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Dr. Kalinda Rose Stevenson
The Gifts of Debt
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Debt is both a curse and a gift. Debt can ruin you. Debt can also set you free to create a life of abundance. How is it possible that debt can have such different effects?
In the theaters of ancient Greece, actors wore masks to represent tragedy or comedy. Debt also wears two masks. One face is familiar to us. It kicks us when we are down, squeezes us when we are broke, hounds us when we can’t pay. It doesn’t take much imagination to recognize this face of debt. This type of debt robs people of their lives. This debt can and does ruin people.
This face of debt is particularly acute at this time of year. January is the month when many people open up credit card bills and wonder how they will pay for the Christmas gifts they bought on credit. It doesn’t take much imagination to outline all of the ways that debt can ruin lives.
Yet, debt has another face. This face of debt can be a great gift to those who recognize it and use it well. Why? Debt allows you to take advantage of someone else’s money to buy something you could not afford to buy. Debt allows you to do and be and have what you could not do on your own.
Let’s start with mortgages for houses. Few people can afford to buy houses with their own money. You can probably buy a cartload of groceries, a meal at a nice restaurant, and some new clothes by pulling cash out of your wallet. But when you want to buy a house, how many people have enough money in their checking accounts to be able to buy houses for hundreds of thousands of dollars?
What is the solution? You take out a mortgage. A mortgage is a just a fancy word for debt. You borrow money to buy your house. And because of this mortgage debt, you have a house you can call your own.
What else does debt give you? Debt puts college in reach for millions of people who could not afford to pay tuition up front.
Debt also allows you to start a business, using someone else’s money, when you don’t have enough money of your own.
I can imagine that you might be thinking: Banks and lenders are making a profit on all of this debt. And besides, you are paying dearly to borrow the money. What about the interest rates? What about the endless fees? What about the banks that overcharge? All of this true. Banks and credit card companies can be downright usurious in their charges, especially for anyone who gets in trouble and falls behind in payments.
And it is also true that debt can be a great gift because it gives you a start. You borrow money to buy a house you could not afford to buy without it. You borrow money to start a business when you don’t have enough to get started. You start school you could not have started without the borrowed money. These are only a few examples of the gifts of debt.
Consider this. The only reason you have debt is because someone with money believes that you will repay the money. And with the money, you are able to do something you could not otherwise afford that will change your life for the better.
Debt has two faces. You can also choose what face you will wear in front of debt. You can wear the face of fear. You can be angry at your creditors and upset with yourself, or you can put on the face of gratitude that someone trusted you enough to loan you money for you to have and create and be what you could not have or create or be with your own money.
Abundance comes in many forms. One source of abundance in your life comes in the form of credit from people and businesses. This face of debt can be a great gift on the pathway to living abundant lives. The most appropriate response is gratitude for the gift of debt that leads to abundance.
Free ebook:”Debt Or Alive: Where Do You Begin To Get Out Of Debt
And Feel Abundantly Alive Now”
http://www.debtoralive.com/
Resolve To Find Yourself
“Resolve to find thyself; and to know that he who finds himself, loses his misery.”
Matthew Arnold
It’s that time of year again. Time when we make New Year’s resolutions. Here’s a resolution for you. Resolve to stop fixing yourself and concentrate instead on finding your true self.
The fundamental reason why most New Year’s resolutions are recipes for failure is contained in the word “resolve.” To “resolve” is to “re-solve.” In other words, it is an effort to once again attempt to “solve” a problem. This is why most “re-solutions” fail. You couldn’t solve the problem the last time. Why will you be able to solve it this time? What has changed since the last time you promised to “re-solve” the same old problems?
“The way it seems to work now, setting a New Year’s resolution is a recipe for defeat. It has come to be one of the nation’s most masochistic traditions.”
Stephen Shapiro
We’ve all heard Einstein’s definition of insanity: Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Yet, each year many of us resolve to “re-solve” the same old problems using the same old methods that didn’t work the last time. And what are these same old methods? Determination, willpower, and resolve. Notice that. We decide that we will “solve” these unwanted problems by being “resolved” and “resolute.”
