5 Filipino Habits That Are Keeping You From Becoming Rich
With the new year rushing to greet us, we all wish for abundant blessings, good fortune, and prosperous wealth. If we want to achieve all of them, we need to break our old habits. Many of us can confess that it’s our own Filipino habits that prevent us from having more digits in the bank. Learn more about these habits so that we can beat them in order to become a better you!
1Filipino Time
You’ve seen this coming! Don’t you hate it when you’re the only person who has arrived on the dot, and everyone else is running late? Seriously, it happens all the time, whether it’s business meetings or social gatherings. Yes, everyone’s lame excuse is traffic (like what else is new?). “Filipino time” is a euphemism directed at Filipinos who have no consideration for time. Say you have an appointment with a client at 9:00 a.m. but you or the client arrives at least one hour after 9:00 a.m.
Outside of the Philippines, this is a big no-no. Foreigners frown upon this practice and see this as a sign of disrespect. Imagine the wasted time you could have spent being productive! After all, time is gold. If you want to be punctual to your meetings, manage your time better and leave earlier. Let’s just assume traffic will always be there (which sucks BTW!), and it’s up to our actions if we want to make it or not.
2Mañana Habit
Picture this: you’ve just received your credit card bill and you decide to pay it off within the next few days. As the days pass, you forget that you intended to do so, or you keep putting it off because you get busy with other things. Some weeks later, you receive another bill. You realize that not only were you unable to pay the first amount, but interest and late fees were applied, ballooning into a much higher total! So nope, don’t say “laters baby” to your bills!
We have a tendency to slack off and delay tasks to a later date. However, it’s much better to accomplish everything when you have the time before you become burdened with other responsibilities. This is applicable not just to bills, but to some projects as well. We only work our asses off when the deadline is already near. You might end up regretting not doing the tasks earlier. Ask yourself. How can you be successful if you keep delaying what you’re supposed to do today? Wasting precious time is part of Filipino habits that we must kill.
3Ningas Kugon
When translated to English, it means “burning grass.” For example, they say that what you do outside of your 9–5 job matters more. You start thinking about business or freelancing ideas, excited to make your time worthwhile. Over time, other priorities take over, or you simply forget about your excitement. The burning desire is slowly extinguished and you end up back at square one.
This fatalistic attitude can be the cause of why a certain idea didn’t materialize as well as it should have. You would never know this million dollar idea can make you some profit. How will you know if you never tried, right? We must recognize the importance of starting, finishing, and owning up to projects.
4Bahala Na Attitude
This “come what may” attitude is really an excuse to go lazy. If you have a job interview for a certain position tomorrow, the most sensible thing to do is to prepare, right? You’d probably search on Google about the company and what kind of products or services they’re offering. You’d look like a fool if you asked questions whose answers are readily available on their website.
Having this kind of bahala na attitude is not exerting any effort in increasing your chances of getting hired. Sadly, it is a common practice by most Filipinos. Though we are seen as a hardworking nation, it’s not an excuse to leave everything up to God or by chance. After all, you create your own destiny with all your hard work, sacrifices, and efforts. People should realize that their individual success is determined on the work they’ve exerted.
5Overspending
In general, Filipinos are happy-go-lucky people and are always looking for a reason to celebrate every single milestone. Name it! Monthsaries, a pet’s birthday, and the entire bunch. Fiestas, no matter how big or small, can be somewhat costly especially for the average Juan.
Out of the Filipino habits, this one is considered to be the worst. This is the main reason why the bank account is always empty. At a party, there’s a need to impress our guests by making extravagant and unnecessary purchases. This sometimes means scrimping on everything else until the next pay check comes in. It’s a tendency for many of us to live from one pay check to the next. Because of this habit, we hardly put away any savings for investment or even emergency purposes.
These Filipino habits can make us or break us. We know we’re guilty with at least one or two of these traits. This is why we need to kill these ugly Filipino habits to rise as better versions of ourselves! It will be a great way to start the year with a goal in mind. That is, to have money in the bank and invest it somewhere where it will benefit us in the future. Everything is possible as soon as you ditch your old habits and have a healthy attitude towards life. We can enjoy the little things that life offers us as long as we keep our bad habits in check.
What can you say about these Filipino habits? Share your reactions with Philihappy by commenting below!
