reading, singing or dancing?
Learn. Once you have the idea, go ahead and gain knowledge about it through continuous study. The problem is the obsession with summaries-short formulas for success. Try to know as much as you can about whatever you have in mind. In one of Raila Odinga’s biographies, it’s stated how he spent time studying the way fascist regimes were overthrown in Southern America prior to masterminding the downfall of the Moi regime in Kenya. That is the power behind learning.
Create. Make something happen or exist. Remember to learn and not to apply is equivalent to not learning at all. In the Seven Habits of highly Effective people, Steven Covey puts it this way-learn, commit and do.
Adapt. Be ready to change your thinking, learning and creating depending on the situation. Avoid being extremely rigid.
Lastly, know your God. “Unless a house is built by the Lord, the builders labor in vain.” so goes the proverb. Whatever your “house” is commit it to God first.
I am not suggesting that it’s wrong to trust or rely on your company or jobs or even working hard but try to exploit that other potential to the full. I love reading and writing, what about you? That is where economic security lies-in you!
 © Oyagah Stephen 2009.

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