Debt - Blessing or Curse???

If you want to enjoy your life out of spending, enjoy if you have you have your own resources and money.

But don't enjoy your life by becoming a debtor to somebody.

Of course in the modern world, there are many ways and means, which force you to become a debtor.

Attractive advertisements in the satellite TV force you to become a debtor. It tempts you to buy the modern amenities at any cost.

Even though if you don't have any money or resources it show you many resources for obtaining credit to buy that product. But you must think thousand times before becoming a debtor.

In today's world credit is the easily available commodity. Numerous companies are waiting to pull you in their trap. They are competing severely to pull you in their trap.

But you must be careful to entangle in that trap.

In spite of this caution if you are prepared to enjoy, then you won't get any pleasure, but you will lose your peace of mind.

Let us discuss about the common desire of everybody. It is natural that everybody wants to have their own house. It is a reasonable desire.

But the desire can be attained if you have enough money on your own to buy the house.

If you are an executive working in a company what will be your thinking?

You will ready to apply for some loan and buy that house. You have decided and applied for a loan also and the loan has also been sanctioned.

You will ask the engineer to construct the house with in the sanction of loan.

The Engineer on seeing the plan will say "Sir, you are constructing house once in your lifetime, why such a low budget house, we can increase slightly your plan sir, it won't cost much only a 10% increase in your normal budget" he will tempt you.

By that time you will also have some Himalayan courage, and think why we can't adjust that 10% increase, ok we can adjust that 10% increase by obtaining loan from our relatives, and you give consent to the engineer's suggestion.

The Engineer will begin to build your house. The house is also going to be completed soon and only some finishing work is there.

You ask your engineer 'when can I take possession of the house', sir?

The engineer will politely tell you, Sir, there is a small problem, the problem is there is a sudden increase in the cost of materials, so I fear whether it is possible to complete the building what we have already planned.

But you are in the dream that the house should be constructed at any cost. So you don't bother about the resource to complete the house and prepared to arrange for the money required for completing the house.

What you will do. The next thing before you will be some bank balances available out of your savings and the jewels of your wife or your children.

So your savings, jewels will all go from you and fill the cashbox of another businessmen.

Your house will become ready finally. On seeing the house raised beautifully you forgot all the sources where the money came from to complete the house.

You will forget about the loan you obtained from your company.

You will forget about the loan you obtained from your relatives.


You will forget about the erosion of your savings and jewels.

All these will come to your remembrance only when the company commences their recovery for the loan you obtained.

All these will come to your remembrance only when your relatives need the money they paid.

All these will come to your remembrance when you don't have enough money in your savings account for your urgent requirement.

Then your mind will think about the resource to fill up the deficit in the family budget, the loan to repay to your relatives and for your urgent requirement.

You will get easy resource to fill up this deficit, because you are working in a company, getting regular salary, higher salary. Companies are ready to give credit.

You are also ready to get credit from another company to fill up the deficit.

So you are ready to close the small debt pit, and begin to dig another debt pit, which is little more in size than the first pit.

The same deficit pressure mounts after some time. Again you are prepared to obtain loan from another company.

Now you dig another debt pit, which is more than the size of first and second debt pit.

Like this you will go on digging pit after closing the earlier pit to overcome your deficit.

Finally at one stage when you see the remaining pit, it will look like a deep pit, which you cannot fill it up from any source.

So the ultimate choice before you will be to dispose off the house and fill up the huge pit finally stands before you.

You have also made arrangements to dispose off the house.

One person came forward to buy the house. Even though the rate offered by him is not as expected by you, you have no other option except to get the money and fill it up the debt pit.


The house was finally sold off and you got the money. But while working out the amount you have to settle to your debtors, you need some more money.


However with the proceeds realized out of selling the house, you have settled most of the debt and still keep some portion of the debt.

You have lost all your savings, jewels, and other resources and still you have to settle more debts?

Where all of your money has gone?

It is no secret, most part of your debt were for the interest.

The interest made you to close one pit and dig another pit and finally you was let with a big pit with most part of the pit were for interest.

This is a common plight of most of the families especially in the middle class peoples.

The reason is due to their mental capability to enjoy all modern amenities without knowing their economic capability.

Enjoying the life is absolutely necessary but it should be from our own resources. We can enjoy the life but not on obtaining debt.

We have to increase our resources to enjoy the life. We should find out the opportunities to increase our resources and then think about enjoying the amenities.
SAY NO TO UNNECESSARY DEBT'S 

Choosing Career

One way to understand the teens is their choice of career. In pursuing the right career, the teens want the right information, advice and guidance. This is very important because choosing a wrong career would result to a waste of so much time, effort, money and would surely frustrate the teenagers. Discouraged teenagers will lose the desire for a profitable endeavor and this will definitely affect their attitude towards work. 

The abilities of the teenagers must be considered first in choosing the right career. This includes their intellectual levels, educational qualifications and skills. Knowing the abilities of teens is very important especially in entry level positions where there are so many jobs seekers vying for the same position. 

