#happiness #TeachingHappiness #schools
Most of us think of happiness as a feeling.
Either we are happy, or we are not.
In Delhi, India, children have a class on happiness in school.
It appears the public schools in Delhi are experimenting with such a class, since schools in India are so obsessed with test scores that the obsession may be stressing the students.
Vidhi Doshi wrote about this in an article in The Washington Post. It was also published July 29, 2018, in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
And, the article says, the classes have paid off. Delhi’s public schools have outperformed the private schools on standardized test in recent years.
“We should work happily,” the article quotes Aayush Jha, 11, who took his first happiness class. “When you work sadly, your work will not be good,” he said.
But, after nearly three decades of rapid industrialization in India, some states in the country made exams easier and graded them leniently to bring up the scores. Some students got through high school without being able to read or write, the article says.
So now, experts in India are asking whether the focus on employability has stifled creativity and stymied social progress, the article says.
So, how do the classes work? Some 10,000 Delhi students spend the first half-hour of each day without opening a book, learning instead through inspirational stories and activities, as well as meditation exercises, the article says.
It’s kind of like recess, indoors, to start the day.
During this period, the students are encouraged to think about what makes them happy.
So, if your job, or school, stresses you out, start the day by thinking about what makes you happy.
Not just, say, ice cream, or cake. Instead, think about what you want out of your life that you don’t currently have. It may inspire you to do something different or, at the very least, allow you to go to work inspired to do something great. Then, you may be able to have what you want, eventually.
In realistic terms, however, many jobs will not provide people with what they want out of life. The jobs either don’t pay enough, or occupy too much of our time – or both.
If you have a really big dream, and your situation isn’t getting you closer to achieving that dream, it may be time to look at something else.
Fortunately, there are a number of vehicles out there that, starting with a small, part-time effort, could give you what you need to fulfill that dream. To check out one of the best such vehicles, message me.
As we’ve learned in the U.S., focusing an education system on test scores may not be the best way to educate children. We certainly want our children to achieve as much as they can academically, but kids need time to be kids.
They also need to learn the value of skills that are not easily measured – happiness, friendliness, working as part of a team, getting along well with others etc. They can be just as important to one’s career as math, science, social studies and language.
Perhaps U.S. children don’t need to take a class in these “soft” skills, but they should learn them as part of their overall education.
Chronic unhappiness not only leads to other mental and physical problems, it can reduce productivity.
We’ve been taught to work smarter, rather than harder. We should all learn to work happy, live happy. We may have to work harder to create that happiness.
Peter
Tag Archives: The Washington Post
PLAY MORE, WORRY LESS
#PlayMore #WorryLess #fun
Laurie Santos greeted her Yale University students with slips of paper that said, “No class today.”
Though she was canceling class in the middle of the semester with exams and papers looming, she instructed her students NOT to use the 75 minutes studying. She told them that they had to enjoy their time.
“She was asking them to stop worrying about grades, even if only for an hour,” writes Susan Svrluga, in an article for The Washington Post. It was also published May 20, 2018, in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
As you might guess, Santos psychology class, titled “Psychology and the Good Life,” is the largest class, by far, in Yale’s 317-year history, Svrluga writes.
Before you start laughing, students, particularly those who go to top-notch universities, have pretty rugged schedules. They take courses. Some juggle those courses – homework, tests, papers etc. – around part-time jobs.
There are times when kids need to just kick back and do something fun or, at least, restful.
Perhaps some folks are, let’s just say, not sympathetic. Life isn’t like that. One has to have rigor to make life good, right?
Yet, that is an oxymoron.
The bigger lesson here might be creating balance in your life. If you work all the time, even make lots of money, but never take time to enjoy it, what good is it?
Certainly, for the students, their rigor is temporary. But what Santos is trying to teach them is, to quote the old adage, “all work and no play makes Johnny (or Janey) a dull boy (or girl).”
All too often, the “good life,” as we see it, involves trappings such as kids’ ball games, cooking dinner, mowing the lawn and, oh yes, having a job that might eat you alive.
We schedule ourselves, or over-schedule ourselves, if you prefer, down to every last minute. If you are going from the time you get up to the time you go to bed – perhaps incapable of finding down time – that, by and large, is not good.
The Santos class is teaching young kids who are, just from the school they are attending, likely to be high achievers to, using another cliché, “stop and smell the roses.”
We’ve previously talked about creating happiness. This class is showing kids that they MUST find time in their busy schedules to do that, however they wish.
