A bloody waste of time

Once upon a time, in a place far far away (well it is for me), there was a talk on financial literacy. I attended that talk. And I learnt how to get ripped off. Ripped off until all your intestines are flowing out and your head is on someplace other than your neck. And you can finally R.I.P. It was that bad.

Because time is money, even without paying in cash, i got ripped off. And it was 1 hour's worth of time. One hour that could have been spent studying for the exams. One hour that can determine your results and whether you get spanked by your mother. One hour that decides whether a blemish appears in your report book. One hour that masters your destiny. For the morbid, that's one hour closer to dying. Scary isn't it? And it was wasted. Maybe I would have wasted that 1 hour anyway, but that's besides the point. I want to be able to decide how to waste my own time. Master of my own destiny, no matter how screwed up.

When things like that happen, i really just want to tell the guy in a very very nice and polite way "STOP WASTING MY TIME LAH, YOU %^&*$!!!" It's times like this that justify the very existence of vulgarities, where normal language is insufficient in expressing oneself. Of course, there's still the international sign language. Right so everybody, follow me, and now firmly and proudly, UP YOURS! Now that frustration and anger has been expressed, i shall tell you the facts of the talk.

Firstly, the speaker's name was frank, and it's totally ironic because frank means honest, and if he's honest then I've never lied in my life. Make that my last life as well. According to him, a personality test involves clasping your two hands together and seeing whether your left thumb goes over your right thumb, or vice versa. Left on top means you're a thinker, right on top means you're sexy and thumbs not stacked together means you think you're sexy. I hope you didn't try that, because i hope you're not a moron. If you think that test makes sense, try mine. Slap yourself as hard as you can. Did you use your left hand or right hand? If left, you're a left-handed moron. If right, you're a right-handed moron. If you used anything else, you're a handless moron. Simple. Sun Tze says, "Know yourself and you win all battles"(or something like that) so now thanks to my personality test, you know yourself better and can therefore succeed in life!

No, it doesn't stop here. He continues by asking the question, "Who wants to gain financial freedom after working for a few years?" and seemed shocked when only a few people raised their hands. But why would we want to gain financial freedom after working for a few years if you can choose to have financial freedom without working at all! Moreover, 'a few years' is subjective. It can be a hundred years, which means you work your butt off for your entire life.
There's still some more. He described himself as being the person to lead you out of the minefield that is the adult world of finance. Rrrright. Out of the minefield into the nuclear bomb test site. I'll take my chances in the minefield any day.

Well at this stage, you might still think i'm being overly critical and i have no evidence to prove he's ripping everyone off. Well the truth is the title is already a trick. Financial literacy? Not touched upon except that he asks everyone to save and do budgeting. Something which even a 6-year-old kid will know. Frankly, it's an insult to everyone's intelligence.

And of course, he saves his best(his best time=my worst time) for last. Selling his programme that teaches financial literacy! Wait a minute, weren't we supposed to know all about financial literacy after his talk? So he uses the talk to sell the programme. And what does the programme include? 2 3-hour sessions in which you sit around and play a board (maybe bored) game called Praxis. Yo kids it's funtime! Ok so maybe it's fun, I don't know but guess what it takes $45 to join the programme! That'll surely go to better use in a charity. Am i the only one who thinks that it's just a great moneymaking scheme for someone?

So according to him, the programme teaches you lots of stuff, like how to buy stocks, how to invest in property, and business cycles etc. But then if everyone can do that, then who's left to work? Lots of promises indeed. Like some messiah leading you to the promised land. Convinced by him? You can try and prove me wrong. After all, it's only $45 for the road to el dorado.