In what turned out to be a metaphorically fitting end to the year, I accidentally dropped my cell phone in the toilet.
The five-second rule does not work on submerged electronics. I made my way over to the Verizon store where Katie spent 20 minutes working with me to file the insurance claim.
I felt a sense of gratitude toward this person, although she was simply doing her job, and handed her an almost-spent Caribou card that still had enough on it for a latte and a newspaper.
When I walked out of the store, I felt great about the entire transaction because I had balanced the scales.
This has been a year where debt has received a tremendous amount of publicity.
Mortgage debt, consumer debt, the national debt, Ecuador defaulting on its debt, etc. Every day we read about how much we owe and whether we can ever pay it back. The more we borrow and the longer for which we borrow, the more interest accrues. It seems like we are flushing trillions of dollars away.
But I can't right the government's balance sheet in a Sunday column, so instead, let's figure out what our 2009 personal debts are and what we should do about them.
The most obvious debts that we have are for things that we have purchased: home, education, a car or consumer items using money borrowed from an institution or family member. We have made an agreement with the lenders to pay them back. In her book "Payback," Margaret Atwood describes debt as a "human construct, thus an imaginative construct ... [that] mirrors and magnifies both voracious human desire and ferocious human fear."
The question we always need to ask ourselves is what we got for what we bought.
Debt hangover can last months or years after a spending binge. Borrowing for a home or education is a good thing. Both are considered long-term investments that should pay back considerably more than what was borrowed. Virtually anything else is spending tomorrow's earnings on today's wants. When we over-feed our desires, we often end up also feeding our fears.
One of today's great paradoxes is the conflict between spending to boost the economy and investing to boost the negative savings rate. The stimulus packages that will be forthcoming will allow both things to happen -- you can save and the government can spend.
If you choose to spend, think about spending on things that create lasting impact. The effects of a well-planned family vacation will last far longer than an impulsive "I-deserve-it" type of purchase. A gift to charity can go much further than a gift card.
You don't want to look back and feel as though you spent so much and yet have so little.
But there is another type of debt to be cleaned up in 2009. While 2008 was a difficult year for many of us, Atwood points out that "nature strives toward balances." Most of us have paid a price for the financial turmoil. We are severely out of balance.
Yet many of us also have people in our lives to whom we owe much. In my own life, I think about my wife, who has helped me survive this roller coaster of a year. I think about my dedicated partners and staff and clients for our business. I think about people from whom I have learned things over the years.
I want to pay back as many of them as I can this upcoming year with simple expressions of thanks.
Because memory is required for any debt to exist, we can also choose to erase the debts that we feel others owe us. Again, I don't mean the financial kind. Forgiving is not necessarily forgetting; some relationships are not possible. But we can still choose to disengage and not fight so hard for what is rightfully ours.
"Money isn't the only thing that must flow and circulate in order to have value: good turns and gifts must also flow and circulate for any social system to remain in balance," Atwood writes.
In many ways, this year brought out the best and the worst in people, but we only can control our own actions. When the social system is out of alignment, we can do our part to move it toward equilibrium.
A friend of mine sent me a quote that said, "To the world you may be one person, but to one person you might be the world."
Next year is guaranteed to be different from this year. Some things will be better, others worse. If you stop focusing on your submerged portfolios, your payback will arrive much sooner than you can imagine.
Spend your life wisely.
