Activism Change

thinking about life

Question:

Having money definitely makes me happy. Happy-ish, anyway. I think the difference is, if you have enough layers of fat on your bank account, you don’t think about money – your head is free to think about other things. When I came back from New Years, I phoned up the automatic bank service for my account balance, and had to sit down, very quickly. Normally I can guess my balance to the nearest hundred Deutschmarks or so, but this was way out… I had simply "forgotten" that, because of moving house, the branch of the German IRS in my town would take all of my tax owed (filed in the summer) in one go… which they did, and I’m still fighting an OD I won’t have cleared until around May. This isn’t going to go down well with some, but IMO money is the single most important factor in life. I remember someone saying that being healthy is, but your health is something you can only marginally influence. If you lose a leg, you’re disabled, then you really need money (for example to get the apt and car converted, public transport not being an option). Your essential happiness is also something you can only marginally influence. It’s something about the human condition which says, if you can’t change it, don’t think about it, you’ll get used to it. But it’s too easy to get obesessed about something you can change, or think you can. One 80’s motivation expert said it right (damn, can’t remember the name): There are motivational factors and sanitary factors. Motivational factors (success, being recognized, loved, being happy with yourself etc) are things that, once you have them, you can’t get enough of them, so always strive for more. These are things that you don’t actually *need* to exist. But: without the sanitary needs, where you only need to a certain level (money, a place to live, food to eat), the motivational factors are shut out. What’s the good of being happy with yourself if you’re being evicted, and you’re going to freeze to death this winter if you don’t find a new place you can afford? Dave |I’ve been thinking about life lately. Sort of in a sad and discouraged |way, sort of in a resigned way, sort of in a dull, flat way. Sort of |in a thoughtful way. | |We (people in general) all have different ideas of what’s important in |life. Some people would say family, some would say friends, some would |say personal fulfillment, some would say a fulfilling career/success, |some would say financial comfort, some would say spirituality, etc., |etc., etc. | |But it just seems to me that what everything comes down to is comfort |level — specifically, financial comfort. | |We spend more time working, pretty much, than anything else. We make |more concessions to other people wrt to work than in pretty much any |other area, I think. <geschnippt |So, about now … | |I’ve always wanted to have some sort of comfort level financially. I |don’t need to be rich (although I wouldn’t turn down a Powerball |jackpot!), and I know that money can’t buy happiness, but it can damn |well take away a lot of stress and make one’s life simpler. <geschnippelt |And I dont’ deal with stuff well, like bills piling up. I tried to |keep up with them, but he always got the mail and left stuff in |different places, so I had to search for the bills, and sometimes |coudln’t find them, so eventually I just let him handle it all. And |that just got really awful. We were so behind on everything. <schnippschnippschnipp |It’s just frustrating. I mean, I know I can function with my normal |expenses, but it feels like I can’t afford to have bad teeth, bad |toenails, a bad digestive system, bad eyes, whatever. <schnippel… schnippel…. |Heh … strange, though. I just about lost it in the dentist’s chair |yesterday. I felt this panic and foreboding at the cost quotes they |were giving me ($525 for each of the crowns, and as much as $300 for |each root canal if they find it needs to be done when they do the |crown prep), and it took everything I had in me to hold back the tears |of frustration. Caught me a little off guard, when I had been hoping |that my teeth could get by with more fillings on top of fillings. | |But if I had broken down, I would have felt … I don’t know. I |haven’t done it before, so I don’t know what it feels like, but the |feeling of even coming close brings waves of shame. | |Well, another long and rambling post from me. I think I’ll quit now |and go argue with some jerk in alt.feminism and get some spirit back. | |As always, thanks for sticking through this mess if you’re still with |me. | |Laurie S.

Response:

Hi Laurie. Yeah, i see what you mean. I’m half writing this response to see if it actually makes it to the the group. I wish i could afford better service but i can’t. I don’t know, the money thing was an issue today.    Everything pushes me back to ‘real life’ There’s no way around it!   I totally feel like i’m ’starting life’. Everything that went before is just crumbled behind me. Not that it didn’t mean anything.. but all it’s left me so far is me and a few possessions. I guess that’s all we got– and what/who we love too.   Yeah, but don’t let life take away your spirit either. Wealth can come in many forms. Whatever money-wise wealth comes to you was meant to come to you but don’t believe for a second spiritual wealth doesn’t exist. Don’t believe it! -d – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text –

Response:

Hi Laurie. Yeah, i see what you mean. I’m half writing this response to see if it actually makes it to the the group.

