i know... i know...

Taking my car in for the 16k checkup and servicing and all that was going through my head was how much it will cost and whether I will be left with any money to take care of bills and debt that I have racked up...

I cannot count the number of articles that I have read about "getting rid of debt" and yet when it gets down to it, the simple disciplines that are required to get out of it are somehow spectacularly lacking in me. I walk around wearing the exterior of somebody that has it together and yet finances are out of control and generally speaking, I do not feel like I have a handle on whats happening in my life or where it's going...

The news in the industry, banking and econ world is that North America has racked up debt that is unsustainable and with more and more people declaring bankrupcy banks need rescuing more and more because they are left holding the bag... of debt. We're borrowing more and more money from economies that are not known to be stable in order to sustain the standard of living that we have here and as banks and financing institutions start to get nervous, everybody is predicting a recession of some sort.

I guess that my financial situation is a microcosm of the larger picture - debt that is unmanageable - and so I have to borrow more and more to take care of a life that I have decided I need.

When I was in my last year at university, I stumbled across a concept that has been around for a long time... only this time instead of reading it in a book, I thought it up all by myself. We work because we need to eat, we eat because we need to live, and we live to work. I found that no matter which way you looked at it, I was bound to start the slippery slope down the path of working to sustain a life that I was acustomed to, but could not afford. I loved to have milk in my tea, but my salary would not be enough for me to have milk in my tea everyday... but I had become so accustomed to it that I could not fathom a day without it. And so I resigned myself to the vicious cycle of working to eat and knowing that my work could not pay for what I wanted to eat, so I had to keep on living in debt just to eat!

I know... I know...

I'm not the only person trapped in this... and somebody is going to try to lecture me about debt and put me on the path to get out of it... but...

ugh!