A particular honoree that I want to mention is Dr. Muhammad Yunus, founder of the Grameen Bank. Not your ordinary blood(money)-sucking megalomanical curmudgeon of Wall Street. Based out of Bangledesh, this motherfucker loans billions of dollars to poor people. I mean dirt-poor people, and unfortunately for most parts of the world, this means women. Women at home, struggling through their days, not worrying about what purse to match with their stilletos for a night out to paint the town red, but if they are even going to feed their starving children or not.
He runs a bank that loans to this clientele. Borrowing Interest? Fuck it. They'll pay it back in small, low-interest installments, and there are no late fees. They're dirt poor? Fuck it. They'll pay it back, they'll just pay back in really small fucking installments. They don't have a car to get to a nearby bank? Fuck it. We'll go to them and do our corporate banking door-to-door. This shit will never work. Fuck it. We believe in the goodness and virtue of people and will place our bank's success solely in their hands. And it's worked. 98% of customers, low-end down and out customers, pay their balances in full and have forged new lives for themselves, their families, and their communities. Some have even trained to become franchisees for Grameen. Little did I know, he recently began a branch in Jackson Heights queens for the same demographic. I was also given the honor to hear him speak at a recent conference in LA. Low-key, simple, and groundbreaking in his thinking. A pretty amazing man. It's funny to think that the notion of TRUST is groundbreaking.
At one point in our lives, we have to go out in faith. I am talking blind, is-there-someone-lurking-behind-that-dark-corridor-i-hear-noises-but-let-me-go-see-anyway faith. Faith in God, specifically, you know, faith that actually falls into context with the definition of the word. Not seeing, but still believing. Otherwise, we will toil in mediocrity, live a Godot life, and die regretting more than cherishing things we will by then have experienced. Faith is the name of the game, if you want to make lasting impressions on the world and for yourselves, not to mention the ones that will carry your legacy onto the next generation.
To believe is to see.
Grameen Bank Stockholder Meeting. I shit you not.
i really like the line "to believe is to see" . i'm only now realizing the power of faith, i never really had it, or maybe had it broken many times to be able to trust it. it's one of the biggest leaps that one can take, but it is a hard one to accept considering how much occurs that makes you not want to trust... but it's definitely cool to see that the opposite is true in some places.
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