This Country’s present financial crisis should strike fear in my heart because, in 1984, the day before Thanksgiving, my little oil company was placed into involuntary bankruptcy. The bankruptcy was cleared after several years but there was nothing left of the company but an empty shell. There is no fear in my heart because of today’s financial – quite the contrary.
My wife Anne and I lost everything we owned in the eighties bankruptcy and it could have been our ultimate undoing. It wasn’t. Before the bankruptcy I was suffering from stress, overweight and probably on my way to a heart attack, or stroke. When I finally accepted my fate and the stress lifted off my shoulders, I began jogging and eventually returned to my former good health.
I also began writing again after a hiatus of more than a decade.
I am a much older person now and will probably never be as rich as I was in my thirties – well, at least money-wise. Money doesn’t make people happy; they can only achieve that for themselves, in their own minds. My life isn’t perfect – far from it, but there is no doubt that I am a richer person now than I ever was then.
In John Lennon’s words, “Life is what happens to you while you’re making plans.”