Well, it made it to deja news, anyway. No telling whether it’ll make it to my crappy news server.  I wish i could afford better service but i can’t.

Do you have a local ISP or a national one? Most of the national ones have like $15-20 for unlimited hours, I think, if your city’s big enough to have an access number. Mine isn’t, so I have to go with one of the two ISPs available here, although it now sounds like I can hook up with the same ISP my parents use in their town, which has a really good news server. Except that they don’t offer unlimited hours (I get that now for $24.95), so I’d have to go to $35 for 200 hours. And yeah, I want 200 hours; 100 just isn’t enough. I don’t like to feel like I have to worry about whether I’m over my hours limit. But the good thing about that particular ISP is that there’s almost never a busy signal; with mine, the main reason I stay connected almost all the time is that it’s so hard to get back on during the late afternoon and evening hours if I disconnect. I don’t know, the money thing was an issue today.    Everything pushes me back to ‘real life’ There’s no way around it!

Yup. I do find, though, that sometimes I can latch onto little neat things that make the big crappy things seem less enveloping.   I totally feel like i’m ’starting life’. Everything that went before is just crumbled behind me. Not that it didn’t mean anything.. but all it’s left me so far is me and a few possessions.

Sounds familiar. The difference with me between now and back when I really was just starting out is that I’m aware of certain limits. One of them is that I will likely live paycheck-to-paycheck for the rest of my life. It’s a sobering reality. I guess that’s all we got– and what/who we love too.

Yeah, I guess.   Yeah, but don’t let life take away your spirit either. Wealth can come in many forms.

I know.  Whatever money-wise wealth comes to you was meant to come to you

I dunno about THAT. I don’t have much sense of "meant to." I figure stuff happens or it doesn’t, or you make it happen or you don’t. And that there are certain limits. And then there’s luck, good and bad, which is a random spin of the spinner on the gameboard.  but don’t believe for a second spiritual wealth doesn’t exist. Don’t believe it! -d

Gotcha. Thanks. Laurie

Response:

Hi, Laurie …

Well,  hi there, "twin" from you-know-where. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – I’ve been thinking about life lately. Sort of in a sad and discouraged way, sort of in a resigned way, sort of in a dull, flat way. Sort of in a thoughtful way. We (people in general) all have different ideas of what’s important in life. Some people would say family, some would say friends, some would say personal fulfillment, some would say a fulfilling career/success, some would say financial comfort, some would say spirituality, etc., etc., etc. But it just seems to me that what everything comes down to is comfort level — specifically, financial comfort. Unfortunately, I think that’s truer than most people would like to think.  The security that comes from having "enough" money (and the defination of "enough" varies widely, of course) is not a small thing.  Enough money to feel safe from life’s bumps and bruises — so that "maintenance" issues can be taken care of.

Yeah, and I’m not saying that it’s a bad thing to want that kind of security. I guess I’m just noticing how the INsecurity feels, and how central money is to existance. And how having enough money to live becomes more vital than having a life to life. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – We spend more time working, pretty much, than anything else. We make more concessions to other people wrt to work than in pretty much any other area, I think. And even when we feel empty or lost or frustrated or overwhelmed or whatever in our personal lives, we somehow usually manage to pull it all togther for our work. To do the things that need to be done to have the job that makes it possible for us to have the things we need to live at some level of comfort. And sometimes, no one even knows there’s anything wrong, because we keep it hidden so well. We function, at work, at the level we need to in order to maintain our position in life. And sometimes we go home and unravel, no longer having to keep up the charade. We don’t have to take care of things in our emotional life as we do in our work life; we can let things slide and go unresolved. We can hurt all we want, because we’re responsible only to ourselves in our own personal problems. If we don’t take care of them and deal with them, but we’re still able to work and maintain, life goes on. It may not be great, but it goes on. And on and on and on. I’ve often wondered about that — I’ve been in very bad shape on weekends for a lot of years, I mean a *lot* of years.  I hear everyone else happy when Friday rolls around, and I’m usually dreading it, and relieved on Sunday night to have survived another one.  And I am bored silly at my job.  But it provides a kind of structure to the day that I need, I think.