If you find the idea for this class instructive, but are overly worried whether you are doing enough to keep your head above water, know that there are many vehicles out there to help you if you are either time-broke, or not financially where you’d like to be. To learn about one of the best, message me.
Meanwhile, don’t laugh at Santos’ class or the many students who are taking it. Life lessons are as important, or more so, than academic ones.
Sometimes, you have to say to yourself, “I need a break.” But, your life has become such that you have no clue how to take one.
Perhaps you should study what’s taught in Santos’ class. It might even change your life for the better.
Peter
MIDLIFE: A NEW ERA
#midlife #MidlifeCrisis #MiddleAge #MidlifeRelaunch
Midlife, generally defined starting at age 40 to about, say, age 60, has always been a time of change.
Some, particularly men, tend to long for their youth, when their bodies and minds were fit and nimble. They tend to look for love and respect – at home, at work or both – and don’t always get it. So, they may venture out of their regular lives and make impulse purchases or, worse, mistakes.
Others may see it as the best part of their careers. For example, a lawyer who may have spent his entire career since law school in the same firm, may look to become a full partner. He goes from doing the legal grunt work for others, to schmoozing and recruiting clients.
But, alas, midlife is changing in modern times. Companies see older workers as more expensive than younger ones. They may have a good deal of seniority, higher salaries, more vacation time etc. There’s also an attitude of older workers not being as comfortable with rapid change as younger ones.
Jonathan Rauch addressed this issue in a story for The Washington Post. It was also published April 22, 2018, in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
“If you wanted to design a society that exacerbated midlife misery and squandered the potential of later adulthood, you might deliver education in a single lump during the first two decades of life, load work into the middle decades and the herd healthy, happy and highly skilled older adults into idleness. In other words, you would do more or less what we have been doing for the past century or so,” Rauch writes.
That model, he writes, made some sense when people mostly needed a high school diploma, held one kind of job for life and died around 65. “But it offers nothing by way of guidance and support for the kind of midlife relaunch that today’s Americans increasingly demand, and that today’s America increasingly needs,” he writes.
It really hard to jump out of the lives we’d carved for ourselves by our 40s, he writes.
“How can I reinvent my life while meeting responsibilities and making ends meet? What are the options and how can I sort through them all? Those questions and many more clobber anyone who contemplates a midlife relaunch,” Rauch writes.
Midlifers need employers who want to hire and/or retain them, who find them not only useful, but valuable. They need employers who will hire workers who not only want some flexibility in their lives, but also can apply old skills to new ventures, the article points out.
If you are hitting midlife today, it’s a scary place. If you are still working at a job you like, or are using the skills you were trained for, you are indeed fortunate. However, beware. Companies today reorganize frequently, and without warning to employees. Younger managers are coming in, and may not view you in the same way as they view others in his cohort.
If you’ve been pushed out of your good job for one reason or another, and are not mentally, psychologically or financially ready to retire, you may have to think outside the box on what to do next.
Perhaps, instead of taking a job that pays much less than your old one, and underutilizes your skill, you can find a new way to earn an income without having the obligations, headaches and fear of what’s next that a conventional job creates.
There are many such vehicles out there, if you are willing to look for them. To check out one of the best, message me.
If you are middle aged and at a crossroads in your life, try to first see all the good that is in your life. Then, give some thought about what to do next.
If you are younger, say, in your 20s or 30s, you don’t know what middle age will bring. You, too, should start to consider what YOU will do if, or when, your good job – and potentially your career – suddenly goes away. You don’t know when or whether that will come, but it’s best to prepare for it.
Hard work and achievement can get you a long way. But it may not save you when that next reorganization, or bad manager, comes into your life.
Peter
HOW TO DEAL WITH TOO MUCH MONTH AT THE END OF THE MONEY
#spending #saving #overspending #TrappedByLifestyle
“People … make $250,000, $500,000 a year and they don’t know where their money is going,” says financial adviser Lori Atwood.
How can this be?
Thomas Heath spoke to Atwood, and wrote an article for The Washington Post. It was also published in the April, 9, 2018, edition of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
“How does a family drop $500 in one month at McDonald’s?” Heath asks. “When you have a husband and wife with high-powered jobs working 10 or 12 hours a day, who feels like cooking?” Heath writes.
Atwood, Heath writes, calls the phenomenon, “trapped by the lifestyle.”
Yes, people making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year – working, working, working – yet have no savings. “It’s true, but ridiculous, “: Heath quotes Atwood, founder of Fearless Finance financial software.
