Worry and Fear Over Debt Can Kill You

I’m came across an article today about a couple that killed themselves and their four golden retrievers:

“It is believed that the Donacas committed suicide after attempts to save their home following a foreclosure notice left them believing they had few options,” the Crook County Sheriff’s Office said in a report.

Before I decided to file for bankruptcy, I spent many nights unable to fall asleep because my mind kept obsessing over my bills. I needed to sell my motor home. But to do that, I needed to get it detailed and have the couch reupholstered. But it had also developed a hydraulic leak. I needed to get a hydraulic hose replaced, the fluid refilled, and the batteries charged. I couldn’t drive it, so I’d have to hire a mobile mechanic.

But I couldn’t afford that because I was driving on bald tires on my car. I needed $650 for new tires. Then there was the 50-year-old apple tree that fell over in my front yard across the front walkway. Then the apple tree in the backyard fell over. These are old trees, and I’m in a flood plain. I hadn’t cut them back (didn’t know I should), and they grew so top heavy that they just fell over. Their roots had been dying from water rot.

I bought a chainsaw to try and cut them down. I figured it cost less to buy the chainsaw and cut them myself than to hire someone to come out and do it. But it was just too big of a job. I couldn’t do it alone. I needed a ladder, but I couldn’t afford to buy one. I’d blown everything on the chainsaw. I also sliced the back of my hand open with an ax, so I was a little nervous about the chainsaw.

My electric bill over the winter was between $250 and $300 a month. And I was paying a mover to move my book inventory from my warehouse to my house. Each trip cost between $500 and $600 (books are very heavy), and he made maybe eight trips. But my income was reduced because I couldn’t list and sell books that were boxed and being moved.

So here I am, in bed. I’ve been thinking about money and debt more than a 16-year-old boy thinks about sex. I’m fading, fading, fading into that sweet point between wakefulness and the dream state and BAM! I’m awake. My body is now vibrating from the jolt. I’ve GOT to sell my motor home. But I need tires. How am I going to get tires? It’s not safe driving this car in the rain. The mover is bringing another load tomorrow. I have to pay him. Awake, awake. My mind racing. My body tense. I cry from frustration and helplessness.

Life has never been more secure, really, for many people in the world. Our power over nature has never been greater, in every way–and yet we’ve never been so uneasy. The Bushmen in the Kalahari–who had none of the things we have, where life was the ancient life of the hunter, unpredictable and dangerous–felt more secure than we feel in the midst of our plenty, alone at night in our beds. –Sir Laurens van der Post

Finally, I would drift off to sleep, but when I woke in the morning the first thing I thought about was my bills. Who had to be paid next? How much did I now have? How could I get more money? Oh, God, the car payment is due in three days. Shit, I need to pay my packaging supplier. I have to fix my motor home. I haven’t even gotten out of bed yet!

I was Making Myself Sick

We’re not supposed to live like this! I was making myself sick. I can’t even count the number of gray hairs I have now, but two years ago it was just a few here and there. I kept picking piles of my hair up off the floor. I was poisoning my body with worry and fear. I could have the best diet, a healthy exercise program, the cleanest air and water imaginable, a pile of good, close friends, and the stress alone could kill me.

Whenever I would feel myself tense up, I would hear my friend Tom say, “Breathe.” Just breathe, I told myself. That’s what I did. Whenever I would feel tense, worried or fearful, when I would feel panic threaten to overwhelm, I would take a deep breath and tell myself, “It’s only money. What’s the worst they can do?”

And I practiced what Eckhart Tolle wrote about in The Power of Now, an excellent spiritual book on living in the present moment. I would sit in my chair, and ask myself if I lacked anything, if anything was wrong. No, nothing was wrong. I had eaten so I wasn’t hungry. I was warm. I was comfortable in my chair. The present moment was free from concern. There was nothing RIGHT NOW that was wrong. And I would release the fear.

It was only when I remembered the past or imagined a fictional future that I became fearful and tense. Live in the present moment. Breathe. Forget the past. Leave the future to itself. This moment I am content and at peace. But if you worry enough to make yourself sick or if you carry pain, then that will intrude into the present moment.

It is idle to dread what you cannot avoid. –Publius Syrus (whoever the hell that was)

Really, aren’t all our worries a result of imagining a future that has not yet arrived? Why borrow trouble? Why leap ahead and live in a moment that doesn’t exist anywhere but in your own mind?

Remembering when I was Happy

I remember when I was in the Army in Colorado at my first post. I moved eleven times in thirteen months. The last place I lived was a small mother-in-law cottage in Colorado Springs. I had it all to myself. It had a small living room with a Murphy in-a-door bed, a small kitchen and a tiny bathroom. I owned one of those cheap stereos you get as a kid that had a turntable, radio and cassette player all in one box. I bought it when I was about 14 years old for $40. I had few possessions. I would write a check for $5 at 7-11 to buy a pack of smokes and get laundry money, and I would be tapped out. I was always borrowing $5 or $20 from my boss until payday. I was only making around $440 a month.

But I was HAPPY. I was free! I loved living alone in my own little house with my own little porch and walkway. I had my Toyota Corona Mark II that I bought for $650 (through a signature loan at the credit union), and I had bought a Honda 350 SL motorcycle. They were paid for. My friend John and I would ride around Colorado Springs and up into the mountains on warm, sunny days, every smell and patch of warm or cold air available to my senses. All I needed was a couple gallons of gas to have hours of good fun.

Now I am fettered by belongings. The greatest burden I bare are my cats, and I don’t regret them. But I am willing to lose everything else if need be. It’s all just stuff. What of your stuff is so important that your life will be diminished over its loss?

Do you remember buying your first piece of furniture? Your first lamp? The first rug? Your pots and pans? Your coffee pot? All that stuff you could get at Good Will for next to nothing. Wouldn’t you rather live in a shack with a cheap lamp and your mind free to imagine beautiful things and time to spend with friends and family–now that you’re not working so many hours–than in a fine house with expensive furniture and a mind full of worry and fear and always in a hurry because there’s just never enough time?

Figure Out Your Priorities

Anyway, get your priorities straight. Figure out what you really want. Then get it. Do it. Decide it. You really can do anything you want. If you can’t pay off your debt in a reasonable amount of time, file bankruptcy. If you can make your house payment, you can keep the house. The only people you hurt in filing bankruptcy are rich bankers who don’t give a shit about you. You’re not hurting the economy. The economy is the way it is because our monetary system is corrupt. (If you didn’t watch the videos in my previous post, you’re not going to understand what I’m saying, so please go watch them.)

And who cares what other people think? Do you want to keep slaving away, getting sick with worry, destroying vital relationships because someone might not approve? Because the Pamela’s of the world think you should be ashamed? Forget them. You’ve only got the one lifetime this time around. Time is running out. The time to live is now.

I know a woman who has credit card debt that makes her worry. She lives with her boyfriend. He bought her a pair of $90 earrings. She spends her money on crap too. But she sends in the minimum monthly payment–forever.

Imagine if you didn’t have to think about money all day long. Imagine if there were no bills coming in the mail other than utilities. Remember how happy you were when you were a teenager and didn’t have anything but time to spend with friends? Sell off your possessions if you have to to get out from under the debt. Go without that blended mocha drink and put that toward your debt. Sell your car and buy a cheaper model. Do whatever you have to to unhook from the system.

Once you’re out of debt, buy that beautiful lamp you want with C*A*S*H. The pleasure’s usually in the finding and buying, not the having. Isn’t it?