Quote:
If you were broke, bankrupt, and homeless and couldn’t spend any money, what activities would give you the most joy? Are you centering your life around those activities today? If not, then you must ask yourself, “Why the hell not?”
Ideally these two questions should produce the same answer:
* What would you love doing if you were guaranteed to have unlimited money for the rest of your life?
* What would you love doing if you were guaranteed to be dead broke for the rest of your life?
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broke - check.. I have about $75 to my name and approx $130,000 (+/-) of debt -
Hooraay! They always cheer for people when they go over Niagara Falls in a barrel, right? haha
bankrupt - check.. I can't declare it again cause I did about 5 years ago. I have to wait another 3.. but essentially, with a whopping $75 - yes, I am.
homeless - check, check.. If not for the generosity of my family, yes I would be and have lived in my truck before. I'm very grateful to have be where I'm at.
A bulk of my debt $110,000 is tied up in school loans. I haven't been in a position to begin repaying them.. well maybe I was once or twice but thanks to forbearance, hardship deferments and brief stints in school I've been able to avoid it for 10 years. The rest tied up in personal loans and credit card debt.
I have a small freelance web design business that I started about 5 yrs ago, the last time I was in this position and declared bankruptcy. That business has approx 5 clients and yields and average of $200/month - if I'm lucky. I haven't been able to increase the work or client list, but then again I'm not sure I really want to continue. My feeling lately is that when I am financially stable, I want to do away with it all. I want to give up because it isn't growing and I hate being tied to a computer hour after hour.
I've applied for 100's of jobs over the past year the time in which I've also been unemployed. I try not to think about the overwhelming rejection rate.. I may be in denial. I think it's possible I've built up the association of working as doing time in jail - although I've never been. A majority of my employment has been for the larger part miserable and dreadful.
I'm out here in the country, practically the middle of nowhere and I really love the laid back pace. I love taking pictures of nature, I'd like to get back into art and possibly teaching - where my very expensive degrees are.
The only way I see out of this - aside from winning the lottery and/or having a large sum of money fall from out of the sky - is to get another job that I probably won't like, for not enough money to get me very far.
Do what brings me the most Joy? What would I love doing if you were guaranteed to have unlimited money for the rest of your life? What would I love doing if I were guaranteed to be dead broke for the rest of your life?
Those are really good questions.. is it photography or painting? is it personal development and blogging? which I've also tried several times.. I honestly don't know. I love doing a variety of things.. and even though I have no clue how my current "down and out" situation is going to work out.. at least I'm not freaking out about it as much as I did the last time. I'm not as physically sick as I was then either - thankfully!
I feel like I have no direction and on some days even less motivation..
but anyway.. Thanks for sharing your story Steve. I've been following your blog for awhile now and really appreciate the effort. After writing all that out I feel depleted, suffice it to say any advice from you or anyone else would be greatly appreciated.