Journal Entry - No money. No money! No money!!

Thought of the day

Perception is everything. One thing about the human brain is that whatever it perceives to be real is real. To me, that means if I change how I perceive things I can, in a sense, change my reality. I don't mean that I need to bury my head in the sand like a jackass and act like my problems aren't real. Instead it means that I need to look at my problems as challenges, and my life as an adventure. I possess the ability to change my life simply by following my passions and dreams. Yes, of course I have to do certain things in order to survive, but as long as I stay focused on where I want to be in the end I can change my life. I mean I didn't get into this mess that I'm in overnight. It's taken me the last 20 years to get to this point. However, I refuse to give up because I am not a victim of circumstance. I made choices in my life that brought me where I am to day and I can reverse that by making better choices moving forward.  You can do the same! Your circumstances may not be as bad as mine, or they may be worse. Either way the concept is still the same. You must accept that you are where you are mainly due to choices that YOU have made, and it will be YOU who must choose to get yourself out of it.  I watched a video by ET The Hip-Hop Preacher recently that said "When you want to succeed as badly as you want to breath - you will succeed." 

How badly do you want it? How badly do I want it? I guess we will find out.

Journal Entry

Today has been pretty okay. It went by pretty quickly because I had to go out to a property in Rockville to help out and there was a decent amount of work to do. I was a little bit nervous though because I had to drive about 30 miles round trip and I don't have a lot of gas left...and $30 left to last me until this coming Thursday. Man it sucks to be broke! The good thing is that I only need to make it until Wednesday and I have enough food to last me until then. I'm more nervous about the next two weeks following my next check though because I have car insurance and my cell phone bill to pay, which will leave me with maybe $75 left over. I see a lot of ramen noodles, beans, rice, oatmeal, and maybe eggs in my future. Oh well, things could be worse. It's just frustrating because before my youngest sons child support kicked in I was living on about $450 per biweekly check which was bad enough but now I'm reduced to $250. Who the fuck can survive on so little? At least my rent is covered because it comes directly out of my paycheck. I have to admit though that I am truly blessed because I live in the heart of Capitol Hill and I only pay about $450 per month for rent while most others in my building pay over $1000. My apartment is nice too. When I moved in I was able to install brand new cabinets, appliances, and redo the bathroom. The one major drawback is that I have paper thin walls and my neighbors hear everything from my guitar playing and singing to me having sex. One time recently while having sex in my own room, my neighbor banged on my wall to express her frustration with the noise. We weren't that loud either. It's not like we were screaming in pornographic decibel levels. It's all good though, I just consider it free advertisement. I do think it's time to start searching outside job opportunities though. 

 

To save money I've been cooking a lot more at home lately, which is something I don't typically do. I mean I love to cook but for some reason I am far less likely to cook just for myself than I am for someone else. There's something about doing something that you love and sharing it with someone. I'm finding that learning to live with less has removed a great deal of distraction from my life. This frees up more of my time to do other things like practice my guitar and write which are two things that I love to do and could definitely stand to do more of. I'm trying to stay positive and remember that there are many people who are far worse off than I am. It just gets harder and harder to do so with each new bill that comes in. I'm one small emergency away from a bad situation. I can't think about that though. The key for me is to realize and accept what is beyond my control and deal with what I can control.

What upsets me the most about this whole thing is that there are so many men out there that don't pay child support either because they duck and dodge or their children's mothers don't make them do so. That shit pisses me off! I mean, here I am barely scraping by because I pay what I owe and these other fucks get off scot-free. For example, my last girlfriend never took her son’s father to court and that dude makes well over six figures. He does send money and spend time with his son but he pays WAY less than he would through the court system. For that matter he has no set time to see his son but rather comes to see him when he has time. WTF?! Then she complains to me about how she doesn't get enough money from him and how she wishes he would come and get his son more often. I always wanted to tell her to shut the fuck up because she is allowing it to happen. I never did though because it's not my place and is frankly none of my business. I admit that I am a little bitter but I promise I am working on it. In the end I have the satisfaction of saying that I am one of the better ones. I am far from the best but I am not the worst. I don't judge those men though because who knows what they're dealing with in their lives. I'm just projecting my frustrations about being broke onto them. I mean, this is a journal so I have the right to vent right?  

Until next time...