Speaking about folks who live in Northwest Washington, D.C., Heath quotes Atwood as saying many people have “over-housing. They don’t have to have the house they own,” she’s quoted as saying.
Over-housing, she says, is a savings killer, along with child care expenses, private school tuition, student loan payments etc.
“People say getting rid of x,y,z is not an option,” Heath quotes Atwood. “Groceries, electricity and heat are not options. Anything else is on the table.”
Does this sound familiar to you? Is your lifestyle killing your future? Are you living well above, instead of below, your means?
If so, you can do something about it. As Atwood suggests in the article, you can start by moving to more affordable, yet adequate, housing. There are plenty of places you can live in which the schools are perfectly fine, the neighborhood is safe and it’s relatively easy to get back and forth to work.
Lifestyle entrapment also generally leads to being time-broke. If you’re working that hard to make a good living, chances are you are missing out on some things you should be a part of, or present for, i.e. some of your children’s accomplishments.
No one should advocate that a parent should be around for EVERY activity for a child, but you should understand the difference between the important ones, and the lesser ones – the ones you can really skip if something important occurs in your job.
If you find yourself trapped in a certain lifestyle, as Atwood points out in the article, find out where your money is going, what is necessary spending and what is not, and prioritize.
If all this not only makes you financially broke, but time-broke as well, there are many vehicles out there that will let you, by spending a few non-working hours a week, augment your income. There’s even one that will allow you to find ways to spend less on essentials, as well as non-essentials. To learn more about that, message me.
The article illustrates that it isn’t just poor people who are broke. Others who are making good money are making poor decisions on how they spend it. They don’t realize they are, essentially, mortgaging their futures to have certain things now.
Certainly, there is nothing wrong with working hard, making good money, giving your kids perhaps something you didn’t have as a kid, etc. Just understand that the future will not take care of itself. You have to plan for your own future.
Besides, wouldn’t you like to have something to show for all your hard work, long after you stop working?
Peter
PENSIONS, RETIREMENT AND DECUMULATION?
#pensions #retirement #decumulation #MoneyandTime
The news stories appeared next to each other on the same day.
One headline read, “As pension plans fade, workers find retirement more elusive.” The story, written by Peter Whorisky for The Washington Post, talks about how pension plans are on the decline and workers are increasingly dependent on their own savings for retirement.
The second headline read, “Why you should resolve to spend more money.” The story, written by Suzanne Woolley for Bloomberg News, talks about how retirees who have diligently saved and invested for their retirement, should consciously decide to spend down some of those savings after years of frugality.
Both stories were published Jan. 28, 2018, in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
The obvious question here: what retirement position are you in, and is it the right place for you?
Many can relate to the former. Perhaps they were promised a pension by their employer when they were hired, but that pension is no longer offered. Or, perhaps the pension benefit disappeared.
Perhaps not nearly as many can relate to the latter. If you are fortunate enough to have a good retirement nest egg, by all means, enjoy it. Do what you like to do. But, as any financial adviser would tell you, it’s best to take out the dividends, interest and other earnings your money produces first. A good rule: if you never touch your principal, you will never outlive your money. So, spend, but spend with some care.
Retirement didn’t used to be this complicated. In decades past, one was hired for a job and, if they stayed out of trouble, showed up every day and did what was expected of them for many years, they could count on retirement benefits.
They would get whatever pension their employers gave, combined it with Social Security and, perhaps, some savings and/or a no-stress, part-time job that provided some pocket money.
To live in such a retirement, one had to spend carefully. Perhaps they had enough to enjoy some hobbies, travel, spoil grandchildren etc. But most had to watch how they spent their money. You may have heard the pleas of, “we’re on a fixed income, you know.”
Hopefully, by this time, their mortgages were paid off and there were very few other debts.
Contrast that with today. Job security is non-existent. Pensions, as the article says, are not offered to as many people. Many don’t have a great deal of savings for retirement, and perhaps have vowed to work until they die – or until their employer forces them to leave.
The “fixed incomes” of many fortunate retirees is greater than those of many of the younger, working cohort that’s helping to fund their parents’ Social Security payments.
The part-time “retirement” jobs many are forced to take involve longer-than-desired hours, much stress and take away whatever fun retirement might offer.
There is some good news in all this. There are many ways people can earn potentially good incomes by spending a few hours a week – and have some fun doing it. The good news: it doesn’t involve taking a second, or “retirement,” part-time job. To check out one of the best, message me.
If you are young, you can think about doing this using some time when you aren’t working at your traditional job. If you are diligent, you could be in the position of having a comfortable, spendable nest egg when you retire, and have the kind of decision the second article features.
