Debt sucks.
There are more savvy and sophisticated ways to describe financial imprisonment or hide its effects on our lives but the most direct way to simply that debt blows.
Debt blows.
I’ve never known a time when I wasn’t in debt. I was born in Poland in 1972 and faced financial uncertainty all the time. We had very little. The whole country had very little. Everyone did what they had to do to see another day. You did what you had to do from one day to the next, with very little hope in site.
Then we arrived to Canada.
It was and is a paradise, compared to where we came from but living here sure ain’t easy.
We needed a loan to come. We had to begin with financial assistance and welfare. My mother and father cleaned and cleaned and cleaned. As I grew older, I cleaned and cleaned and cleaned.
Life was good, don’t misunderstand what I am saying. Love and family is more powerful than debt but the burden and heaviness of not having enough for next week or the week after that weighs heavily on you.
It is all I have ever known.
I’m doing well.
I have a beautiful home. Two vehicles. A lap top to write stories with. Our kids get to play sports and take gymnastics lessons. We never go hungry or thirsty. We have enough for entertainment and the odd beer on a hot summer day. We have more than I ever did before but I wish I wasn’t in debt.
Relative to everyone else we don’t owe much. Every paycheque, every second Thursday seems to be evaporate and disappear into other people’s pockets.
I know debt is my fault. I am not complying or blaming anyone. I am very grateful to have debt problems, which as a problem the majority of people living anywhere else would be more than willing to take on, if it afforded them peace and hope.
I’m not complain. I am just choosing to write about it. I want to observe that it not need be so.
My goal is to get out of debt.
It will take me a few years. It will take hard work and cutting back my bad financial habits. Slinging numbers around with a debit or credit card is too easy. There is too much advertising everywhere. There is a scurvy of activity everywhere. There is not enough sobriety when it comes to money.
Money is not bad, it’s fantastic actually.
I want to get out of debt because I think about it a lot and with the limited time I have, I would rather spend my time invested in other noble things.
I need to break free and when I do, I’m coming for you.
I want you to be debt free too. I want you to work because you want to, not because you will lose your house and have nothing to live on when you’re old and grey. I want you to eat healthy. Eat what you want, never checking the price or asking about the specials.
Debt makes us do funny things.
Debt makes some of us do ugly things.
I don’t think we speak enough about debt. We treat it like a social disease, like we would a family member who was an alcoholic, or someone a partner who had been secretly unfaithful.
We need to get out of debt.
We need to plan an end to our personal financial crisis.
We need to get into black.
Get back into living.
Living free.
Owing nothing to nobody.
We have two use money and not let it use us.
Cover photo generously provided by photographer Alice Pasqual via unsplash.com
