It is a time for me to be grateful. Were I presumptuous, I would say Thanksgiving is a time for all of us to be so. However, a recent event has taught me clearly to remove “presumption” from my life.
I am, indeed, so grateful for my family and friends who circled the wagons and fought a dreadful battle with me over the past few weeks; protected me and supported me with little comment on an issue to which I referred frequently of late on this venue. It was an issue in which I made a financial error more than a year ago and for which I was clearly wrong, if “wrong” is the correct characterization for simply making a mistake.
My friends and family banded together and fought the battle for me, as for the first time in my life, or at least that I can recall, I was set into an awful state of anxiety and fear, both irrational, but nonetheless clearly manifest. An attorney friend handled the communications, an accountant friend handled the audit and a client kicked in the entire amount due, not as a loan, but as a gift. Others supported me emotionally, psyhologically…”the guy’s an ungrateful SOB” they clamored.
To exacerbate matters, I was facing eye surgery, which transpired successfully yesterday, but added to the anxiety.
I was fast moving into a new state of mind for me, one in which professionally I felt I would do nothing for anyone, clients or prospects, for which I would not be compensated immediately. Over the years I have provided services for non-clients gratis. Of course the ulterior motive in doing these things was that these “prospects” would eventually become clients. Rarely they do. In fact, I cannot recall a time when they ever did.
But that is not my way and that became clear to me when my friends handled the matter. One of them, in fact, wrote a sizeable check that was not a loan, but rather a gift. “You have done more to rehabilitate my reputation over the years and supported me in the worst of times.” As he pulled out his checkbook and began to write, he said, “This is a gift and I’ll hear no more about it.”
My wife endured my high anxiety; my sons would call to take my mind off the situation.
I cannot come close to expressing how grateful I am for those around me and close to me.
This, of course, does not mitigate the fellow who was responsible for the issue (again, though it was my fault). He remains, to me, the definition of “ungrateful” and I hope the SOB burns in hell.