I can understand that. I hate my job, but weekends kinda feel like a black hole sometimes; so much time to think. Although I do work on weekends, too, but it’s not in the office with people around — and when I’m out and about covering games where there are hundreds of people, I feel more isolated than I do when I’m alone or when I’m sitting at my desk with a handful of people around. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Our lives seem to revolve around this thing we call work, the thing we say we do to build a life for ourselves. But the work ends up to be the priority, again and again and again. Until we’re old enough to draw social security and don’t know what to do with all the extra time. I have said several years ago that my job (5.5 years in this particular incarnation at the newspaper) has seemed to be both the best and worst things that have happened in my life. It did give me a strong sense of accomplishment and fulfillment that I’d never had before, for a couple of years, but it also led to a lot of stress and problems. Ugh. I just snipped a series of paragraphs about the problems. Those problems simply don’t apply anymore, because they’re about the life I had before I moved out. They may suck, but they’re immaterial to what I’m talking about now. So, about now … listening carefully …

Thanks. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – I’ve always wanted to have some sort of comfort level financially. I don’t need to be rich (although I wouldn’t turn down a Powerball jackpot!), and I know that money can’t buy happiness, but it can damn well take away a lot of stress and make one’s life simpler. But if that comfort level was all that was important to me, I probably would have been better off staying married, because my future ex and his brothers own their family business, and things keep getting better and better as they go along. I think we earned around $50,000 together in 1996; my own income is about $17,800 (gross) and doesn’t have any great potential of growing much. Clearly that comfort level isn’t *all* that’s important to you … doesn’t mean it’s not important at all, just that there are other things that matter more.  Is that right?

I guess. I don’t really _know_ what matters anymore. I just don’t like to not feel in control of things. And since I’m alone, I have to be in control of everything, logically. But I’m not a good financial type person, and my future ex isn’t, either. I’m fairly frugal, and I worried all the time about money when we were together, yet anytime he ever wanted to buy anything, he could get me to think it was a cool thing to do. Sometimes I think I even liked it that way, subconsciously — that I wanted whatever it was, but didn’t want the responsibility of deciding to buy it, because I knew we couldn’t afford it. Dumb. Well, human.

Well, me, anyway. I guess that makes me human. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – And I dont’ deal with stuff well, like bills piling up. I tried to keep up with them, but he always got the mail and left stuff in different places, so I had to search for the bills, and sometimes coudln’t find them, so eventually I just let him handle it all. And that just got really awful. We were so behind on everything. On my own, my finances are simpler, even though I have much less money to work with. I net $540 every two weeks. I pay $270 child support each month, $230 rent, plus about $20 in electricity, $25 internet connection, and whatever for the phone bill. Those are the only regular bills I have, except for the Visa payment of $35 and a big bill with the Mental Health Center that I have to start paying on. I got really behind in my first few months alone, because I was trying to get set up and had to buy stuff, and because I made a couple big subtraction errors in my checkbook and didn’t notice. It took me a while to catch up, and I had a lot of overdrafts and $15 OD charges that added up. I even had to borrow money from my future ex to pay off a stereo I’d put on layaway when I thought I was more set than I was. *nod* This might not be a bad place to mention that having spent a "few months alone," you are under a lot of stress right there.  Not just for being alone, but for moving, for changing your life (from the sound of it, pretty dramatically).  In those "measure your stress" questionaires, moving is a big deal, even if you’re moving to something *very* good that you want to do — just moving, all by itself.  Changing your life circumstances is another big stressor.  So (I think) you’re coping with a ton-o-stress even though things on the surface may be chirping along.

Oh, yeah. And nothing’s chirping along, anyway. I’m just not dealing well with the changes and responsibilties of being me. I don’t think I’m very good at being me. <snip of the remainder of the post in the interests of bandwidth I know this sounds very unhelpful,

it doesn’t sound unhelpful at all. It brought tears to my eyes and made me smile.  but when I was where you are now, it helped me a lot (I mean a *lot*) to go through the motions of keeping the house nice, cleaning up the kitchen, putting things away (that structure thing again, which may be something unique to me).

See, this feels good to me, too, and I haven’t had that structure much in my life. I grew up in a house that was terribly cluttered, and I was pretty much only allowed to have my best friend over because it was okay for her to see how the house looked. It wasn’t really _dirty_, just messy. Boxes and books and papers and piles of stuff. My mom’s a pack rat; so am I. I was only mildly a slob when I was on my own, and when I got married i was able to keep my house marginally neat (although cluttered), but it was horrible later, when I was working those ghastly hours. And it was like deja vu to me, because no one could come over. I couldn’t let anyone see the way my house was, and I couldn’t keep up with it. I felt pretty awful not letting my kids have friends over, because I remember how that felt, and I STILL feel awful about it, because the house is really really really disgusting now that I’ve left, and the kids are living like that and, um, in a way it’s my fault because I left. I was always the one who picked up the stupid garbage everyone left laying around that bothered me so much, and now that stuff just lays all over the place. One day I went there and there was stuff in the sink that made me cry, it was so gross, so I washed the dishes and cried and swore and stuff. (I was alone there, so I was swearing at the air.) So now I have this tiny place that I can keep neat and clean, and I have been pretty much. But lately, well, I haven’t been caring. I have laundry kinda strewn about, a sinkful of dishes, papers all over, etc. It feels like since no one comes here, why should I care? Yet I do feel good when I clean it all up. I really do. So I’m gonna do that, I guess, tonight or tomorrow afternoon, cuz I have the … read more »

