It’s funny, since my best friend got a boyfriend a few months ago, my business has had it’s most profitable months ever.
Coincidence?
Yes, and no.
I’ve definitely had more free time lately. Almost too much at times. Even though I always have work I could do, and as much as I enjoy my work, you just can’t possibly work 18 hours a day, 7 days a week. At a certain point, you just become incredibly unproductive.
But, I spent a number of friday and saturday nights working the past few months, and I can see direct results (in the bottom line) from those efforts.
However, even in a crazy situation such as mine, I need a social life.
Making Friends When You Are In Debt
I’ve slowly been developing a number of new friendships now that I rarely see my close friend anymore. It’s actually been pretty tough personally. My proactive approach seems to be working now. It’s taken a little bit of time, and it’s been stretching for me, but I’ve been invited to a number of social gatherings lately and even have been hosting a few of my own. Sweet.
It’s funny meeting new people and explaining to them how I work from home, and have been an entrepreneur for awhile now. Luckily my new group seems to like cheap entertainment! (that’s my kind of group!)
Will my debt issues come up?
Not likely. At least not in a bigger setting. In a smaller, perhaps 1:1 setting it might. If I was still living in my office, these new friendships would be nearly impossible to pull off without a larger explanation, so I’m feeling very blessed right now.
The Battle In Your Head
The biggest issue I think I’ve faced is really just in my own head. Being in so much debt really plays terrible tricks with your mind. No matter how many things are going well for you at the moment, it still hangs over your head. There is a constant battle to tell myself, “hey! You’re not a terrible person, people like hanging out with you!”
It’s really quite the mind battle.
Part of dealing with debt is also how easy it is to just hide away. When I’m feeling down, it’s very tempting to just hide away in my own little world, but that just makes things worse.
How Much To Share
As good as I was at covering up my trading addiction for years, face to face, I’m actually a pretty terrible liar. If someone were to ask me point blank about any debt issue, I would have trouble not sharing my situation.
Someday I hope to share more of my story publicly (besides my little blog here). I’m just not quite there yet. However in the next few months with a few of these newer relationships I see myself at least sharing part of what I deal with on a day to day basis. I can’t really develop deeper relationships if my friends don’t know what’s on my mind and troubling me. Good friends will pry, and eventually I’ll end up sharing more. And when that day comes, because of how hard I’ve been working, I think I’ll feel OK with myself and sharing a bit more of my story to people in “real life”.
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
DK, if u dont mind,
can u pls tell me your technique for trading in stocks and FX.
are u a fundamentals or technicals guy ?
Super debt? Is that like super rich?
“Lives of the super debtors.”
“Live debt-ly.”
Hey DK,
Keep your head up. People should like you for you, not your mistakes or how much money you have. When they get to know you, if they are a true friend, they should be more than willing to help you and support your efforts to get out of debt. Remember, it is not like you aren’t trying to get out of debt. You are doing everything you can possibly do to solve this problem. If you can understand that, then maybe you can be less hard on yourself and start to open up to more people. Not necessarily about your debt, but about you, your goals, your hobbies, dreams, etc. to build a friend base that you can depend on.
@ Stan – I WAS a technical trader in FX. It’s not something I really would want to give advice on though seeing my track record.
@ Lost Cause – Sure
@ Benjamin – Thanks, all good points. Yeah, at least now if my friends found out about all my debt I would have a lot to point to in the last 12 months as to how hard I’ve been working to fix my mistakes.
Hey DK…. longtime reader, first time poster. Love to see some more financials but think you do a good job of mixing in real life stuff with financial stuff overall. Also commend you for working towards your goal of paying back every penny and glad to hear of your continued business success.
Semi-personal question: Are you in love with your best friend? It sounds like it (and I went through just such an experience ten years ago so have some familiarity with the source material).
Best regards.
@ Geoff – I’m thinking of adding a “current liabilities” page using my bar chart plug in I made. Should get that done by end of week.
And wow, you floored me a bit with the semi-personal question. Wasn’t expecting a question like that. Um, in a romantic sense, no I don’t “love” my friend. It’s never really been like that. And that is something we have talked about from time to time and have both agreed that we feel more like brother and sister.
Anyway, thanks for the comment. How did your experience turn out with your friend?
Glad to hear you’re not wrestling with this along with everything else.
My experience? didn’t work out as well as I would have liked, but a better to have loved and lost kind of thing. Worked out for the best in the end for all parties involved, though the friendship didn’t survive. Best regards.