If you are retired, either by choice or force, time is on your side, and you may find a less stressful way to earn an income.
So think about your retirement position today, and bear in mind that what you were promised, or what you thought you might get, may not be there. Build enough of a nest egg, however you choose to, so you won’t have to “work until you die.”
Peter
MONEY CAN BUY HAPPINESS: REALLY?
#MoneyCanBuyHappiness #time #money
“If you were given $40 on the condition that you had to spend it on something that would make you really happy, what would you do with the money?”
So asks Jenna Gallegos, who discussed time and money in an article in The Washington Post. The article also was published July 30, 2017, in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
The answer to the above question would be different for just about everyone. Some would buy a piece of their favorite food or beverage. Some would buy that shiny, new object they’ve had their eyes on. Some wise folk might decide to put it in the bank, postponing their happiness for another few years.
Gallegos quotes a study published in the journal PNAS, saying people who buy time by paying someone to complete a household task are more satisfied with life.
We all have a to-do list that includes tasks that someone else can do better and faster than we. If it’s going to take you several days to, say, paint a room, but a professional painter can come in and knock out that job in a few hours, would that be worth it to you?
OK, some folks love to paint, garden, mow the lawn or do household and auto repairs themselves. For many of us, though, those are drudge tasks, or tasks we cannot accomplish ourselves competently. For some people, the “challenge” of doing something themselves rather than paying someone else to do it allows them to brag about it to friends and family.
Gallegos might ask: are those people in that latter category really happy? Across all surveys, Gallegos writes, life satisfaction was typically higher when people spent money to save their time – regardless of their household income, hours worked (at their regular job) per week, marital status and number of children living at home. (Disclaimer: very few with extremely low incomes were surveyed, Gallegos points out).
The point here is that time is money. Most leadership and motivational experts say you should devote the largest percentage of your (work) time to the things YOU do best. The rest, if possible, should be delegated. There’s a trap here, too. Those same experts might also advise that you not ask anyone who works for you, or with you, to do anything you would not do, talking about those menial, yet necessary tasks to get the job done.
So, for the sake of argument, we won’t focus on those work-related things. We’ll focus on tasks you must do in your time outside of work.
Gallegos cites another study, in which 60 working adults in Vancouver were given $40 on each of two consecutive weekends. They were told to spend that money on a material purchase one weekend, and a time-saving purpose another. The researchers found the time-saving purchases were accompanied by an increased positive effect, and less time stress, Gallegos writes.
Yet in another Vancouver study group of 98 working adults, they were asked how they would spend $40 if it were given to them. Only 2% said they would buy more time, Gallegos writes.
In short, time is indeed money and using your money to buy more time for you to do things you enjoy creates happiness. There are many folks out there who have a combination of not enough money and not enough time to enjoy life. If that description fits you, and you are willing to check out something outstanding that will solve your money/time problems, message me.
Understand that time can’t be replaced. You should be spending the bulk of your time doing things YOU do best, if you can. You should maximize your leisure time doing things that please you the most. It will make you happier.
Money CAN buy happiness, if you use it to purchase time.
Peter
POLITICAL SCANDAL AND LOST JOBS
#PoliticalScandal #LostJobs #NewCareers
An engineer, 50, at the peak of his career, loses his job and can’t even get a callback, after an interview.
The CEO of the company he’d worked for was arrested and jailed and, just like that, 100,000 construction jobs are gone.
Today, that engineer operates a small, hair-removal salon in a mall on the outskirts of Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Operation Car Wash, a sprawling investigation that traced corruption from a Brasilia gas station to the highest level of government in Brazil, has wrecked the economy there.
The investigation was discussed at length in an article by Marina Lopes and Nick Miroff in The Washington Post. It was also published June 25, 2017, in The Atlanta Journal Constitution.
It has put in prison not only several politicians, but also executives in Brazil’s construction, petrochemical and meat industries. They are charged with trading bribes in lieu of lucrative government contracts, the article says.
Fortunately, we are facing nothing like that here, though, in the last decade, lots of 50-year-olds and others who had good jobs have lost them. Many of them have had to take jobs that paid much less than the jobs they’d lost – if they were fortunate enough to find work at all.
In Brazil, workers paid a steep price for the games of the rich and powerful. Unlike in Brazil, we in the U.S. have the ability, or can cultivate the ability, to weather hard times better, the article says.
The trick for us is that we have to be open to different things – not just what makes us comfortable.
