At a time when many goods and services were only available to a few because they knew who sold them or were part of the distribution chain, it was very difficult to access them in an ordinary way.😓 Sometimes you would hear that there was a brother of a cousin of my aunt-in-law's neighbor's friend who might be able to get what you needed.😵 It never appealed to me to go those routes.

However, in the interest of helping others, I would sometimes help get something that was directly in my possession. Of course, I didn't have the salary at the time to help others with borrowed money. Still, I remember doing it once and it didn't go very well.👎

A relative of one of the managers of the companies to which I provided accounting services claimed to be able to sell some goods that were not easy to get. I remembered a friend who really needed them. Moreover, obtaining them would make it safer for him to do volunteer work. After that person gave a firm assurance that he could get the goods, I told my friend. He was interested, but he still didn't have the money. He asked if I could lend it to him to secure the goods. After consulting with the family, I decided to pay the order to my friend with my money. Subsequently, the sea started to get murky.🤦‍♂

As the days passed, it became more difficult to contact this person. The few times I was able to see him or talk to him by phone, he was rushed and stressed. To justify the fact that the goods did not arrive in the agreed and expected time frame, he blamed other people, traffic, insecurity, global warming, melting of the poles, death of the polar bears, etc. 🤐Everything took on a different color. Later, the staff of the above mentioned company found out that I had entered into this agreement, and they told me that even he had already had legal problems for that, with several people. At that point I knew the odds were very low.📉

My friend got the money, but he was put in a position of losing the money or not, if he gave it to me and he would now have a red balance waiting for the gentleman's compliance. I left that to his choice. I didn't want our friendship to depend on this. Of course, it was a hard hit to the pocketbook, because the amount in question was the equivalent of four months of my fees. My friend decided to keep the money, and wait for the gentleman to make good, at which time he would replace the money. 💸

🛑He never kept his end of the bargain. He never gave me the money back. 🛑My friend did not get the goods, ✅but he kept his money. ✅I kept a friendship, 🛑but I lost significant capital in that fiscal year. What did I learn? That it's not wrong to want to help others, but I need to be more careful that it doesn't reflect negatively on me or my family. That would be wrong. Although some people can be deceitful, modesty can help us detect how far we can help, and where we cannot.

_{Images: Images of my property, captured with my Canon EOS Rebel t3i camera.
Banner: Made by me in GIMP with my own images and free resources from the site pfpmaker.com/
Language: Post written in Spanish and then translated into English through DeepL}