The Art of Debt
Check your wallets, your back pockets, and ladies even your purses and take a look at all your stuff.
“A house is a place for your stuff!” one of my favorite comedians, the late George Carlin, said these words and they’ve never been truer.
We have stuff: shoes, clothes, laptops, tablets, phones, color tvs, a dining room table, a living room table, credit cards/debit cards, nail polish…nail polish remover, makeup, lipstick…makeup remover, hats when it gets cold, sunglasses when it gets hot, cars and our cars have stuff too…cd’s or cassettes, 8 track players if you’re old…-der, spare tire if you get a flat, a road map, flashlight, pens, a water bottle in case of an emergency, or a my case a truck full of old clothes that I don’t need that anymore, so I can go out to buy more STUFF.
Again, we all have stuff. And where do we put our stuff…in our house. How do you get the house? Well you have to buy it, to have a place to put your stuff so that no one can take your stuff. Nothing makes us more angry then when people try to take our stuff. So we are taught, to work hard, get a job and buy more stuff. We need things and trinkets and when we don’t have any more money we borrow…we use our credit cards: a plastic object to that says we will borrow money from a lender with the intent to pay back with additional payments of course called high interest…and with this plastic now I can buy MORE stuff! I can have it…right now at my convenience. It’s fun to have stuff, especially nice stuff…nicer things than most people and acquiring them is the American dream. Overspending is part of our nation’s problem. Don’t we hear it in the news all the time…the US owes trillions in debt. Imagine, the nation we live has a bookie…and we as it’s citizens owns debt.
Owing others in America is easy, consuming, an artform, patriotic…it’s the American way. Just think about it. How many of you owe some entity money? Your house, your car, student loans, bank loans, and maybe your neighbor for gas money.
The first time I learned of debt, I was about 22 years old. My mom was getting evicted from her apartment, I had no idea that after the death of my father that her coping mechanism meant spending… It was my senior year of college and she looked at me while the movers took all her stuff to a location unknown and she said… “I don’t know what you’re going to do, but I’m moving.” then, she turned around and took off. In a hurry, I looked at my bank account. I remember the amount because it’s engraved in my memory… I had 82 cents. That’s less than a dollar sitting in my account. While I sat in my car, I was thinking to myself, there’s no way I could be homeless…that happens to bums, and drug addicts. The truth of the matter was evident…car payment, car insurance, student loans, and whatever else…that’s how was I learning about debt. I was about to get buried in it and my mother was running away from it.
Don’t worry this story has a learning opportunity when that I can repeat to anyone who has ever wanted to get out out debt. First things first…I worked full time, work two jobs…buy only what I needed, get a boyfriend for free meals, and open a savings account. I learned about credit and of course about credit scores. How is that I get a grade from an institution and have no idea on how to pass? That what a credit score is, a grade on if you were to borrow, how much of it will benefit the person that you are borrowing from. So if I lend you $20, can I have my $20 back…oh that’s easy it’s only $20 but what about $10,000?
If you think you are free, especially in America, just try to go somewhere without any money.
Think about your stuff, all of it. Why do we need it? Is it worth the beautiful art that we call debt?