How To Survive A Serious Life Crisis
This is my story. I’m sharing it with you hoping it will help someone through a desperate crisis in their life. I know you can come through anything because I did it.
For many years I lived a mostly happy life in a small rural town with a wonderful family, living way beyond my means. I have a financial background and should have known the consequences of my actions; I ignored everything I knew. Marital problems cropped up but I ignored them thinking they would eventually go away, especially if I poured enough money into the relationship. Things just got worse and everyone should know you can’t buy love!
The wake up call was a heart attack. By this time I was too expensive for my company and they found a way to get rid of me so I never had a chance at age discrimination! And I helped them do all of this to me by telling myself everything bad or unpleasant would fade away and everything would be fine. Nothing went away and everything became awful. I did have a chance at medical malpractice, but couldn’t find a lawyer. That’s just as well because I really don’t want to make my living suing my friends.
Right here I want to take full responsibility for everything that happened to me. There were some factors that influenced my action (or inaction) but I could have controlled the situation and didn’t. It’s all my responsibility and it was something only I could drag out of..
Four months after heart attack I had no job! Rather than fight I just quit; went from a good income for that area to zero just at Christmastime. Really bad news. Deeply in debt, I lost my home and filed for bankruptcy, something I had always felt was about the worst thing anyone could do. I backed myself into a corner with no other way out. My family quickly fell apart
Within nine months my whole life was over.
All the bad things I ever imagined happened during the next few years. Deserted by “friends”, nearly homeless, no money, depressed, betrayed by a business partner, income tax problems, you name it. Just by not giving up, I rebuilt my self esteem because I found inner power to survive that I had no idea was there. I also looked around and discovered a couple of people, not real close friends, who didn’t give up on me. I was able to get ideas from them; I tried the ideas and most worked very well. I climbed out of the sewer!
The main things that brought me back were:
1. Persist, hang on, never give up.
2. Make use of self help tools. Free or low cost seminars at community colleges. Two books that helped me a lot were:
Think & Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, and
The Power of Your Subconscious Mind by Joseph Murphy.
3. Finding one or two people to confide in and then trying their ideas whether or not I agreed. I was too close to the situation to be rational.
4. I wrote a list of problems and made solving them my goals. One at a time I worked on each one, solved one at a time. If you try to do all at once, you’ll get frustrated and overwhelmed.
5. Trust no one except those in No. 3 above. People like to see others falter or fail because it makes them look so much better!
Based on my experience, my advice to anyone in this kind of situation would be:
ONE. Do the five steps above, because they work!
TWO. Become a member of Pre-Paid Legal Services, Inc. In most states, about fifty-seven cents a day will get you the best legal service available, on retainer. I didn’t know about this until my problems were over. I belong now to keep something like this from happening again.
THREE. If you have to, get food stamps and go to Social Services for help. There’s nothing wrong with this. It will help you through a rough spot, and you’ve paid for this for others. I have a friend, in his forties, makes a million bucks a year; twenty years ago he was on welfare for a year. So what!
FOUR: Pay yourself from now on. Never work for an employer! You pulled yourself out of a mess, you can do your own thing! You don’t need to make someone else rich.
I recommend Multiple Streams of Income by Robert G. Allen. It has a blueprint for many different ways to tap into several income streams, just like the wealthy do. All eggs not in the same basket.
FIVE: Keep on learning. Cheap courses, free access to computers, a lot of free information at community colleges.
SIX: Find a different town or location, in an area you really like. Seek the lowest cost of living section in that area to start with and conserve your assets. This will get you away from bad memories and allow you to start over in enjoyable surroundings.
SEVEN: Never forget that you had some help somewhere to get up out of the dirt. So, make one of your money goals to help others in some way. My reason for wanting to make more money than I really need is to fund a foundation to help people like me and you who just need a little kick start.
Generosity, rather than greed, fosters success.
Yank is a home-based entrepreneur and freelance business writer living in Hurricane Alley, North Carolina, USA. The books in this article may be purchased here http://astore.amazon.com/a-choice-20 and Yank’s blog is http://www.yankelliott.com
You have unconditional permission to reprint or use this article in any way you see fit, wherever you wish to do so.
Tags: age discrimination, confide, go, help, life crisis, persist, self-help, survive, take responsibility