Times are hard everywhere. For months, I have lived in fear as friends, neighbors, and relatives have become unemployed. It's getting harder and harder to ignore the situation. We are beginning to do everything that we can to prepare for the time that we will be tapped on the shoulder.
Never in my life have I wished more that I was out of debt and I am working hard toward that end. Time and again, we are discussing things that we would like to purchase, but haven't because we need to control what assets we have in the best possible way to prepare for our uncertain future.
We have been taught most of my life that we should have two years supply to help us through difficult times. This was never such an important principle to me as when I was talking with a loved one who was hungry and had no way to purchase groceries. I don't want to be in the same situation but am beginning to see how quickly that can come about.
I talked to a couple of co-workers today who will soon be leaving my company earlier than they had wanted. I feel guilty today that I have a job and they do not. This is not the first time, and I know that it could be me next time.
John Donne once said, "No man is an island. entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. "
Never in my life have I wished more that I was out of debt and I am working hard toward that end. Time and again, we are discussing things that we would like to purchase, but haven't because we need to control what assets we have in the best possible way to prepare for our uncertain future.
We have been taught most of my life that we should have two years supply to help us through difficult times. This was never such an important principle to me as when I was talking with a loved one who was hungry and had no way to purchase groceries. I don't want to be in the same situation but am beginning to see how quickly that can come about.
I talked to a couple of co-workers today who will soon be leaving my company earlier than they had wanted. I feel guilty today that I have a job and they do not. This is not the first time, and I know that it could be me next time.
John Donne once said, "No man is an island. entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. "
