The Struggles

The bills were paid today. We're good for another month of living in the house. As always, I'm pleased with this. I'd rather have my bills paid early than risk not having the money to pay them when they come due. Some might argue that it would best if I just learned to manage my money over the month, but that never seemed to work for me. It honestly is best if I pay everything off as soon as possible.

When it comes to managing my finances, I've learned to function on a 'how can you manage to keep from screwing up?' basis. I was never good at balancing a checkbook. I always ended up overdrawn. For several years, I kept trying to train myself to handle the checking account properly. Eventually, I just accepted that my brain was never going to let this work and canceled my account. Same with credit cards. I know I am not one of these 'emergency only' people. If I had one, I would find a way to max it.

I know this isn't ideal. I get that the better solution would be to find ways to manage my money while still using the modern services. In the meantime, I would probably lose a lot of money. Given my limited funds, I just can't afford that. Instead of risking the possiblity that I would screw up again, I have found managable alternatives. I pay my bills as soon as possible. I don't allow myself accounts I can't handle.

This is how I try to handle eating as well. I often get off course about this one, because it's a little more difficult. The main goal is to never eat fast food unless I'm with someone. Avoiding Secret Eating is a daily struggle for me. Or, at least, a struggle every time I leave the house. My normal course of action is just to try and keep as little cash on me as possible.

A while back though, I started carrying a 20 with me just in case of emergency. I was a little terrified when this began, because I know me. I assumed that 20 would be blown in a week. Somehow, I've managed to keep from using it. I'm a little amazed by this because it's beyond my usual level of disciplin. It's been easier since it got cold though, because I can always tell myself that Secret Eating is a bad idea because I might not be able to role the window back up.

We all have things that we struggle with, places in our lives where we find that we often fail. Maybe in those moments when we're sane and rational, these struggles aren't a problem. For a lot of us, however, those moments of sanity are sometimes few and far between. In the meantime, we still have to survive. Avoiding the areas of struggle may not be the best way to overcome it, but sometimes it's all we have. Sometimes accepting that you just suck at certain things and finding a way to compensate can really improve the quality of your life.