Teens want advises to equip them with the right training. Parents must understand their teens in this aspect by identifying their capabilities, strengths and weaknesses. This is an added factor in determining the capability of the teenagers to do multi-tasking. Various agencies are conducting trainings, seminars and workshops in different categories. These trainings are either short or long periods. What the teens shall do is search their local newspapers for announcements or contact concerned private or government agencies. 

The teenagers must also decide on the kind of job they want and the company they will be applying. They must have thorough information on the kinds of benefits that the company offers; whether the job will be a long or short term opportunity and the career advancements they have for their workers. Both lifetime and short stints are exhausting, so why contend on careers, which have little benefits if teenagers can grab a better job?

The teenagers, if ever they will be hired, will experience difficulty in adjusting to their jobs. Pressures in meeting deadlines and in accomplishing tasks will cause so much stress and if not properly answered, may cause nervousness and fears to meet the daily challenges in the actual work environment.

Several counseling centers are available to assist the teens. These centers are manned by experts in their respective fields, such as psychologists and health experts to management personnel like human resource managers who cause much fear among job applicants. But seeking the help of counselors in choosing the right career has little benefits only. They are just designed to help the teenagers assess themselves, understand their needs and implement the right action. Choosing the right career is one, the full utilization of the career is another. Here, the teens' right attitudes, outlook in life, their dreams and aspirations could not be all learned from career counseling. The best counseling that the teens could get are acquired from their own families. 

The family is the most influential factor to the teens' choice of careers. The parents must broaden their understanding on what the teens want so that the right support could be given. The attitude of the teens towards their career is affected by what they hear from their parents. If a parent always complains about his job, most likely, the teens would reject the same career. If their parents have enjoyed their jobs, contented and happy, then there is a great possibility that their teens will follow the same career path.

Guilt - Our Struggle

Why Do I Feel Guilty?

Before we can start to understand the why behind the guilt, let's first define it. Guilt means that we believe that something we are doing is causing pain to someone else. It's activated by our behavior, thoughts, or feelings that we judge to be wrong or bad. 

Normal parents are protective of their children. But what if your parents were overprotective? What if every time you played sports, rode your bike, or roughhoused with friends, your parent-at best-became disturbed and-at worst-frantic? "Watch out, you'll get hurt!" "You'll break a leg!" and so on. Would you have interpreted that as interest in your well being, or rather, believed that you were hurting your parents by your sense of adventure and fun? Children who think that their actions are causing pain for their parents will feel guilt.

Let me be clear. I'm not talking about a parent's normal range of caution and concern. I am talking about extreme caution and worry over small risks. But if you grew up always experiencing irrational guilt about worrying an overprotective parent, you'll also experience guilt in response to risks as an adult. You'll feel frustrated by your excessive sense of caution, but most likely you won't be aware of its cause, and so you'll be unable to change. 

Does Any of This Sound Familiar?

1. You feel responsible for your parents' or siblings' misery, and guilty about pursuing your own goals. How you tried placating them, or atoning, in order to relieve your sense of guilt will explain some of your self-defeating life patterns.

2. You quietly developed self-hatred and resentment about having to inhibit a normal behavior or goal when your parent continuously behaved badly toward you. How did you respond to the resentment you felt?

3. You rebelled as a way of protesting. You hoped that they'd get the message you were sending by your behavior and change for the better (that is, you became stubborn to protest against a parent who was too controlling in the hopes that he or she would get the message and be less controlling). Or, you rebelled to prove to yourself that you're your own person and you can't be manipulated. This type of defiant rebelliousness is responsible for many painful self-defeating behaviors.
4. Even though you promised yourself that when you grew up you'd never behave the way your parents did with you, you notice that you're mimicking their worst qualities.

I want you to know why it's so hard to free ourselves of the behaviors we hate no matter how hard we try, no matter how much willpower we exert, no matter how much advice we receive from others. To understand why it is so hard, we'll delve into why our childhood patterns continue on into our adult lives even though they are clearly negative patterns and we no longer are living with our parents. The negative effects of our family experiences remain hidden from our conscious mind, even though this information is critical to changing what we most dislike about ourselves. We'll pin down this elusive awareness in this book and you'll begin to make positive changes in your negative behaviors. Finally and amazingly, many people you'll meet will tell you that they didn't experience major problems in their families and they aren't aware of any guilt feelings. And they'll tell you this despite obvious, and serious, personal problems. Why? Let's see.

Exercise: Now Look at Yourself

Imagine that you could be reborn into your family today. Now imagine that you were born into your family with all the knowledge that you possess right now. Consider writing about the following: 


• What would be different for you in your relationship with your mother? 

• What would be different for you in your relationship with your father?

• What would be different for you in your relationship with your siblings?



Moving Ahead

Beginning the process of change means beginning a hunt for the causes of your problems that are lurking below the surface of any problem. In the next article, "Do You Think You're in Control of Your Life?" we'll start the hunt for your underlying causes.