Response:

I’ve been thinking about life lately. Sort of in a sad and discouraged way, sort of in a resigned way, sort of in a dull, flat way. Sort of in a thoughtful way. We (people in general) all have different ideas of what’s important in life. Some people would say family, some would say friends, some would say personal fulfillment, some would say a fulfilling career/success, some would say financial comfort, some would say spirituality, etc., etc., etc. But it just seems to me that what everything comes down to is comfort level — specifically, financial comfort. We spend more time working, pretty much, than anything else. We make more concessions to other people wrt to work than in pretty much any other area, I think. And even when we feel empty or lost or frustrated or overwhelmed or whatever in our personal lives, we somehow usually manage to pull it all togther for our work. To do the things that need to be done to have the job that makes it possible for us to have the things we need to live at some level of comfort. And sometimes, no one even knows there’s anything wrong, because we keep it hidden so well. We function, at work, at the level we need to in order to maintain our position in life. And sometimes we go home and unravel, no longer having to keep up the charade. We don’t have to take care of things in our emotional life as we do in our work life; we can let things slide and go unresolved. We can hurt all we want, because we’re responsible only to ourselves in our own personal problems. If we don’t take care of them and deal with them, but we’re still able to work and maintain, life goes on. It may not be great, but it goes on. And on and on and on. Our lives seem to revolve around this thing we call work, the thing we say we do to build a life for ourselves. But the work ends up to be the priority, again and again and again. Until we’re old enough to draw social security and don’t know what to do with all the extra time. I have said several years ago that my job (5.5 years in this particular incarnation at the newspaper) has seemed to be both the best and worst things that have happened in my life. It did give me a strong sense of accomplishment and fulfillment that I’d never had before, for a couple of years, but it also led to a lot of stress and problems. Ugh. I just snipped a series of paragraphs about the problems. Those problems simply don’t apply anymore, because they’re about the life I had before I moved out. They may suck, but they’re immaterial to what I’m talking about now. So, about now … I’ve always wanted to have some sort of comfort level financially. I don’t need to be rich (although I wouldn’t turn down a Powerball jackpot!), and I know that money can’t buy happiness, but it can damn well take away a lot of stress and make one’s life simpler. But if that comfort level was all that was important to me, I probably would have been better off staying married, because my future ex and his brothers own their family business, and things keep getting better and better as they go along. I think we earned around $50,000 together in 1996; my own income is about $17,800 (gross) and doesn’t have any great potential of growing much. But I’m not a good financial type person, and my future ex isn’t, either. I’m fairly frugal, and I worried all the time about money when we were together, yet anytime he ever wanted to buy anything, he could get me to think it was a cool thing to do. Sometimes I think I even liked it that way, subconsciously — that I wanted whatever it was, but didn’t want the responsibility of deciding to buy it, because I knew we couldn’t afford it. Dumb. And I dont’ deal with stuff well, like bills piling up. I tried to keep up with them, but he always got the mail and left stuff in different places, so I had to search for the bills, and sometimes coudln’t find them, so eventually I just let him handle it all. And that just got really awful. We were so behind on everything. On my own, my finances are simpler, even though I have much less money to work with. I net $540 every two weeks. I pay $270 child support each month, $230 rent, plus about $20 in electricity, $25 internet connection, and whatever for the phone bill. Those are the only regular bills I have, except for the Visa payment of $35 and a big bill with the Mental Health Center that I have to start paying on. I got really behind in my first few months alone, because I was trying to get set up and had to buy stuff, and because I made a couple big subtraction errors in my checkbook and didn’t notice. It took me a while to catch up, and I had a lot of overdrafts and $15 OD charges that added up. I even had to borrow money from my future ex to pay off a stereo I’d put on layaway when I thought I was more set than I was. But by Christmas I was pretty much set, and had enough money to buy gifts for the small number of people on my list. I even managed to buy a futon last month, putting it on layaway for only a couple of weeks (I paid $100 with each paycheck) and this month I bought a $200 VCR. So things seemed to be coming along financially, only I’d been putting off some medical stuff that I