The Financial Costs of Supporting a False Image from My Life University

1995 Jeep Grand Cherokee

I bought a top of the line forest green Jeep Grand Cherokee a few years ago in Mt. Vernon, Washington.  It was the newest vehicle I had ever owned and it growled with power!  I felt accomplished when I drove it.  My friends and family could smell my success in the leather of the interior.

The jeep portrayed the image I wanted people to have of me.  I was starting a new business and wanted everyone to believe it was a success.  I followed the "fake-it-until-you-make-it" mantra. It worked. I was able to fake success right up to the day I had to give the jeep back to the bank.

I had convinced myself success was a privilege of the brave.  Those brave enough, deserved it and got it.  I was brave, and following documented success formulas, so it was just a matter of time before I was successful.  That is until my stupidity ran into my arrogance and it was time to pay the reality check.

One of many lessons I learned during this painful season of my life, was to not undervalue the cost of risk. I believed courage and hard work could overcome risk.  They couldn't.

In the late 90s (dot.com era), many of my friends worked in Internet start-ups.  They jumped from one start-up to the next chasing the stock option dream of a big payout.  They used all of their available income and bonuses to invest in more and different Internet start-ups.  They accepted risky jobs, with risky start-ups, in a risky industry and then re-invested their money back into a risky market - effectively doubling down on their bet.  Most lost it all when the dot.com era ended.  There is a real cost to risk.

I have learned over time that my behaviors and those of my high tech friends toward risk were not so unusual.  Many people take on large student loans, credit card debt, large home mortgages and car payments all assuming things will go well forever.  Isn't that poor risk management?  I received my education on risk management from MLU (My Life University).  I took out high-interest loans to attend.  Here are some things I learned from my mistakes that can hopefully be useful to you:

• Manage risks carefully.  It's not about your manhood, moral fiber or level of courage. It's a math thing.
• The more risk you are exposed to - the greater the chances of bad things happening.  Again, it's a math thing.
• If you want to take a risk, save up enough cash so you can pay the cost of risk. There is always a cost and you can't escape it.    
• Risk does not necessarily equal reward.  Often high risk pays very little potential reward for the level of risk exposure.  For example, risking 5-years of your career on a poorly run, money losing start-up that pays you less than market value and doesn't provide stability or a career advancement path is highly risky.  Why risk so much?  Move on when risk exceeds the possible reward.  It's a math thing.
• Problems in business, personal finances, employment, health, relationships and mental and emotional issues are guaranteed in your lifetime.  In fact, it is rare you will have a season of life without some or all of these things happening.  They are not a distant possibility for the unlucky few, they are absolute guarantees in life and come with a cost. Invest in understanding them so you have frameworks for working through them.
• Many life events are not under your control.  You need close supportive relationships, spiritual, moral, emotional and philosophical frameworks and tools to help navigate a scary and unpredictable world.  Invest in these.  A meaningful relationship with God can help you get through a lot.
• Today the average person will stay on a job 4.1 years.  If you work 40 years you may have nearly 10 different jobs (am told it is a math thing).  It is best to acknowledge the transient nature of employment and prepare yourself mentally, spiritually, financially for change.
• Life is more fun without debt.  You can live an extraordinary and meaningful life of friendships, adventure, service and flexibility if you are not a slave to debt.  
• If all your emotional energies are consumed by debt worry, you have little energy left to invest in loving relationships, joy, creating beauty around you and investing in life changing experiences and service projects.
• Debt multiplies risk, increases stress and limits freedom.
• Be real.  Be authentic.  It's healthier, cheaper, more enjoyable, and less risky than propping up an expensive image on a credit card.  
• If friendships and social status has been developed and propped up based on an image that is not authentic or financially sustainable - confess and start fresh.
• Many a childhood dream is squashed under the weight of debt.
• Many golden years have become leadened burdens because of poor risk management and not predicting the predictable.  It's a math thing.

When I was in school I complained, "When am I ever going to use this math in real life!!!?  The answer is I didn't and it cost me big.

Want to read more?  Read Formulas for Success that Don't Work.

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Kevin Benedict

Husband, Father, Writer, Speaker, Traveler, Jesus Fan, Life Addict

Follow me on Twitter @kevinrbenedict

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Read Shawna's Blog! Words on the Way

Boise as a Refuge

"We all have a past, and the future is a gift."

Boise is honored to have been selected as a refugee resettlement city.  As a result, Shawna and I have met many extraordinary new African friends, and we get to share this special time in their lives with them.  Just last night a family called to say eleven more of their family members would be arriving in Boise this month!  What a Christmas present!  Sounds like Shawna and I will need to find eleven more Boise State football sweatshirts.

Now comes the challenge of helping these arriving families find appropriate housing, warm clothes and integrating into our community while experiencing their first snow flurries and cold.  Just image trying to efficiently transport eleven people to grocery stores, doctor appointments, schools and church functions!  To be fair, refugees are brought to the USA by agencies that skillfully manage their care and integration, but our little Boise church helps fill in the gaps and needs - and there are many.

