It is an astounding fact that most people learn their lessons after something happens and never before. We call this the school of hard knocks. Is it possible to avoid this school? It is only possible when someone accepts that there are absolutes and that these absolutes never deviate. The frugal realize that they possess wisdom which gives them foresight. They can foresee danger and avoid it. The spendthrift does not believe in absolutes and therefore repeats the same failed behavior over and over again.
Wisdom is the most valuable resource that any of us can possess and yet it is so rarely employed. Few seek wisdom. The majority of people would rather be foolish because it requires no thought. They prefer acting on the immediate moment. They make no plans, so they plan to fail and when they fail, they want someone to bail them out. The fool never understands cause and effect because if he did, then he would look for the cause of his misery and adjust his behavior accordingly. This is why he is a fool. Fools never learn to be wise.
The Harrisburg N.Y. Patriot News ran an editorial with the following quote, "But while highly intricate and playing out on a level that even financial experts sometimes struggle to grasp, the mess on Wall Street is in many way indicative of what has happened on Main Street and in Washington: Living beyond one’s means by racking up huge debts." This is what fools do. They have no comprehension of the way that finance works and yet they rush in and take out loans or run up credit card debt without the ability to pay.
This is because these people think only in the immediate moment. They have no foresight. They cannot and do not think ahead, if they will be able to repay what they owe. They only live in one dimension, now. They have not learned from their past mistakes and the future means nothing to them. They only want what they want and they want it now, no matter the consequences. This is the epitome of foolishness.
The frugal know that the only way to save money is to spend less than you earn. This absolute never changes. The only way that you can accomplish spending less than you earn is to know how much income you have and how much expenses you have on a monthly basis. This requires keeping records of income and expenses. By taking a look at your monthly expenses, you can find things that need to be cut out. One thing that needs to be done by a lot of people is reducing their monthly debt service. The less that you pay out, the more you have for yourself.
The frugal have been preaching for people not to live beyond their means for years and no one has had ears to hear. Then when this latest financial crisis hits everyone gets a hard lesson. This latest financial crisis could have been avoided, if wisdom was the prevailing attitude of our nation. It is apparent that foolishness is the intellectual norm. This is because people have been taught by our education system, there are no absolutes. The only problem is that absolutes keep appearing and prove these people to be foolish.
Living within your means takes something that the foolish lack, self-control. They are unable to control their spending and thus, they are in foreclosure or they resort to embezzling money from their employer. A spendthrift is the same as a drunkard. They are both given to excess. They have not learned how to restrain themselves. For all the talk about this present financial crisis that we are in and how people are being taught a hard lesson, unless someone learns to govern themselves, they will not change their behavior.
Budgeting is like going on a financial diet and most diets never work because people lack self discipline. Most people do not want to learn how a budget works and most importantly stick with it. This is because they know that they cannot restrain themselves. The lesson that is going to come out of this present financial crisis is that people will not have learned anything. They may adjust their behavior for a little while but like a drunkard, they will be off the wagon and back with credit card in hand saying, Charge it!
Proverbs 26:11 is appropriate in this situation, "As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly." While this editorial newspaper article contains the wisdom that one cannot live beyond one’s means and live on debt, it will not be universally heeded for too long. It is easy to predict that there will be another financial crisis because people will overextend themselves again. What is missing here is the fact is that self discipline is spiritual and most people are not spiritual. This is why they repeat the same foolish behavior over and over again. They may be taught the lesson, but they never learn.
You write very well.
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