Peace Is a System. Here Is What It Cost Me to Learn That.
I want to talk about two things that happened this week. On the surface they look unrelated. One is about a tenant who left my family’s rental property in Guinea. The other is about a colleague who did not say goodbye to me on her last day at work.
But they come from the same place. And they taught me the same lesson.
PART ONE
The rental business without a system
We had a tenant move out. My nephew handles things on the ground back home. When I called to check in, he told me everything was under control. I let that be enough.
It was not enough.
The tenant walked out with the keys. My nephew did not ask for them. I had to call the tenant myself. The deposit had already been returned — before anyone had inspected the house. And when our engineer went in, he found that the tenant had removed his air conditioning unit and, in doing so, taken our voltage boosters — the fittings that were part of the wall. Over $200 worth. Gone.
I wanted to call the tenant myself. Again. And then I stopped and realized: my nephew needed to handle this. But also — and this is the harder part — none of this should have been possible in the first place.
Because I had no system.
No move-in checklist. No photos signed by both parties documenting the state of the house. No written process for what happens when a tenant leaves. No clause stating that the deposit is only released after a minimum of one week, once the property has been fully inspected. No documented agreement on rent payment deadlines or what happens when those deadlines are missed.
Just phone calls. And trust. And me being reactive every time something went wrong.
The late rent situation with this same tenant is a perfect example. Every month, a new story. A trip to India. A meeting with an accountant. A business deal in progress. And every month, I was on the phone, listening, adjusting, absorbing. Like it was my problem that he could not pay on time.
It is not my problem. It was never my problem. It became my problem because I had no system to make it clearly his.
When you run a rental property — or any business — without documented systems, you do not just create chaos. You create ambiguity. And ambiguity always costs the person with the most at stake. That person is you.
I have built the system now. A full checklist for every room, every fitting, every key and every electric point. Both parties sign before a tenant moves in and when they move out. Photos are taken and kept. The deposit clause is in every contract going forward. Late payment gets a formal letter, not a phone call. The fifth of the month is the deadline. If it is missed, the process begins.
No stories. No exceptions. No emotions.
I pay my own rent three months in advance. On the first of the month, my landlord receives her payment and her receipts without a single conversation. She does not know where I am. She does not need to. That is what a clean system looks like. I owe my tenants the same clarity — and I owe myself the same peace.
PART TWO
The goodbye that was not mine
This one is smaller in scale and larger in what it revealed.
A colleague — I will call her Lee — had her last day at work this Friday. She came to our floor and went around the room saying goodbye to each person. She did not come to me.
It stung. More than I expected. And almost immediately, my mind produced its evidence: I remembered a rainy evening when she found me ordering a car to the train station and asked to join me. When we arrived, she asked how much it cost. I told her not to worry about it.
That was maybe a few dollars. A small thing. And I had been quietly holding it.
When she walked past me without a word, I felt that held thing surface as hurt. “After I did that for you.” And then I had to sit with what that sentence actually means.
Because nobody asked me to pay for that ride. She asked how much it was. She was willing to split it. I was the one who said no. And I said no not because I am a generous person in that moment — I said no because somewhere in me, I was investing. I was being kind in order to be remembered as kind. In order to matter. In order to earn something I was too proud to ask for directly.
That is not kindness. That is a transaction with invisible terms.
And here is the thing about invisible transactions: the other person never agreed to them. They do not know the terms. They cannot honor a debt they do not know they owe. And when they do not pay — when they do not say goodbye, when they do not show up the way you quietly needed them to — you are the one who ends up hurt. By your own expectations. That you created. And never told them about.
You cannot feel cheated by a deal you made alone.
And remember one of my life rules that I have totally forgotten about lol: When you expect a thank you, don’t do it. If there is any part of me expecting a return — gratitude, loyalty, recognition — I either name it honestly or I let the action go. There is no third option that does not eventually cost me.
Your real people will show up without you needing to earn them. And the ones who do not show up were telling you something true about where you stand. Let that information be useful instead of painful.
WHAT BOTH OF THESE HAVE IN COMMON
Systems in your business. Honesty in your relationships.
Both are about the same thing: knowing what you actually want, saying so clearly, and stopping the quiet management of other people’s behavior through unspoken rules.
The unexamined life does not just go unlived. It leaks. In late rent you absorb, in deposits you release too early, in ride fares you waive and resent. In a hundred small moments where you swallowed what you should have said.
Go through your receipts. Every week. Find the leaks.
That is the only way any of this changes.
Salima
Just me thinking out loud over here