INEVITABLITY

In previous posts I have spent some time exploring the certainty of dying and acceptance of that forgone conclusion. The subject is explained best in Mitch Albom's book, Tuesdays with Morrie and oddly accepting your own death actually frees you to live the rest of your days with a much better outlook on life in general. Don't worry, I'm not going to get on that soap box again. I bring this up as an introduction to another self realization....



If you follow my wife's blog, Life with Shaky, you may know that over the last year we have sturggled with a decision about keeping or selling our home. The initial question arose because Mary felt we should be moving toward planning for the time when I cannot work or take care of the day to day duties of maintaining a home due to PD. A scuffle ensued so to speak....me standing firmly against acceptance of the thought of selling our home which would mean me losing my shop where I love to play with hot rods. After all, I'm not dead yet, I am still a successful general manager for an auto parts retailer, I am in the middle of building a pro street 1969 Camaro.....and so it goes.



Mary on the other hand was likely seeing things more clearly than I would like to admit but in the end I prevailed. More like I won the battle only to lose the war.



Now, 12-18 months later the subject is back on the table again albeit for other reasons.



Things change. Always there is change and just when you think you have most everything under control you wake up one day and the things you were prepared to deal with are not the same things that you actually have to deal with because things changed. Sometimes change happens slowly , other times almost over night.



In the last 18 months.....Who Knew?



- that Mary and I would agree to have one more child which would mean we would lose her income for some time.

- that the company I work for would change the bonus structure essentially eliminating about $5000 from my income.

- the economy would tank in the worst way since the depression resulting in catastrophic business failures, bank bailouts, run away inflation . plummeting home values, and on and on...

And one day you wake up and realize that it's true what they say....the only constant is death and taxes so to speak. And taxes is where our story springs from....
The other day I was doing some pre work on our tax return and Mary and I were talking about when she was a single mom how she could claim the earned income credit which is a government credit that was introduced in the mid 70's to encourage people to work even if the only job they could get did not provide enough income for their needs. At the end of the year , to reward you for not sitting on your butt and living on welfare and food stamps, the government recognized that you hold a job albeit one that won't pay all the bills, and so they give you a big tax credit to offset your shortfall so to speak.
I used to be so envious of that whopped tax refund she would get....
Anyway, on a whim, I checked to see if we now qualified for the EIC and WE DID ....
With my reduced salary due to bonus structure and a freeze on merit raises for two years and little Cecila now in the picture, it is now official, even the US government recognizes that WE are in tough times.
Who Knew ?
Well, at least I am working , at a good job with good benefits. Many people aren't. And the fact that we are doing as well as we are ? Well, not long ago, I was talking to a friend about his business and I asked him to what did he attribute the continued growth of his business to in these trying economic times ? He said two words which really have stuck with me....
God's Blessing.
And if you ask me, that about says it for Mary and I too.
Who knew ? I asked earlier. Certainly , we did not anticipate all I outlined above.
But, how can I explain what drove us over the last five years to pay off nearly every single credit debt we had between us ? We started with Mary's car, then mine, and any car since then has been paid for up front. Then we knocked out all but one small credit card, and last year a whopper bank line of credit. If we hadn't done all those things we would really be in a pickle now let me tell you. Well, we're still in a pickle but it could be so much worse :-)

The fact that everything is as it is right now is two words....
God's Blessing.
So, add one more constant to the list.
Death
Taxes
GOD's Blessing !

Inevitability.
Things will change it is inevitable. How you deal with it , view it, react to it, now that is a choice each of us has to make on our own.
And no matter your choice it is all too often life defining.
In the midst of all life throws at us each day, don't forget God's Blessing.