Warning! Do not try this at home!

The story you are about to read is a true story. The names and places of the actual individuals have been changed to protect their identity. Any reproduction or transmission of this story in whole or in part is strictly forbidden and protected by copyright laws.

In our story today, we peek in at the lives of what was an ordinary middle class suburban family living in the south. Mike and Dee are the typical married couple with three children. Trying to make ends meet in an ever increasing credit card world, and living beyond their means for nearly ten years, they found themselves nearly $30,000 in debt. The debt story is the same story for thousands of Americans who because of the low home refinancing rates and constant bombardment of materialistic seduction find themselves sucked into a never ending buying vacuum. As hard as Mike and Dee try, they can’t seem to shake the habit. This is a habit of buying what they want when they want because they have the credit by which to purchase anything they want. They rationalize to themselves that Mike’s next bonus or Dee’s income from the next home business project will bring a chunk of cash of which they will put toward the debt. The fool proof plan fails because something inevitably comes up in which the money is needed and the debt grows with compounding interest.

Mike and Dee’s story takes an interesting turn for the worst when Mike decides to quit his job in search of a more fulfilling life purpose. Selling all their possessions, they decide to move in with Dee’s parents while they wait for the sale of the house. Once again their hope is in one big chunk of cash to set them free to live life as they desire. Mike and Dee have fallen into the trap of the money escape hatch. What they don’t realize is that they have already escaped.

For them it is very difficult to know that they have escaped because they are so close to the situation. The escape is not the difficult part all though it takes incredible fortitude to make the jump from one lifestyle to another, but the real challenge comes when because of the jump you see how messed up and out of order your life had become. Re-prioritizing comes with a great deal of pain, like a drug addict going through detox. It feels like the pain is too much to handle. It would just be better to go back to the old way of living. The problem is when you make the “life jump” there is no going back because you have already seen the truth.

When the desire to spend is gone it is a natural response of the human body to need a stimulus to replace that empty feeling. Worry becomes the new stimuli for the life jumpers. How will the bills get paid? How are we going to take care of next month’s food and gas needs? Once again it is difficult to see when you are in the moment, but worry is really vain superstition. This is a time of raw emotions and self-doubt. It is the condition which requires the warning, “Do not attempt this at home!” For Mike and Dee this internal motive examination feels like the life of a bug under the magnifying glass feeling the heat of the sunlight intensified to the point that external combustion is almost certain. If you have made it to this point in the story, Mike and Dee would like to seriously warn you to keep your ordinary comfortable lives. This is too difficult. If anyone tells you it will be fine you’ll make it through, turn and run for your life. It is impossible to make this journey alone.

Mike and Dee are fortunate enough to have a couple of friends who want to help them through this difficult transformational process. But there is another force at work in this story. To admit you have a problem, is to admit that you are weak, therefore the internal mechanism of pride rises to the top and paralyzes the individual to reach out for help. In a social climate that recognizes and promotes self resolution, humility and meekness is considered useless and ineffective.

Extended family can be a powerful aid in this difficult as well, however the addictions of the family can be traced from generation to generation. Mike and Dee while staying at her parent’s house find this to be true. It is like a double edge sword; in this concentrated environment near the source of contention, it has the potential to completely heal the ailment or to bring about certain death of the life jumper’s spirit. Just one incident that comes close to the original wound can bring you to the edge of the knife of destruction that kills the spirit of hope or it can set you free to live life like never before. Many times in this concentrated environment there are repeated “close calls.”

Once again please, Do not attempt this at home! We must break for station identification and messages from our supporters. What will happen to Mike and Dee? Stay tuned.

To be continued…