{"id":93956,"date":"2016-04-21T11:33:41","date_gmt":"2016-04-21T19:33:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=93956"},"modified":"2016-04-21T11:33:41","modified_gmt":"2016-04-21T19:33:41","slug":"as-long-as-i-have-known-me-i-am-either-depressed-or-excited-about-some-new-way-ive-found-of-hacking-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=93956","title":{"rendered":"As long as I have known me, I am either depressed or excited about some new way I’ve found of hacking life."},"content":{"rendered":"

Kiki Baxter writes for The Fix<\/a>:<\/p>\n

How to Live Your Vision and Not Drown in Debt<\/p>\n

How are you with your money? How is your earning? Do you love what you do? Are you living your vision? <\/p>\n

I started going to Debtors Anonymous when all my Al-Anon artist friends were telling me how much it was helping them. Their enthusiasm was palpable so I went, accompanied by my constant companions: shame, despair and denial. Denial told me that I wasn\u2019t ashamed. It propped me up and said everything was fine, even though I felt like I was spinning my wheels, constantly trying to make ends meet and behind in paying off my growing credit card debt. I spent one summer actively getting in debt by doing summer theater and living off a meager stipend from the theater company and credit cards. At another point, I cashed in my retirement account to follow my dreams. This is what artists (and non-artists) do, right? I once spoke to a prominent artistic director of a reputable theater about my worry that if I went to grad school, I\u2019ll get further into debt. He said impatiently, \u201cYou\u2019re an artist. You\u2019re going to be in debt!\u201d<\/p>\n

Now I know that doesn\u2019t have to be true, and that the starving artist mythology has flushed more artists down the drain than I care to count. Debting to live is not sustainable for an artist, or for anyone for that matter. Since I\u2019ve been in DA, I have worked with my creditors to create a manageable repayment plan, I have slowly increased my income, and I have moved more fully into my vision. Is DA the only way? It was for me. I\u2019m good at math, I\u2019m organized, and I read many books on money management\u2014but it didn\u2019t matter. As I spoke to other members of DA, there were some common themes\u2014whether they were an artist, a business person, or a health care professional. These are their stories. (Their names have been changed to protect anonymity.) <\/p>\n

Mark<\/p>\n

Mark has worked since he was fourteen years old and has had a steadily increasing income and promotions. Despite this fact, he was always struggling to make ends meet by spending more than he earned. He came into Debtors Anonymous in 2014 after trying other ways to manage his money.<\/p>\n

\u201cI tried budgeting many, many times and then I wouldn\u2019t follow it. I tried leaving the credit card at home, but then I\u2019d go back and get it or use it again later. I remember feeling not normal. I had a roommate a few years back who was a very successful guy and we\u2019d talk about money, and he seemed to have this logic and all the facts. I knew the facts too, but he seemed to be able to implement them. For some reason, I couldn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mark had been complaining about his debt to a friend of his who was in another program and his friend told him about DA. \u201cI was really excited about it at first,\u201d but then he had to \u201cget down to business,\u201d as he put it. \u201cThere are significant changes. Significant spiritual changes. You have to peel back the layers and do the work and find out why. I had all the facts but wasn\u2019t able to put it into practice over and over again, for years. That\u2019s been the heavy lifting, but I will say I\u2019ve had a tremendous amount of relief.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mark grew up in a wealthy town but his family was not particularly wealthy. \u201cMy family\u2019s relationship to money was skewed. My mom\u2019s strategy was to work. \u2018We\u2019ll be happy when…\u2019 My dad had a really hard time just dealing with life. He declared bankruptcy a couple times. He had a lot of earning capability and started a few businesses, but ultimately he didn\u2019t want to work or felt he couldn\u2019t do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mindfulness, meditation and prayer are some of the tools Mark uses in his recovery.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe root cause is basically not feeling okay and then doing something to distract myself, so I think mindfulness is the best thing for me and that includes meditation. I don\u2019t do it for hours and hours, but it\u2019s a buffer so I don\u2019t get too high or low. I do have a higher power in my life. I pray to see the truth and not run away from the situation as it\u2019s presenting itself to me. Prayer is personal. It doesn\u2019t have to be a big deal. I\u2019m very experiential in my life. I\u2019m scientific. The question is, did it produce a result for me? I\u2019ll stand on my head if it produces a good result for me. That\u2019s why I don\u2019t resist the prayer thing anymore, because it produces good results.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kiki Baxter writes for The Fix: How to Live Your Vision and Not Drown in Debt How are you with your money? How is your earning? Do you love what you do? Are you living your vision? I started going … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26369],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-93956","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-addiction"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93956","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=93956"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93956\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":93957,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93956\/revisions\/93957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=93956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=93956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=93956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}