Fortune before the Fortune Cookie

Financially speaking, 2009 has been a pretty brutal year at our house.

Last year, I cut my business to devote more time to writing.  This year, those clients I kept slashed fees…and, repeatedly, skipped or delayed payments.  For the second year in a row, family “stuff” required multiple trips back to Texas…and multiple withdrawals from checking and savings accounts.

For the most part, we’ve stared down the creeping fear that comes from being on a financial cliff (or is it off?!) by reminding ourselves that dreams don’t become reality without sacrifice. That and acknowledging that you can only have so many $200 dinners before they start to taste like, well, dinner!

But fear did get the best of me the other night.  I had just ordered Chinese food  ($20 is the new $200!) when a family member called.  We hadn’t chatted in awhile and , for some reason, I soon found myself laying out  the harsh realities of our financial situation.

“I’m so sorry,” she said.  ”I’m soooooo sorry.” (As if I didn’t get it the first time!)

“It’s fine, really.”  I responded the first time, as I felt the first stirrings of Fear awakening deep in the pit of my stomach.

“I’m so sorry,” she repeated.  Fear, meet Failure.

“Everything will work out fine,” I said.  Fear and Failure were building an army by now.

“Well, I hope so.  It must be so upsetting to see everything you worked for disappear.”

“I’m actually quite calm,” I lied because, by this time, the allied forces were barreling down my soul with one target in mind:  Courage.

I hung up the phone and covered myself in a warm blanket of Doubt while I waited for a very stiff martini to numb what was sure to be a crushing blow.

And then the doorbell rang.

It was the Chinese food, delivered by a central casting delivery man.  Not a college kid trying to earn a few extra bucks, but an adult trying to feed his family.

As I went to pay him, I tried to pay forward some of that Fear I had.  ”How are your holidays going?” I asked.  ”It’s a tough year.”

“Yeah,” he said.  ”But, hey man, at least we’re living!”

It was the first time I received my fortune before I had even eaten my Chinese food!

“F*%k you,” I promptly told Fear and Failure and the army they rode in on.

Maybe our household was failing by the standards  money or labels or status.  Or security.

But, what the hell?

Not to get too “Lifetime moment” here, but you can’t take any of those things with you.

Did my husband and I want to cloak ourselves in those things society tells us equal success…or did we want to venture out, beyond where the safety net reaches, and create our own definition?

To paraphrase a Zen buddhist I love, did we want to pretend that the plane of life was just a bus?  Ignoring its wings and just taxiing from destination to destination?

Hell no.

Baby, this bird’s got wings.  And we’re taking off.

We may or may not make it…but, hey man, at least we’re living!

The “change” fallacy

I got a big kick out of an acquaintance’s Facebook post yesterday (he’s created a virtual Facebook fortune cookie where each day brings a new one line pearl of wisdom guaranteed to make your business succeed).  Yesterday’s was:  ”To make a change, clients must believe they’re getting something greater than what they’re giving up.”

Now that’s a very logical statement…if it were true.  If we actually got to choose whether we changed or not.  If, by choosing NOT to change, we could STOP change.

The truth is, we can’t.

Remember that old adage:  the only constant is change.  Well, like most overused phrases, it’s overused because it happens to be true.

And, yet, we increasingly live in a world that denies change (even as the world, itself, is changing..constantly).  That pretends “change” is just one more thing to be spun or mastered by the infallible genius of human intellect.

Folks nip and tuck their way out of aging.  Hoping that you’ll look at the wonders surgery can do to a sagging neck…and not notice the natural beauty of aging hands.

As financial markets were hurtling America (and much of the world) over an economic cliff last year, the airwaves were filled with promises of change.  And, yet, one year later, what HAS changed?

Congress (hopefully) is about to pass health care reform that does increase access, but doesn’t do much to reduce cost.  Because politicians have refused to change the system where it is most fiscally ravenous:  the costs at the final two years of people’s lives.  The costs associated with senior care.

In our own lives, how many of us deep down inside know it’s time for a change…in career, in relationship, in scenery, in habits.  But we tell ourselves we’ll wait til it’s the “right time”.

Of course, what we really mean is that we don’t have the cajones to acknowledge the change that’s already happened…and all that’s needed is for us to acknowledge it, let it in.

Because that’s the fun little truth about change.  It’s always happening.  It’s happened with every second that you’ve read this blog.

And if you ignore it, you more and more find yourself in what a client of mine calls a “disorienting dilemma”.  You think you’ve dealt with it by ignoring it (just wait for the press releases trumpeting the “landmark” health care reform!).  You put a check mark next to an incomplete (or totally ignored) task and go on your merry way.

But here’s the funny thing about change.  It won’t be ignored. You can’t tuck it away in a box until the sun, the moon, and the stars align for that “perfect” moment to deal with it.

Nope, it’ll keep stalking you.

And we can muster up all the illusion we want to ignore it, eventually being consumed by a tsunami of the inevitable.

Or we can do the natural thing…and acknowledge the change.  Welcome it.  Dance with it.  And learn to ride its wave.