No one is perfect. Many of us ended up with big debts, and low income after school. We don’t have the BMW and the mansion we always thought we’d have by now, and frankly some of us don’t even have a used Chevy and rent. Instead our expectations for life after college gave way to a very different life straddled with student loans we struggle to pay off.
I bought a business once that I thought was going to make me a killing. After buying it I discovered the seller was involved with fraud and the business wasn’t going to get the big bucks I expected. This was rough to accept. I was subject to extensive hard work, a big time commitment, and a big loan only to be straddled with a losing business position. I lost a ton of money, and a ton of time never to be recovered. It really sucked, and set my life back substantially.
At first I was extremely angry at the seller, angry at the bank, and angry at myself. This was not at all fair. This was not what I was promised, and not what I expected.
While those emotions are natural, when it was all said and done however, I discovered what I needed to do. I had to forgive myself. That is the most important thing I could do even though it was hard.
I have now forgiven myself. Sometimes investments are not what we expect or plan for, and we need to learn from them. The best of us take our failures and use them to improve ourselves as well as to help teach others around us so they don’t have to make the same mistakes we did.
I can be angry. I can blame others. And once I take responsibility, I can blame myself for listening to those others, and taking their bad advice and faulty direction.
I do believe students who are in a rough loan situation deserve forgiveness for the mistakes they made… It is human to make mistakes and to learn from them. The most important person they need to forgive however, is themselves.
That does not mean they are free from the obligations they owe, just as I was not free from the loan I took to purchase the business. They are not free from the fact that they made an unfortunately bad investment decision based on questionable advice from their parents, friends, and even the colleges themselves.
So graduates- Forgive yourself first, and then make sure you teach your children and your friends’ children about how to intelligently make investment decisions such as business purchases, stocks, or the other common investment for young adults- college. While there is a lot of opportunity in investments such as college, investments can be risky and often do not pan out. This is a tough lesson, but one that every young adult needs to learn sooner than later.
We all deserve forgiveness for our mistakes and transgressions, but this does not mean we should ever expect to force others to compensate us for our mistakes. We learn from them, and do our best to help others in our community learn from our mistakes. This is the definition of life.
So if you are in a rough spot from student loans- Forgive yourself first. Then help others so they don’t repeat your mistakes!
I wanted to help others, and I wrote the book “The College Dilemma” specifically for this reason. So lets all do our part to forgive ourselves, and then help others!