There have been times in my life when I felt like a hamster in a cage (before the time of free range), running around the spinning exercise wheel.  Accomplishing nothing important, seemingly going nowhere fast, not making any meaningful difference in the world and underappreciated.  I have found that jumping in and helping people with bigger challenges than my own is the real balm to those feelings!

With these new families, our church will have over 50 refugees attending, mostly from Rwanda and Democratic Republic of Congo.  Their numbers have grown to where they now have their own Kinyarwanda language church service each week immediately following our English language service.  If your church suffers from depressing dark and drab colors in the sanctuary, there is an easy solution - invite some African families with their beautiful bright colors!

The need for transportation has suddenly become a high priority. The days of driving to church with empty seats in our car is a thing of the past.  In fact we recently purchased a used minivan and now drive two vehicles most weekends.  We will need to get serious about locating and funding a bus soon.  Do you have a spare?

Our relationships with our African friends, puts faces on the data about suffering we had previously only read about in books and newspapers.  It's no longer just a historical or abstract event.  These days we are privileged with the opportunity to look into the eyes of the people that experienced it.

The other night our African friends were telling us all about their immediate and extended families. Several times during the conversation, they would hesitate a moment while reminiscing and quietly say, "People came and killed them."  These words reminded us that refugees seek refuge for a reason.  If that refuge has the name Boise on it, we who live here need look no further for a purpose and a mission.

Typing in the Forest

When I was seven-years old I found an old typewriter in the middle of a 50 acre woods.  It was mostly hidden and covered with moss, leaves and little plants growing between the keys.  I found it while snooping, and not much escaped my snoops.

I named the location, Typewriter Fort, in tribute to... the typewriter. Its location is still noted on a hand drawn map tucked into a box in my garage today.  Decades after naming the location, I returned and found the typewriter still there nearly buried and worst for wear.

I always wondered how the typewriter came to the woods.  How did it get from an important person's polished hardwood desk (anyone with something worth typing was important) to the damp muddy earth among the hazelnut trees?  I was sure there was a very good story to tell, but fingers could no longer move the rusted keys to tell it.

The typewriter was now a monument marking a location in the woods where we would escape and hide from roving bands of off-road motorcyclist and other assorted childhood villains both real and imagined.  It was not just a name on a map.  It was a circle of blackberries bushes with thorns protecting us from the back, and a row of ancient fir trees and tall ferns hiding us from the front and sides.

The Typewriter Fort wasn't the only fort, as we had fifty acres to explore and patrol, but it was the most enduring.  We selected our "forts" by determining where people were least likely to go.  I remember a circle of rough looking seven to ten year-olds armed with pocket knives and hatchets looking at a crumpled map and strategically pointing to places we had never been.  "Never been there!" Someone would say pointing their dirty finger at the water and dirt stained map.  "Perfect! Let's build a fort there!"

Some forts were better than others.  Some were simply wooden boards stretched out from the muddy bank of a slime covered pond to an island where we would lie in the sun and spear frogs and salamanders all afternoon.  That was before frogs organized, raised money and developed a celebrity led social media campaign.  We would cut down a bamboo pole, sharpen it, split the tips and notch the edges to hold our prey.

Other forts were elaborate and even had "living" fences.  Fences made of saplings we cut and stuck in the mud which soon grew into living trees that filled in the gaps in our walls with limbs and leaves making our fort invisible and the going-ons secret.  Still others were named after the model of the abandoned and stripped vehicle left in the briars near by.

I remember one fort in particular we called the Mob Car Fort.  The long black vehicle showed up unannounced one day in the forest. We waited the customary 10 days before smashing the windows and claiming it.  However, on the eleventh-day the owner who had gone "walk-about" showed up and rudely claimed his vehicle and demanded reparations.  After that experience we decided to extend the waiting period to 12 days.

Many of our forts were temporary.  If we failed to maintain them weekly they would quickly disappear under the onslaught of nature.  Nature slaughted a lot in those days and nearly always won, but the typewriter remained, a vestige to enduring strength and fortitude.

Writing is special. It captures a thought, preserves it, and enables it to be shared for millenniums. While many great spiritual men and women have lived throughout history, most did not write down their inspirations for preservation.  Our collection of the books of the bible and other great works are those that were written and preserved. They represent ideas, inspirations, stories about a time and a place.  I was once told by a wise mentor, "A thought does not exist if not written down."  I would hate to die without the proof of having had a thought, and not being able to prove my big brother wrong.

The typewriter in the forest was a monument, not only for a location in the woods and a collection of childhood memories, but it symbolizes to me the enduring value of writing and encourages me to stretch my comfort zone so I don't have to say, "Never been there."

