The other couples in our small group just left about an hour ago after watching the 3rd installment of Financial Peace University: the budget lesson. We had a good time as always and spent time afterward chatting about how we’ve spent our money in the past–good and bad. One observation about the lesson that came out during our conversation is how many forms were included in it. There is the form where you can determine your net worth; the form where you plan out the big picture of your budget (3 pages worth); the form you use if you have irregular income; the form that helps you determine how each paycheck is going to be spent. It’s a lot of pages and, frankly, a lot of work for us beginners. It feels a little overwhelming sometimes and I think we all may have had the thought cross our minds that we can’t handle it; that this budgeting stuff is simply over our heads and that it’s much easier to just do what we want to do. OK, I can’t speak for everyone else in the group…but I am speaking for myself.
After everyone left the thought occurred to me though that this may be what real life is like. Maybe adulthood was never meant to be easy and that we can’t find magic bullet solutions to our problems. I thought about students I deal with each day. They don’t think about the content of their classes being useful. They want to choose the classes and teachers that are the easiest to pass. But, if these students really need to know statistics in their career, will the teacher that doesn’t challenge them really help them succeed? Won’t their education be sort of worthless?
Dealing with money is hard. I hate all the jargon that’s out there and all the gimmicks and scams that try to play on our ignorance. This means I have to really think and really try to understand what’s happening. I also hate stopping myself from getting the extra coffee during the day or just swinging by the In-N-Out on the way home from work. Habits are hard to break; discipline is unpleasant; but isn’t the process of challenging ourselves for a purpose? What if these moments of giving into our desires means we cannot achieve what we really want out of life? Is it OK to regularly treat ourselves when it means that we’re not prepared for unexpected events?
I know these things are really hard to do but maybe that means we need to become adults. Maybe we’ve been children this whole time and haven’t really been living life honestly. I certainly came to this conclusion about myself. It was easier to plug my ears and pretend the problems weren’t there but that decision ultimately makes life unhappy.
Let’s grow up, everyone, and be real men and women that can handle life and not just get tossed around by it!
