The proverbs and sayings scattered all over the literature are confusing in many cases. Just as they support each other, they seek to differentiate themselves from each other in terms of meaning, application, and reality too. Before entering into the main discussion, I would like to remind the readers of a story. Have we forgotten the story of the grasshopper and the ant where the grasshopper has to suffer a lot later due to his neglect of real-life and has to go to the doorstep of the realistic and hard-working ant? Yes, the main idea of this story is my topic of discussion today.
Throughout the story, I find three proverbial sentences. The first is “Hard work is the mother of good fortune”. The second is “A stitch in time saves nine”. And the existence of the proverb in this story we deny is “A friend in need is a friend indeed.” But my point is that if the money earned as a result of proper hard work is stored properly at the right time, then we do not have to pray for the help of a friend in case of danger later.
My personal life is mostly responsible for this sudden awakening in my numb brain and in this case I am trying to share with everyone the lessons I have learned from life. The misery I have had or are going to suffer at the present time due to being too extravagant in my personal life would seem to be much less in detail.
It would be wrong to say directly that Bengalis are not thrifty as a nation. However, it would not be wrong to say that half of the middle-class Bengalis and the whole of the lower class Bengalis do not have a saving attitude. Although we are told to be saving at every level of religious and social education, its application in real life is limited. Because most people groan in the grief of past; are reluctant to enjoy the present and doubtful of the pleasures of the future.
A few words must be discussed in detail in order to discuss the overall issue. Although the three words frugal, thrifty and stingy are very close, the results of their application in real life are different. We call a person frugal who is willing to spend exactly as much as he should in a particular case and is willing to spend as much as usual. We call a person thrifty who determines his expenditure according to his income and tries to save the rest before the expenditure, and a person undoubtedly stingy who is willing to spend less than the normal amount of money in each case and is unwilling to accept the normal expenditure. Now the question is how we should be as human beings. In this case, a person has to be thrifty first and secondly frugal. In other words, he has to plan his potential income before considering his fixed income and have the intention to save it before spending it.
Considering the socio-economic condition of Bangladesh, it is necessary to increase the saving attitude among the people and take the necessary steps for that. In this case, it is necessary to penetrate into the innermost part of the human mind that small savings of good times are the gems of bad times. In this case, the example of the financial catastrophe caused by the outbreak of the coronavirus in every country of the world and the impact it has had on the lives of individuals will be a very simple example later. If we do not apply and adhere to the teachings that the present time teaches us, we should abandon the attitude of identifying ourselves as human beings. Because it is wrong to call oneself a human being or to consider oneself a human being, as long as there is no combination of values and consciousness in him/her.
So we need to create a saving trend in everyone and create an idea about the benefits of saving. We have to remember that everything has a limitation. In the same way in today’s real life, there is a limit to what and how far can be done by others. Since every person is now somewhat self-centered and reluctant to spend their money on the needs of others, one has to gradually prepare oneself for the present in order to deal with one’s future adversity and in that case, saving is the first and best way. Remember, people like Haji Muhammad Mohsin will not be around you all the time. So our only desire is to build ourselves up to help ourselves in the future before expecting help from others. So, in the end, it is can be said that saving in good times will be helpful in bad times.
(Sabuj Bhattacharjee is a writer and columnist).