Walking Through Lisbon and Pondering Earthquakes

Damage from the 1755
Lisbon Earthquake

It was November 1st, All Saints day.  The churches of Lisbon were packed with both the regulars and the irregulars celebrating this special holiday.  At 9:40 AM, during church services, the first tremors were felt by parishioners.  These tremors announced a massive 8.5-9.0 earthquake that lasted 3-6 minutes collapsing 85% of the buildings.  Fissures up to 15 feet wide opened up across the city. Fires broke out as stoves, fireplaces, lanterns and ovens poured out sparks, fuel and embers into the debris.  The fires burned for 5 days.

That was just the beginning of the disaster.  Forty-minutes after the earthquake, a series of three giant tsunamis washed over the city and swept away thousands of survivors that had gathered in the open spaces along the docks to escape the rubble, fires and cloud of dust that had settled over the city.

Out of a population of approximately 200,000 in Lisbon, experts believe 40,000 perished. Philosophers, theologians, church leaders and the populace searched for meaning. Here is an excerpt from Wikipedia:

The earthquake had struck on an important church holiday and had destroyed almost every important church in the city, causing anxiety and confusion amongst the citizens of a staunch and devout Roman Catholic city and country, which had been a major patron of the Church. Theologians focused and speculated on the religious cause and message, seeing the earthquake as a manifestation of divine judgment.

Rebuilt churches in Lisbon
still show damage from the
earthquake. Note pillars.

One of the most confounding aspects of the Lisbon earthquake for the religious, was the fact that Lisbon's Alfama district, the seedy red-light district suffered only minor damage.  How could the notoriously vice-ridden section of Lisbon survive, while the churches had been destroyed?

It was hard for the people of Lisbon to not see God's wrath in the destruction.  The disaster struck on a special church holiday, during service.  Their churches were destroyed, their clergy and members dead or injured.

As Shawna and I walked among the ruins of churches in Lisbon a few weeks ago, I pondered the biblical story of Rahab, the prostitute, God saved from the earthquake that brought destruction to Jericho and enabled Israel to defeat them. I think also of Mary Magdalene and the Samaritan woman at the well. God seems to have had a special place in his heart for the victims of brutality, disease, poverty and misfortune.  Yet ultimately these ladies all died.  We all die.  While we live, we spend time on a seismically active planet that routinely shakes, rumbles, spews, cracks, splashes and shifts.  The bible tells us this is our destiny until God recreates a paradise, with presumably less disastrous shaking.

Perhaps God wasn't sending a passive aggressive demonstration of wrath to Lisbon, but was showing mercy to the downtrodden of the Alfama district.  Perhaps he saw an earthquake happening and held up the structures in Alfama district to show he cared for them.  Who knows, but when I read the red-letter words in the New Testament, that is the Jesus revealed to me.  Rather than seeing only God's wrath in disease, disasters and suffering, I see his comfort, hope, mercy and love in those that perished and were saved and protected.

I think God is very anxious to come again and save us.  He is preparing a place for us, a safe, pure and beautiful paradise. But he waits.  I imagine him pacing the golden streets in heaven nervously (a holy nervousness). Waiting, waiting for the final act, when the results of sin are fully demonstrated and time is ready.

Jobless in Seattle

When our kids were young, we packed up and moved to Seattle seeking work.  I had been searching for months and we were broke.  We needed a job in the worst way.  I received an offer and we felt God had opened a door to a new career.

My new job, as an international commodity trader, started off well, but within weeks my new boss died in a drunken stupor and the company shut down the project I was working on.  I found myself out of work again.  I was crushed.  We had bet everything on the job working out.  We needed the income desperately.

I tried to keep my emotions in check until we got home, but I couldn't.  Tears spilled out and my voice cracked.  I wept with my little family in the car on a dark rainy freeway in the middle of evening rush hour.  I looked through my tears and rain splattered windshield at all the cars with drivers that were coming home from work, and going back to work in the morning. Work I was without. What kind of man can't support his family?  I was humiliated and filled will guilt and shame. I was pained by the anxiety my lovely wife did not deserve.

Our little family comforted each other as best we could, but we were frightened.  We were in need of love, community and support.  We needed hugs.  It was about this time that the local pastor of a church we had attended a few times came by for a visit.  He sat down on the couch smiling, welcomed us to the community, and then launched into a lengthy condemnation and shaming of my wife for wearing earrings, and for me as the husband, for allowing it.  This was one of the least successful welcomings I have ever experienced.  I doubt this technique is taught any longer in the Evangelism and Church Growth 101 class.

It was on that visit that we were clearly shown the depths of the chasm that separates religious dogma from Jesus' way.  The last thing in the world we needed at that moment in time, was condemnation and shaming for not supporting a prescribed set of religious dogma.  To this day we carry the pain and scars of that pastor's visit.

"I believe that the greatest trick of the devil is not to get us into some sort of evil, but rather have us wasting time.  This is why the devil tries so hard to get Christians to be religious.  If he can sink a man's mind into habit, he will prevent his heart from engaging God. ~ Donald Miller, Blue Like Jazz