uccess With Money
uccess With Money
Your Personal Guide to Achieving Success With Your Money and Your Life
Every choice we make has consequences. This is obvious in the world of money even more than in many other areas of life.
If we choose to spend more than we make we end up in financial chaos. If we choose to save even a little every month we can eventually end up with a great deal of wealth.
If we waste all our money on frivolous things we feel empty. If we spend some of our money on others who are in need we feel positive about ourselves and our contribution to society.
There seems to be a great divide between people about the nature of choice. Some, apparently most, suggest that we have little real choice. It is as if our decisions are forced upon us by our upbringing or the forces of our environment. Others suggest that everything that happens to us is a result of our own doing and should be seen as a matter of personal responsibility.
When it comes to understanding our financial world, it is essential for us to gain a basic understanding of reality when it comes to the role choice plays. Our perception of this factor greatly influences the kinds of decisions we make.
One of the most important truths for us to grasp here relates to the nature of our world today. The fact is that the media are dominated by extremists and unfortunately people tend to follow along. It is too often an all or nothing viewpoint that is heard.
Anyone with common sense who takes a reasonable position somewhere between the extremes is dismissed as just uninformed or lacking enough integrity to take sides. This is far from the truth in many areas and critically wrong when it comes to money.
As an example, let’s look at the mortgage crisis in America today. Many people have adjustable rate mortgages with rates that are increasing, making it impossible for them to meet their responsibility. At the same time they are finding it hard to refinance to a fixed rate because home values are declining and they may now owe more than the value of their home.
Many people blame the government and/or the housing industry for selling people on using these loans and suggest people taking on the loans are innocent victims who should be bailed out by the government. Others suggest that people who took the loans are totally responsible because they should have known what they were doing.
Take time to think about this with your common sense hat on for a while. Obviously the banks made offers that they knew or should have known were tempting for people to take but could be real problems later. They recommended these loans anyway because they saw the dollar signs in their future more than the potential that a lot of people wouldn’t be able to pay and both parties would lose.
The government failed, too. Regulators too often see themselves as enforcing the law without regard for such abstract things as integrity or ethics. They didn’t take adequate steps to discourage or prohibit practices that would leave millions of people in financial trouble. Few of them probably even remember “usury” laws.
But it is equally true that many people just made bad choices. They bought more house than they could afford. They took a loan at a low adjustable rate when rates were so low the only way the rates could go was up. They financed with interest-only loans for a few years based on undependable future income increases. These were all choices with predictable consequences.
Now here is an important point. A truly intelligent person can be smart enough to avoid drifting to any extreme or being badgered by any side into wrong headed thinking. We can be wise enough to see the truth of all sides.
The reason this is so important is that a successful person must have the ability to accept responsibility for who they are and where they are without feeling the kind of guilt that comes with feeling too much personal blame for anything that hasn’t gone well.
In particular, you need to be able to accept the fact that you are a product of your choices. But you cannot afford to let that fact lead to depression or discouragement. Most choices are based on limited knowledge and circumstances created by others.
To blame others for everything means there is no opportunity for change. We can learn more where knowledge proves inadequate. We can work around other people who are acting in ways that limit us.
We can refuse to accept that we are unreasonably limited by others or circumstances while at the same time refusing to let guilt or blame discourage us from acting to improve our future.
Dennis Waitley, author of The Psychology of Winning, wrote, “There are two primary choices in life: to accept conditions as they exist, or accept the responsibility for changing them.” Accept responsibility, not blame. Think about your own attitudes toward responsibility for your choices. Then start thinking smarter and making the kind of choices that lead to success with money and with all of life.