One of the most significant ideas I have ever learned is the difference between “problem-solving” and “creation.” By definition, problem-solving is an effort to make something go away that you do not want in your life. Creation is an effort to love something into existence that does not currently exist.
We are so conditioned to identify ourselves as problems to be solved. We are masters at finding problems in our lives that need to be fixed. We “resolutely” identify character flaws that we want to make go away.
This is the “problem” with treating yourself as a problem. Who loves having a problem? Who loves being a problem? Who loves being in debt, being overweight, being disorganized? The answer is: No one. Yet, typical New Year’s resolutions require you to fix what you don’t love about yourself. And so you put your energy and your attention into fixing what you couldn’t fix the last time you tried.
I am convinced that the single most important missing piece in our efforts to create the lives we would love to live-the one thing that is most “wrong” with each of us-is that we don’t know what is right with us. Notice how many “re-solutions” are renovation projects. In truth, you are not a project in need of repair. You are not a problem to be solved.
Concentrate instead of finding out what is right with you. Let’s start with your capacity to create. Nothing is more unique than this, and more uniquely human. Some animals use tools and build objects, such as dams and nests. But only human beings are true creators. People have the capacity to imagine beyond what now exists. People can create what they love.
And here, our language confuses matters. Success requires “resolve,” but it is a different kind of “resolve” than the effort to “re-solve” problems. Success “resolve” involves a firm decision to act. Success “resolve” sets creators apart from problem “re-solvers.”
The most powerful “resolution” you can make is to “resolve” to stop trying to fix yourself and to find your true identity as the creator of your life.
“There is no scarcity of opportunity to make a living at what you love; there’s only scarcity of resolve to make it happen.”
Wayne Dyer
The most critical idea beneath this newsletter is that each of us is happiest when we are most uniquely ourselves. And we are most uniquely ourselves when we put our time, energy, and focus on creating what we love.
There is a world of difference between starting with the problem and starting with the outcome. In each case, you really do have a goal in mind. You want your body to be at its ideal weight. You want to be financially free. You want to be organized. Yet, with typical problem-solving “re-solutions,” the tendency is to start with the problem rather than the outcome.
“In life there are no problems, that is, objective and external choices; there is only the life which we do not resolve as a problem but which we live as an experience, whatever the final result may be.”
Alberto Moravia
The most basic idea of success literature, such as Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich, and the New Think and Grow Rich by Ted Ciuba, is that you get what you think about. In other words: What you focus on expands. Where your attention goes, energy flows. When you start with the problem, you are putting your focus on the problem, and not the desired outcome.
If you put your attention on solving the problem-being overweight, being in debt, being disorganized-you have not created a vision of the outcome. You are simply putting your attention on what you don’t want. You have identified yourself as a problem to be solved, not as a creator who can create what you truly desire.
“I believe life is constantly testing us for our level of commitment, and life’s greatest rewards are reserved for those who demonstrate a never-ending commitment to act until they achieve. This level of resolve can move mountains, but it must be constant and consistent. As simplistic as this may sound, it is still the common denominator separating those who live their dreams from those who live in regret.”
Anthony Robbins
You really do have a choice. It all comes down to what kind of resolution you make. You can focus on your problems and resolve that this time, you will finally “solve” them. You tell yourself: This time, the diet will work. This time, I will get out of debt. This time, I will get my finances organized.
Or you can decide to stop making such “re-solutions” that set you up for failure. Imagine the difference if you resolve to live your life as a creator. With this type of resolve, you can create what you would love to have or be. You can create the life you would love to live. The difference comes from finding your true nature as a creator.
Kalinda Rose Stevenson
Publisher of “Abundantly Alive Now! Newsletter”
http://www.abundantlyalivenow.com
PS. If You Could Discover The Combination To The Door That Swings Open To Limitless Wealth?! Would You Use It?!
The New Think And Grow Rich
http://www.abundantlyalivenow.com/resources/ThinkAndGrowRich/
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