As we find that replacement jobs pay much less, and offer fewer benefits, to thrive and prosper, we must be willing to check out things that we would have never dreamed we would do.
There are ways to prosper in trying times. When such vehicles are presented, though, one must be willing and open to check them out.
If you are hard-working, and what you are doing now does not suit you, your lifestyle, your family and your future, and would like to check out something different, message me.
Brazilians support the Car Wash investigation, hoping that it will clean house and will create a new culture of transparency, the article says.
Sometimes, one must go through something terrible to find out how strong he or she might be.
Sometimes, doors are suddenly closed, yet windows, or even bigger doors, are opened.
“The Brazilian engineering industry is finished,” the article quotes Silvia Boccagini, 52, a pipe technician in Brazil.
As for Ricardo Coelho, the 50-year-old engineer the article featured, he’s making more money with his hair-removal business than he did as a civil engineer.
“I’ll never go back,” the article quotes him.
Some of us can’t go back, even if we want to. It’s time we found something great to go to, rather than complain that we can’t go back.
Peter
GENDER ROLES CHANGING IN WORKPLACE
#workplaces #GenderRoles #WomensJobs #MensJobs
More men are expected to be attracted to “women’s jobs” in the coming years.
However, the reverse is not proving to be a trend.
That’s according to research by Jed Kolko, economist at the job-search site Indeed. His study was quoted in an article by Ana Swanson in the Washington Post. It was also published in the April 23, 2017, edition of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Kolko concludes that less-educated men may especially face challenges in the job market of the future, the article says.
“In recent decades, fields that are dominated by men and by women have not fared equally. Many men have fallen out of work as increased mechanization has allowed the U.S. to produce more agricultural and manufacturing goods than ever, with fewer people than before,” the article says.
“Jobs that are dominated by women are projected to grow nearly twice as fast as jobs that are dominated by men,” the article quotes the Kolko study, based on figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
“Fast-growing ‘male’ jobs that require lots of education don’t really help men without a college degree who have been in traditionally ‘male’ jobs,” the article quotes Kolko.
We all have an idea what a “male” job – construction, manufacturing, mining, farming etc. –or a “female job” – nursing, administrative assistant, etc. –is. The article says that computer programming was once dominated by women, but is now heavily male.
It’s been reported many times that men fared worse in the Great Recession than women. The good jobs done largely by men went away more quickly than those done mostly by women.
Kolko points out that some “female” jobs, such as telephone operaters and textile workers, also have been automated out, according to the article.
The broader trend is away from manufacturing and more toward services, which could draw men into jobs traditionally dominated by women, the article says.
So let’s step back and examine this. Good jobs in general are disappearing quickly. Lots of folks, if they are lucky to find new jobs, generally are getting paid less than their previous jobs paid them. Many are not using the skills they were trained for. Those skills, largely, are being replaced by machines. There’s nothing a person can do to stop that!
But what a person CAN do is think about other ways to make money. There are many such vehicles out there for those willing to step out of what’s comfortable, and look at something different. To learn about one of the best such vehicles, message me.
The economy, the recession, downsizing – however you wish to think about it – is not something that will, or can, go away. So, if such circumstances hit you, don’t beat yourself up. Sure, those circumstances will hurt, but by further beating yourself, the pain will be worse.
Americans can be very resilient. Sometimes, tough circumstances require bold action. Sometimes, one has to think differently to better himself.
If you view yourself as a hard-working person, and most do, don’t expect someone to give you something. You may have to look for other opportunities, perhaps completely unrelated to what you’ve done before.
So whether you’ve been doing a “male” job, or a “female” job, and it has gone away, remember that someone you know, or may not yet know, may introduce you to something you may have never heard of. Listen. Don’t dismiss it out of hand. You could be hearing about the light at the end of your tunnel.
Peter
JOB MARKET GETTING CRAZY
#JobMarket #employment #SmallBusiness
After years of recovering from the 2008 recession, the job market is starting to look good, even for those who’ve had a hard time finding work in the last decade.
The number of part-time workers who would prefer full-timework dropped by 281,000 in April 2017. Those numbers dropped from 9.2 million at the peak of the job crisis, to 5.3 million in April, according to an article in USA Today by Paul Davidson. It was published May 11, 2017, in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
On the opposite side of the coin, many baby boomers who are small-business owners are at or approaching retirement. That may produce a “silver tsunami” of job losses among those who work for those retiring business owners, according to an article by Gene Marks in The Washington Post. That article was also published May 10, 2017, in TheAtlanta Journal-Constitution.
