Keeping up with your peers

Have you ever felt that you had to keep up with others, in wealth and status?

I haven't. But Abang has, to his great detriment.

Abang used to be the role model in my life - I looked up to him in a big way. Before he was 35, he was a relatively successful lawyer and a good son, to my mother. He was her favourite.

Somewhere along the way, he felt that he was not as successful as his peers and decided to move into property development - an area that he had little experience in. He gambled a fortune into it and made some bad judgement calls.

He went from being a cash millionaire to a debt millionaire, in a matter of a few years. The economic crisis made things even worse. But that didn't stop him from keeping a lavish lifestyle, on himself or his family - after all, impressions had to be kept up with his peers - they must think he's doing well. His cashflow management was awful and his business (and employees) suffered as a result.

But Abang is now in great financial trouble and is almost morally bankrupt as well.

And then he did the unthinkable: He embezzled a property from my mother. The only unencumbered property under my mother's name, worth RM300,000. My Abang (who has gone on repeated Umrah and Hajj trips) stole from his own mother, to handle the mounting debts and charged it to a bank, for a loan facility.

Mum passed away this year and every week before her death, she asked that the property be returned to her. Mum knew that it would be a cause of great friction, if she died. She mentioned it last, about 2 weeks before she passed on. She died with her last wish, unfulfilled.

Abang seems without regret. There is no inkling that it's pricking his conscience at all. The man I knew when I was growing up, is not there anymore.

Now, he's pushing for us to sell the family pesaka house, for him to get some money out. So cold and unsentimental. Everything is just a source of money to him. He's moderated down a little and sold off the E-Class Mercedes, but the lack of money and unpaid debts all around him, did not stop him from doing up the Wira, for RM2K.

There's an old Negeri saying, "biar pape, ase begaye". (Let us be destitute, but in style). The phrase is a mocking indictment of the behaviour of some people who are willing to keep up the pretence of wealth, without really having much of it.

The description fits Abang perfectly. Let this be a lesson to us: Don't keep up with others. Just spend within your means. "Ukur baju di badan sendiri"

Success should only be measured in the eyes of God and in one's own eyes.