Move forward by moving yourself forward...

I read a post on steemit a couple of days ago about a person who was feeling stressed and out of control about life, and more specifically, their place in life as far as occupation, relationship, health and financial matters go. It made me think about my own situation.

I am a 48 year old Australian, married with no children. I work as a manager in a professional industry and am neither financially wealthy or overly poor; Average is probably a reasonable way to describe my financial position. As with most people we (my wife and I) have had challenges along the way, some of which we had planned around and others that took us by surprise and at times our future has seemed bleak, to put it bluntly. We have been together for 31 years and married for 25 of them so there's been plenty of opportunity for success, failure and the averageness which has made up most of our time together. That's not to say we look back and feel we have had an average existence; Far from it in fact. We have had an amazing time together and the downs have made the ups so much more valuable. In fact, the bad times and challenges, have been valuable in themselves.

About five years ago I had the misfortune of going into business with an individual who was, let's just say, slippery. It cost me a lot of money and I had to engage a lawyer to facilitate the process. It was a very bad time in our lives and we lost just about everything we had: Houses, cars, the actual business and so on. Fortunately my wife's business is (and was) strong which supported us to some degree financially. Once the lawyer had things sorted we were left with $1,000 in our bank account (it was the 6th of January) and on the 30th we had our credit cards and mortgage payments to make of $9,800. We had no other money and whilst my wife's mum offered to forward us a couple of thousand dollars we refused. I ended up selling my car to fund setting up a new business and to cover any shortfalls in basic costs and then serviced my clients like my life depended on it. I guess, to some degree, it actually did too!

Five years later my wife and I have clawed our way to a position in which we are able to comfortably furnish our lives with the basics plus have a little left over to take a holiday in June, and I've just purchased a brand new vehicle (a car I've wanted for 20 years). Life is pretty good.

Reading the steemit users' post made me think about all the times when I could have fallen in a heap, allowed the stress to get the better of me and allow all the negative emotion and turmoil define who I was and also about how I dealt with those emotions.

My wife and I spent that year or so in deep contemplation, business and financial, emotional and also spiritual to some degree. We focused on the things we could control rather than those that we could not and we spent a lot of time determining what was truly important to us. At the time it seemed the logical thing to do and later, when the scenario had played out and we were moving forward again, we realised it definitely was the right thing to do. It was a deeply reflective time, and whilst we were suffering some difficult emotional and financial times, it was a very positive time for us as individuals and a couple.

Now, five years later, we are very clear about what the truly important things in our lives actually are and I have to say, those things are rarely material things; Sure, money is required to furnish us with the experiences at times, like holidays and the like, however much of what my wife and I focus on now are simple experiences and moments that feed the soul. A perfect example is the evening spent last Saturday with my wife's uncle and aunt around the fire pit in my yard. Simple times that have great value. Read about it here

I can't say I am the authority on how to cope with stress, deep emotional or financial strife and pressure. I cannot profess to have all the answers however in stepping back and evaluating just what is important in a person's life is a great step towards finding some clarity and perspective which, at least in my situation, was critical to moving it forward to a resolution.

I've often heard the phrase, "life isn't meant to be easy" and whilst life certainly isn't easy I also don't think it needs to be hard. Life is just life and we will be confronted with good and bad, some we can control and some we can't. We can control how we feel though, how we act or react and our overall attitude. Life requires ownership of self, discipline of self and then the ability to apply those to the actions we take. Only in moving yourself forward can one move forward.

Just a note on the image I used in this post. My wife and I sat here during the situation I mention above, right throughout the process, on many occasions talking about our options, contingencies and plans for if the situation didn't rectify itself prior to us reaching the end of our resources. I haven't been back since other than to take the image you see and whilst I thought it would bring negative memories it actually didn't. You see, we have a more fulfilling and complete life now due to that whole terrible scenario and so I can't feel negative towards a spot in which we found our way forward.

[- Design and create your ideal life, don’t live it by default -]