According to Project Equity, many small business owners do not have a succession plan. Therefore, many of those businesses will quietly close forever, the Marks article quotes Project Equity co-founder Alison Lingane.
Let’s examine these two trends together.
Many big employers are finding it hard to find workers. Small businesses may quietly close when their owners retire, putting lots of folks out of work.
“There simply aren’t enough” available workers, the Davidson article quotes Joe Brusuelas, chief economist for consulting firm RSM U.S. “The dynamic has shifted. Labor is going to have power for the first time in years,” the quote continues.
“Since today most family-owned businesses don’t have somebody in the next generation who wants to take over, employee ownership is one of the best ways to keep thriving businesses locally rooted into the next generation,” the Marks article quotes Mark Quinn, district director of the U.S. Small Business Administration.
So, are you finding that your employment prospects are looking better? Do you work for small business with an owner who’ll retire soon, with no plan to keep the business going?
Do you like what you do? If so, enjoy the better job prospects, or become an owner of the company for whom you work. That’s easier said than done, obviously.
If you don’t like what you do, and really need a change, there are many vehicles out there to earn a potentially great income and help others do the same. To check out one of the best such vehicles, message me.
We’re all hearing and reading good news about the economy, but some folks still are not seeing the improvements in their own lives. There are still a good number of folks who, if they are still working, are working a job that paid less than the one they lost. Others just never found work at all after losing a good job, and have quietly left the job market.
In those cases, complaining, blaming various people or entities for one’s plight is not productive. One must take action – perhaps a different action from the one(s) he has taken thus far – to find a better way to live.
Indeed, there is much to be excited and optimistic about out there. Likely, those things may not just land in your lap. Or, if they do, they may do so in the form of a person – someone you already know, or will meet for the first time – who has something to show you.
Don’t be afraid. Check it out. If that person is honest, he’ll take no for an answer. (If he doesn’t, walk away). Saying no before looking could bring you much regret.
Peter
WHEN JOBS ARE SCARCE, PEOPLE LOOK TO DISABILITY PAYMENTS
#disability #DisabilityPayments #SocialSecurityDisability
Between 1996 and 2015, the number of working-age adults receiving disability payments climbed from 7.7 million to 13 million.
The federal government this year will spend an estimated $192 billion on disability payments, more than the combined total for food stamps, welfare, housing subsidies and unemployment assistance.
The above statistics were quoted in a Washington Post article on the rise in people on disability in rural areas, because of a lack of jobs.
The article, written by Terrence McCoy, with photos by Bonnie Jo Mount, was published April 9, 2017, in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
The Post analyzed Social Security Administration statistics and told the stories of several working-age adults in rural America with various aches, pains etc., who are not working and have slim prospects of finding work where they live.
Are they disabled, or just desperate? the article asks.
It’s been said that almost anyone older than 40 can find some ailment that could qualify them for disability.
Desmond Spencer from Alabama, who wouldn’t turn 40 for a few months, according to when the Post article was written, struggled with the thought of being disabled.
As he fielded calls from debt collectors, he felt various parts of his body hurting, as he took family members to a pain clinic.
“There’s a stigma about (going on disability),” the article quotes Spencer. “Disabled. Disability. Drawing a check. But if you’re putting food on the table, does it matter?” the article quotes Spencer.
We can debate whether the government should be paying this much out in disability. We can also debate the qualifications to draw disability payments. We can also debate the amount of fraud that may be in the Social Security disability program.
But when one has no job at a relatively young age, and the job prospects are slim, it’s easy to see how otherwise hard-working people can become desperate, discouraged or defeated, as the article puts it.
But in all the misery, there is good news.
For those who prefer not to be on the dole, there are many ways out there to earn an income – perhaps even a better income than one earned while he was working. To hear about one of the best such vehicles, message me.
To sum it up, many jobs that have been lost are not coming back. Many people who have lost good jobs are forced to take jobs that pay less – even considerably less – than the job they lost.
In some rural areas of the country, jobs in general are scarce and many working-age adults must either move or be stuck without a job.
Some who have become unemployed must also take care of family members with health challenges.
The solution: think long and hard about how you want to live your life. If you are depressed, get treated for it. If not, try to look for ways to be as productive as you can. Disability payments are not the best solution, if you are able to do most things for yourself. By the way, some who could legitimately claim disability do not, and would rather not. They prefer independence.
Look for other ways to survive, even thrive. Do it for yourself, and your family. You’ll feel much better if you look for a different way.
Peter