FINANCIAL FREEDOM.
This quarter we are looking at health and finances. Don’t forget to download your Health and Finance Worksheet as part of the Esteemable Acts® Vision and Values series. We start with Financial freedom. When Your Life Feels Unmanageable, Check Your Wallet! My friend Lauren’s finances and her life are out of control. She’s got $54,000 worth of credit-card debt and a mortgage that exceeds her monthly salary. Her kids are in private school; one she cannot afford. She drives a current-year luxury car, drinks lattes seven days a week, and eats out almost as often. She sees her life as normal, and yet, she can’t understand why it feels so unmanageable. Of course, some of the issues have to deal with the cost of living. But, despite that, she makes many choices that could be reconsidered.
“It is a spiritual axiom that every time we are disturbed, no matter what the cause, there is something wrong with us.” The first time I heard that statement I ignored it, because I knew they couldn’t be talking about me. So, I continued to try to control everything in my life, to no avail, and spend money I didn’t have. The next time someone said that to me they didn’t beat around the bush. They made a direct statement and said, “Francine, your life is unmanageable and so are your finances.” Well excuse me! It’s not like I didn’t think it could be true, I just was living in denial and preferred to believe that all was fine in my world. Yet, there was more than a kernel of truth to that statement. There was sufficient evidence smacking me in the face.
If I was to look at my personal choices, well, of course, there was always someone or something to blame. When I was trying to pass both the New York and California Bar exams, it was crystal clear to anyone looking at me that my life and finances were out of control. Every day was about preparing for the exams, taking the exams, failing the exams, and preparing again. It was an endless cycle of stressors. These stressors were easily the cause of my situation. Then what about the endless spending sprees I’d go on, were they not my fault either?
How different was I than Lauren? The only difference is I finally became willing to see the light and the role I played in my life and finances being out of control. Thus, learning that when my finances are out of control, so is my life, and vice versa.
How We Treat Our Finances is How We Treat Our Life
Financial freedom is a result of effectively managing our finances, and the way we handle our finances is the way we handle our lives. Are you having difficulty managing your personal affairs? Do you feel lost and confused more often than you’d like? Do you spend more than you take in? Do you have arguably valuable reasons for doing so? Do you feel financially unbalanced? Do you feel like other people are in control of your life? Do you feel powerless? If you are glued to this page, I bet, with few exceptions, your money is also in a state of imbalance.
How do we get out of balance regarding our finances? By making poor choices. We spend beyond our means and needs, we incur astronomical amounts of debt—just because we can, and we save nothing. Then for many people, after making bad choices and racking up mounds of debt, we resort to the easier softer option of bankruptcy. It never occurs to many folks to stop the madness and change the behavior that got us into debt in the first place. Out of control finances speak to a deeper, more systematic problem—out of control behavior.
Next blog we look at what compels us to make poor financial choices.
Francine D. Ward
Attorney-at-Law, Author, Speaker
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