I have been musing, for the last week or so, on how incredibly different our lives are now, as opposed to a year ago. Hardly any aspect of our lives has been left untouched in that year, and I believe that I can say that the changes, as wide and as drastic as they have been, have been for the good.
A year ago both Jen and I were in untenable work positions; unhappy with the choices we had made on the job, and the places that those choices had taken us to. Now Jen is teaching somewhere that actually values it’s teachers, and I am in the process of getting started on a philosophy degree, finally.
A year ago we were saddled with a largish mortgage, multiple vehicle payments and a shameful amount of consumer debt. Now we are, with the exception of one small student loan we are still chipping away at, debt-free. At this point we don’t even have a credit card - it’s cash or nothing for us now.
A year ago we were drowning in cheap consumer goods, purchased to bandage over the dissatisfaction engendered by all of our other bad choices, compounding them in a vicious cycle. Now we have a much smaller set of belongings, of generally vastly higher quality, each with a purpose and meaning other than as distraction or window-dressing.
A year ago we were both still attempting to shoe-horn ourselves into a mold of who we thought we were supposed to be as “adults”. Now, I think it is safe to say, we are quite a bit more adult than we were, if adult is understood as taking responisibility for our own self-definition and self-actualization instead of concious conformity. All of the affectations have fallen aside, and we are much more comfortable simply being ourselves.
I look back now at the things I wrote in my journals a year ago, and I am shocked - I hardly even recognize myself…
Tags: debt, Modern Life, mortgage, Real Estate
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