All Letters

My dear Jil, it would seem you and your boyfriend are coming from two opposing finance philosophies. You have two different finance personalities and perspectives. You’re prudent and believe in financial planning. He’s not. You’re conservative concerning finance. He has a laissez-faire attitude towards finance, believes things will somehow take care of themselves. He projects on future earnings. Which means he gets into a credit situation today hoping to plug the hole with future earnings. And so he spends his salary to the limit, banking on payday. And if there’s any problem with payday, he borrows money using his paycheck as collateral. In other words, you live within your means, he lives beyond his means, literally. That’s the simple deduction.

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My dear Jack, it’s about possibility thinking. You’ve got to believe in possibilities. If you want to be an achiever you must believe in possibilities.

Possibilities are first and foremost inside of you. You meet them on the inside before you see them on the outside. Possibility is your heart pressing against your insides, pushing against the strains, challenging militating circumstances you encounter on the inside, refusing to accept status quo. Possibility is your heart seeking to work out different routes to your future, wondering how to deal with obstacles. It’s your heart breaking down a major challenge into pieces of achievable chunks, all with a view to overcome the challenge identified. You can’t attain unless you believe in possibilities.

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My dear Jil, I will be failing in my duty as your mentor if I do not present an accurate and complete picture of life to you. The very nature of life can get lost in the crack of discussions about love and marriage. Such discussions naturally evoke imageries of romanticism, beauty, love and harmony. And yet all those are contextualised within a frame called life.

Here’s the thing about life: Life is tough! Man is born unto trouble. Only the strong survive. You must be strong. You must survive. You cannot afford to be weak. You cannot afford to give up. You cannot afford to turn back.

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Dear Jack, I think it’s about doing certain things just because it makes her happy. Your desire should be to do things that make her happy. Especially because of the fact she’s been a wonderful wife to you; she goes out of her way to be supportive of you, sticks by you no matter what. There are thus things you won’t ordinarily do, but you do them because they make her happy. That’s the least you can do for her – make her happy. And so you stretch yourself to buy that birthday present, do your best to make the day enjoyable for her – make it a day she can be happy. You just want to see her happy. It’s what couples should do for each other – sacrificially make each other happy. And she need not know you stretched yourself to make that birthday memorable. Doesn’t matter. If someone makes you happy, make the person happy. That’s a mantra to live by.

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My dear Jil, you shouldn’t get careless with your marriage. There are people who want what you have.

First, you have to be careful about not being available to your husband. That’s not really wise. He has needs – physical and emotional, and you’re the only legitimate fulfilment agency. As an entrepreneur, he particularly needs your moral and emotional support. He needs you for this journey called life. He needs your partnership. It’s important he feels he has you by his side, that he can count on you and your advice. He needs your consultations too.

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My dear Jack, you’re obviously not who she wants. She’s holding out for someone. But like they say, a bird in hand is worth two in the bush, so she maintains relationship with you but won’t promise marriage. She can’t make such commitment because you’re not what she wants. You’ve been dating for a year now and she won’t talk marriage – not even preliminary bits. And she’s told you she’s not promising marriage. Maybe you both need to sit down and define what exactly this relationship is.

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My dear Jil, he’s a chipmunk! That’s what he is! You know about chipmunks? They have an interesting quality. They have three-day memories. They can’t remember much beyond three days. So when they store food and don’t retrieve it before three days, they begin to scurry about searching for where they kept the food, desperately.

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Dear Jack, no, he shouldn’t have told you that. It’s because he doesn’t understand what you’re dealing with. You’re suffering from depression. Depression is a disease of the soul – no different from any other disease really, so nothing to be ashamed of. But it’s more vicious than many physical ailments.

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My dear Jil, you won’t understand and can’t understand: fathers are particularly protective of their daughters. That’s the problem you have with your father. It’s why he’s giving you all those troubles over marriage.

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My dear Jack, Valentine is coming up. You spoke about taking her to dinner. Is that still on? It’s the opportunity you have to re-sit that exam she conducted when she asked what made you convinced she was the one. Like I told you, in my mail she’s not looking for a narration of the sequence of your conviction. She just wanted you to give her words of assurance. It was a security question.

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