Letters to the Editor
Older and Wiser
Published Letters: 56 Editor's Choice: 19
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A House IS a Home
[Read the article: Help! I'm a prisoner in a big suburban house!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The biggest mistake people make these days is treating buying a house as a financial investment. Wrong, wrong, wrong. The real estate market, despite occasional aberrations, will always have ups and downs. When one of my friends was considering selling her rather expensive house and worried if she should wait for prices to go back up, I pointed out that any smaller house (in the same area) she’d want to buy from the sale proceeds would also have fluctuated in price. If her house decreased in value, then so did the smaller house she wanted to buy. So looking at the dollar price was misleading.
Cary’s right about the ideal urban environment. But, lacking that, the LW and spouse should look for a place not just to have a house, but where they want to LIVE. I moved from NYC to Massachusetts (outside Boston) over twenty years ago. The adjustment wasn’t always easy, but for years, in addition to working, I’ve been on the volunteer board of two local organizations, which has involved me more deeply in the community in creative, connective, and gratifying ways. I feel that I not only live here, I’m helping to contribute to the quality of life of the community.
My house is quite comfortable, not a McMansion, and I’ve been continually paying off the mortgage and living within my means. My house is my (and my children’s) HOME. The community is our community.
I think the LW and spouse should consider where and how they want to live, who they want as neighbors, where their (future) kids might go to school, what the community has to offer them, and vice-versa. The big picture is so important to making one’s house a home, and making one’s home in a community.
Do some research and go with your heart and gut. Good luck.
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The Whole Self
[Read the article: Have I ruined my karma by sleeping with prostitutes?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]LW, I'm sure there are many things in your life that you're not mentioning in this letter, but may have relevance to your situation. What I'm sensing here is that you're not a problem-solver with sufficent self-respect and motivation to get to better places in your life, despite adverse circumstances.
For example, you say that shortly after your wife developed a medical condition, you started seeing prostitutes. Well. Did you consider, or did you actually undergo, any kind of counseling that would have increased or improved intimacy with your wife? Did you seek out help to see if there could have been some kind of compromise, or perhaps determine that this was a temporary situation? From what you say, the sex stopped, so off you went to the working girls. It's a fix, but not a solution.
I don't know what line of work you're in, but I don't get why you have to work so far from home--unless that's what you really wanted (again avoiding problems in your marriage). You say nothing else about your wife except that she'll be the lucky individual to look after you in your declining years and dotage. So, let's see--she's a "failed" sex partner and a future geriatric nurse. Is there anything else to her? I'd imagine there is.
And even though the economy stinks, I'd bet, from your self-pitying tone, that you've made only half-hearted attempts to find another job.
You haven't screwed up your "karma," you've made bad decisions and have convinced yourself that they're somehow not your responsibility. Avoiding negative impacts is not the same as creating positive impacts in your life. You're not taking real responsibility in your life and marriage, and therefore not avidly seeking real solutions. Maybe the marriage should be terminated, maybe it can be saved, but your passivity does nothing but prolong the problem.
I think you should pull your karma out of your tush and get real regarding your marital and employment situations. Own up to your responsibilities (which are more than just the second salary, no matter how necessary), demand more and better of yourself, and move forward accordingly.
You owe this much to yourself and your wife. The only way to "fix" your karma is to fix your head about being proactive and taking steps to improve your situation, which will in turn improve your self-image and self-respect which, in my view, is largely what karma is all about.