Honour and cheap shots

Nobody ever forgets when it comes to money or something that’s owed to them, regardless of time passed or even how they may just shrug it off as “not all that important”. And believe me, if you’d think that elephants have great memory, wait till you experience a human scorned.

Here’s a point where we in Asia fail to realize the importance of good business/personal practices, thinking all the time that we can get away with IOUs and er well, a quick and quiet sweep under the carpet… hoping that the other party would eventually get tired or just forget about what’s due them.

See, this only proves one point… we are indeed penny-wise and pound foolish. Because of a few cents to the dollar, we sacrifice honour and respect. What we fail to realize is that a lot more projects/contracts, goodwill and friendship or business contacts are stopped by the people we owe gratitude or something to. All these goes hand-in-hand with damaged reputations.

And unlike the “older days” when reputations mattered enormously, these days, everyone seems to think that they can run friendships and businesses without that. This accounts for the screwed up friends we’re getting as well as the sinking of so many business ventures and such, thanks to ourselves, thinking that we can actually fool everyone, everytime. It’s no more different than debasing ourselves for a few cents worth. Truly telling about the value we place on ourselves, our reputations, our characters.

See, honour and fair-play comes through and are both inter-dependent externally as well as internally. Unless we are prepared to be honourable, we will not receive any honour in return.