don't interrupt compound interest

Abba-Father,

I used to think

disgrace was only humiliation.

A lowered head.

A smaller salary.

A painful memory.

A season

I would eventually forget.

But now I see

disgrace has a price tag.

Ten thousand shillings.

Every month.

That is what my pride

is costing me.

Ten thousand

that disappears

because of a decision

I made with my character.

Ten thousand

I could have saved.

Ten thousand

I could have invested.

Ten thousand

I could have sent

into a Fixed-Income Fund

and told it:

“Go and work for me.”

But pride

does not understand

compound interest.

Pride only understands

the moment.

It says,

“Speak your mind.”

“Demand what you deserve.”

“Do not let anyone

pay you less than you are worth.”

“Make them know

you are angry.”

Pride is loud

about today's injustice.

But pride is silent

about tomorrow's opportunity cost.

Because ten thousand shillings

does not look like much

when I lose it once.

But ten thousand

lost every month

is one hundred and twenty thousand

lost every year.

And one hundred and twenty thousand

invested every year

is not merely

one hundred and twenty thousand.

Time gets involved.

Compounding gets involved.

Thirty years

get involved.

At fourteen percent,

money I never invested

could have become

tens of millions.

Not because

I was born wealthy.

Not because

someone gave me

an inheritance.

But because

small amounts

were given enough time

to become large.

And that is what hurts.

The money is not

the only thing I lost.

I lost the money

that the money

could have made.

I lost the interest

that could have earned interest.

I lost thirty years

of compounding

before those thirty years

even began.

That is opportunity cost.

The invisible harvest

of a seed

I never planted.

The house

that money might have helped build.

The business

that money might have helped start.

The emergency fund

that might have protected me.

The investments

that might have bought me freedom.

The future

that might have looked different.

All sitting quietly

inside those ten thousand shillings

I kept losing.

And now I understand:

My pride

was not expensive

because it made me look foolish.

My pride was expensive

because it changed

the trajectory of my money.

The input was pride.

The output was disgrace.

But disgrace

created another output:

Opportunity cost.

One consequence

produced another.

Pride became disgrace.

Disgrace became lower income.

Lower income became

ten thousand shillings

I could no longer invest.

And ten thousand shillings

repeated for years

could have become

a fortune through compounding.

So the cost of pride

is bigger than

the salary I lost.

It is the future

that salary could have purchased.

Abba-Father,

this is painful to understand.

Because I cannot

go backward.

I cannot recover

September 2025.

I cannot rewrite

the words I spoke.

I cannot undo

the arrogance.

I cannot put

the lost months

back on the calendar.

I cannot ask compound interest

to give me back

the years I wasted.

But perhaps

I can stop

the bleeding.

Perhaps repentance

is not merely saying,

“I was wrong, and I am sorry!”

Perhaps repentance

is also saying,

“I will not keep

paying for the same lesson.”

Let my pride

become humility.

Let my humiliation

become wisdom.

Let my lower salary

become motivation

without becoming bitterness.

Let the ten thousand

I am losing today

teach me to protect

the ten thousand

I may earn tomorrow.

And when You eventually

place more money

in my hands,

let me remember

what pride cost me.

Let me remember

that money needs time.

That time needs discipline.

That discipline needs humility.

And that humility

can protect a future

that pride would destroy.

I once thought

my biggest financial problem

was earning too little.

Now I see

another problem:

What kind of man

was I becoming

while earning it?

Because if I earn more

with the same pride,

I may simply

lose more expensively.

So Abba-Father,

do not merely

increase my income.

Increase my wisdom.

Increase my humility.

Increase my ability

to delay gratification.

Increase my ability

to hold my tongue.

Increase my ability

to learn.

Increase my ability

to negotiate without contempt.

Increase my ability

to receive less

without believing

I am less.

And when the next

financial opportunity comes,

let me not destroy it

with the character

that destroyed the last one.

Ten thousand shillings

a month feels small.

But thirty years

of compounding

will teach me otherwise.

And perhaps

that is the lesson

hidden inside my disgrace:

Pride does not only

cost you today.

Pride can steal

from the man

you could have become

thirty years from now.

So, I bow today.

Not because

I am worthless.

Not because

I deserve poverty forever.

But because

I finally understand:

The harvest

did not begin

with the disgrace.

It began

with the seed.

And my seed was pride.

Now,

let humility

be the seed

I plant next.