knew could get pricey. I did have to go to the doctor a couple of weeks ago because I was just getting sicker and sicker, but that shouldn’t be all that expensive after insurance. But I went to the dentist yesterday and found that I need a couple of crowns that will cost, after insurance pays half, many hundreds of dollars. And the bank/finance company the dentist goes through turned me down — and get this — because I was delinquent on my Sears and Discover cards. Sigh. I don’t HAVE Sears and Discover cards; those are my future ex’s, but my name is probably still on them as an authorized buyer. I have a Visa card, which is up to date. So the guy tells me that I need to establish my OWN credit, so I need a co-signer. My dad tells me he’ll co-sign, but not with that company; he’d rather go with the bank in his town, of which he is a board member, which is fine with me. (He told me he prefers to co-sign loans for people who take their whole prescription when they get pneumonia … I couldn’t help it, those pills were sooooo gross I couldn’t eat!) It’s just frustrating. I mean, I know I can function with my normal expenses, but it feels like I can’t afford to have bad teeth, bad toenails, a bad digestive system, bad eyes, whatever. And this afternoon I said oh the hell with it and stopped at the eye doctor’s and made an appointment (I need new glasses anyway, and I’ve been seeing a weird gray misty spot with my left eye lately). I figure I may as well get really indebted. One of these days I’ll probably make appointments with the podiatrist for my toenails, an internist for my digestive dilemma, and get a physical exam complete with the lovely stirrup position while staring at the cute poster on the ceiling. Hey, I figure I only have this insurance policy for 18 months after I get divorced, so I should probably take care of all that "pre-exisiting" stuff in case it would be a problem with the insurance company I’d have to go with through MY job. Anyway, I just feel like around every corner, there’s something that is always going to stop me from feeling independent and able to function properly in life. I certainly don’t believe that if I suddenly was making $30,000 a year that life would be grand, but damn, it would be simpler. I mean, I just don’t know how much cheaper I can live. I eat very cheaply, I still don’t have cable, I don’t go anywhere or do anything, I hardly ever shop for anything. If I need something I go and buy it and try not to waste time looking at things I can’t afford. That’s one difference between my future ex and me — if he gets behind, his mom will bail him out *every* time. He got the loan for our house before we got married, and was supposedly making the payments, but not long after we got married I found his bank statements from his account and he was $900 overdrawn, His mom covered it. My parents don’t do that sort of thing, although Mom does once in a while if I really need it. But I *hate* to ask, and I hated it when we used to ask my future ex’s mom too. I want to take care of myself; I don’t want to fuck up and have someone "fix it." And that has meant to me for quite a while that I have to keep the job I have, which works out to a salary of $8.75 per hour. My qualifications would not transfer too well in this town, and if I was able to find another job, it would probably be at least two bucks and hour less. But I *despise* my job. I just don’t *care* about anything I write about anymore. It’s not important, necessarily, to me that I care about my work, but not caring isn’t really very good in this line of work. I wish I could take a year off, go somewhere nice and warm and quiet, write a book, enjoy the world around me. And then sell the book. Pipe dreams, I know, but it’s a long-standing pipe dream. Right now I don’t feel particularly secure in much of anything. I live in the second cheapest apt. I’ve seen listed in this town in the last seven months, and I don’t think I’ll be able to move for a long time. I kinda like it, but it’s hard with the kids here every other weekend. I get the bed, Megan gets the futon downstairs, and Nick gets the flop-down chair on the floor by my bed. And he doesn’t like it much. Sometimes I take the flop-down and let him have the bed. And I feel lonely, despite the fact that my isolation is my own choice. One of the things that I’ve been able to feel good about over the months has been that I’ve been able to live in a neat, clean environment. Well, it hasn’t been like that lately. My kids will be here tomorow, so I’ll clean up tomorrow afternoon before they come, but at the moment, I have dirty clothes scattered around the bedroom, papers on the floor of my tiny living room, a pile of dishes in the sink, some spilled shampoo in the bathroom. … read more »

Response:

Filed under: Feminism

Related Posts

• question: college-aged women
• Misguided Feminism
• Missionary Murdered by Muslim Mourned in Lebanon
• Need Text of WHO Statement
• I have been thinking about reading some Starhawk recently...
• IS true that women can spot depression.
• TUFFY (TUFF-STUFF).
• MS and illness
• Peru: When Women Rebel
• Emerging from Nightmare Nineties