The fact that I'm happy to pay three bucks for it, eat the whole thing, and wash it down with black coffee? That doesn't bode well.
See the orange in the background? That makes that mass of protein and starch in the foreground part of a balanced breakfast.
When Michael showed me this little room, I got pretty excited. Why?
Because this is my office. And this, my friends, is a "before" picture.
The whole mortgage crisis and the credit crunch are awfully complex. People talk of good debt turned bad, of banks that aren't intetested in foreclosing on homes, of spending billions of taxpayer dollars to help failing businesses. Who knew who Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were before all this started? And who among them knew they were government agencies?
A lot of the problems apparently came from very sophisticated financial commodities. Some problems were more simple: people weren't able to pay their debt. A story on National Public Radio noted that the current total indebtedness of the American people is now at the level of the Gross National Product. The only other recorded time that happened? Just before the Great Depression.
My hope is that this crisis will get our attention. We've gotten awfully comfortable with debt as a culture, with myself as an example. I, for one, intend to maintain relative financial simplicity. To start living more strictly within my means, even if that means - gasp - lowering my standard of living a little.
Some of you think that's a really obvious choice. I think it's an oddly foreign concept to my generation. Maybe this is our chance to get our priorities straight.
I've known for some time that I'm called to be selfless, not to worry, and to live life to the full, rather than with a spirit of fear. I tend toward perfectionism, though. Funny how much anxiety that generates, how much fear of your own rejection, and simultaneous judgment of others.
Yeah, I'm ready to move on. And I've been making solid progress. I'll be spending a lot of time in Romans 8, I think.
This morning, at least, it made the difference between overexaggerating my few problems and starting the day with peace and, of all things, optimism.
Here I sit at Chocolate Fish Coffee once again. My plan to skip coffee a couple days a week is a go so far, but as you can see, I've lost the added benefit of saving money by picking up an iced white tea instead. On one hand, the tea is really tasty, and I'd rather not just mooch my favorite coffee shop's patio without buying something. On the other, I still need to grow my financial discipline. And every other kind, really.
It's doing me a lot of good to get outside. I'm expecting a scholarly paper on the horrible effects of fluorescent lights on the human soul to come out within the next few years. It's nice to emerge from the right-angled world of HR - gray with a few scant decorations. Whether I'm talking about the office or the profession, I'll leave to you.
Lately, I've been wishing I could write poetry. Whenever I try... hmm. It seems I'm out of room for text. Well, now I know. More soon, methinks.
