The best attitude to have towards an inheritance is to assume you’re getting nothing. After all, it was never your money or property to begin with. When your mind is conditioned to expect the worst, you won’t be sucked into meaningless fights with your siblings over property. Most Ugandans are ready to fight to the death; primarily because they feel entitled to their parents’ property and also because most don’t know how to be successful on their own.
It’s rather shocking how people with the same ancestry would resort to fighting both figuratively and sometimes literally. It appears that nearly every family in Uganda has some form of inheritance disagreement. For the more accomplished families, it’s usually very subtle but it’s there nonetheless.
Stories of families in conflict over property make headlines in Ugandan print and digital media every week. It is very easy to mock these families when you read such stories; they look ridiculous and petty. We sometimes wonder why these people just can’t move-on.
Researchers on behavioural science tell us that what appears as greed and pettiness are really symptoms of deeper unresolved psychological issues.
For most people involved in such conflict, the problems can be traced all the way back to childhood. For others, the trouble starts when the man of the house decides to have children with another woman or women. Usually when this happens, the man’s attention and affection shifts to the new lady and her children. This naturally breeds some form of resentment towards both the father and the new family.
So, issues of inheritance don’t come out of nowhere; they are a result of long-term unresolved relationship problems that re-emerge when the man dies. These fights are not just about money or greed; they are emotionally charged.
Because the 1st wife feels betrayed, she’ll convince her children that the best way they can payback the man for his betrayal, is by depriving the children of the “other women” of their fair share. Such acts give them a certain sense of false power and security; security that was supposedly taken away when their father married another woman. By “punishing” their siblings, they feel they have effectively gotten their revenge on the father. The target for this anger is always the father. The half-siblings are merely collateral damage.
Many of us in Uganda come from such dysfunctional families and sometimes identify as victims of these circumstances; we are not getting the results we want in life because we are playing the victim. We convince ourselves that our lives would be better if we were beneficiaries of our departed parents’ estates. We’re refusing to live exceptional lives because of such injustices that happened in our family.
But are you really a victim?
A victim is someone to whom things happened against their will and they had to suffer because of it. Someone to whom the wrong cards were dealt. If you have been on the receiving end of such injustice, it’s important that you stop identifying as a victim and take responsibility for your life.
The foundation of personal development is to believe that you have the power and ability to create any kind of life that you choose, regardless of what has happened to you in life.
Who’s ultimately responsible for the quality of your life?
Is it your parents, your family or perhaps the government? Is it how you were raised or is it the schools you attended?
If your answer to this question is anything but “ME”, then you’re thinking like a victim. Taking complete responsibility means that you’re not going to use a difficult childhood or your parents’ mistakes as excuses for living an average life.
The stages of personal development
- The Victim: The victim believes that they don’t have much control in life. They have a sense of frustration and apathy. They don’t even want to take action to change their lives because they think it’s pointless. Most victims don’t really make the choice to be victims; they do it unconsciously.
- The Fighter: Above the victim is the fighter. The fighter believes that for them to win in life, somebody else has to lose. They believe that in life you have to kill or else you’ll be killed. Such people are always angry and confrontational. The fighter is still better than the victim because he believes he has some control over his life.
- The Creator: The creator understands that life is what you make it. Unlike the fighter, the creator doesn’t believe that fighting and competing is the best way; the creator would rather spend their time creating, than competing.
Most victims claim that they can’t move on in life because of all the negative stuff and injustices that happened in their past. But if you raise your consciousness and become a creator, you’ll notice that you have control over how you choose to respond to whatever happened to you in the past. You will no-longer identify as a victim of your past.
I will be doing some more writing about this subject in the future. I’ll share some stories from my family; I’ll tell you about my uncle Godfrey, who arrived in Zambia as a political asylum seeker with President Milton Obote, became an accomplished prosecutor and potential attorney general before his premature demise. I’ll tell you about how my mom moved from being homeless at 50, to appearing at the UN in New York and the US Congress in Washington. I’ll share these stories in an attempt to inspire you to break free from the victim mentality that is holding you back from becoming a creator of your reality.
I am a creator and I hope you’ll become one too.
#stayhome #staysafe
