In the summer, people of all age groups go for holidays abroad either alone or with families.
Youths find great joy in travelling to different parts of Europe with their relatives, which is completely normal given the desire to change the daily monotony and recharge oneself after spending months in study or work.
This is particularly true given the fact that travelling either to Europe or to other Arab countries is within the financial reach of many people. Financial constraints are not an obstacle any more in the wake of rising income levels. People now enjoy the highest degree of welfare, which makes it easy for them to travel and spend their holidays abroad with their families or friends.
What is astonishing is that even with rising income and welfare levels, some people are resorting to banksloans or taking credit cards only for a summer vacation,which is generally not longer than one month.
It is easy to do this, but when it comes to repaying,many people fail to pay back their debts for several years, especially when the debtsfor other assets like a home or carpile up.
Some women take loans to pay for the cost of marriage or to buy luxury brands that help them flaunt their status among family and friends.
Bank loans have already become an integral part of the lives of many people. Some people even say that they cannot be real citizens without taking loans, which means that we have reached a stage where we can crack jokes about such bank loans.
Some people fail to understand that bank loans should be resorted to only in times of extreme necessity. We don’t need to be held hostage by such loans. But this falls on deaf ears of most people. Some people say banks are generous enough to offer everyoneloans, which are easier to get instead of borrowing money from anybody or disclosing your needs to other people. They get bank loans in order to spend a joyous vacation, paying for first class plane tickets and booking the best hotel rooms. Added to all this of course is transport inthe selected destination and also the expensive food the vacationers treat themselvesto.
For some of these people, the value of a vacation in Europe is not measured by the enjoyment they get, but by the amount of money they spend. This is actually a painful reality that we come across in a large number of people we know.
When these people return from a holiday, they do not talk about the joy they experienced or how useful the vacation was, but about the money they spent. This has turned into what looks like special culturalnorm among us. As if most of us don’t know that the money they spent for travelling is borrowed money.
This means that the stress of repaying the debt startsbuilding up on the people who borrowed it from the first day of their return.
The question is: Why do we need to take bank loans in order to implement our vacation plans, and why do we take loans if there is no urgency? Why do not people plan for these vacations at the beginning of the year?
True, everybody needs a break from the daily grind, but why should we not plan for vacations early so that we don’t become captivesof bank loans, and put ourselves under pressures and create problems for our families. People should have a rethink about bank loans and their necessity.
