Are You “Challenged”?

I was driving back from dropping the older two boys off to mountain bike this morning and passed a sign at a car dealership.  I almost had to stop the car so  could read it a couple of times.

What did it say?

“Credit Challenged? We can get  you into a new car!”

I guess I am getting old but I can remember when a challenge was something outside your control that you had to overcome.  I have had some challenges in my lifetime.  Boot camp was a challenge for me.  Algebra was a challenge for me.  Learning to cook was a challenge for me.  But when I messed up and made a mistake? That was not a challenge.  That was….you may need to sit down…get ready…when I messed up it was called…personal failure.

Personal failures, screw ups and mistakes were the things that caused me to take a hard look at my life and change.  They weren’t challenges.  And if your credit is a mess that is a personal failure on your part, not a challenge.  It might even be sin….

We all mess up.  I have had messed up credit.  I have made pitifully poor choices.  I have had to apologize and go on, vowing to do better and actually making the changes that would allow me to do better. Wow.  Concept?

When Marc and I got married I could not cook.  I spent a lot of time when he was gone cooking things and throwing them out.  I would begin dinner as soon as he left the house so I could have something edible when he got home.

Now I am a decent cook.  I am a food writer. I can make impossible things like risotto, laminated pastry dough, and chocolate terrine.  I was challenged.  I met it with determination. I worked hard. I overcame.

Now I am not cooking challenged anymore. But you know what? People come to Baking Delights.  They change a recipe because they didn’t have an ingredient, or they try a recipe with a technique they don’t understand, or something happens and it doesn’t work out.  Guess what happens then?  90 percent of the time I will get a nasty comment about what a lousy cook I am, how I don’t know what I am doing, or how I messed up the recipe.  According to them they are the victims of my stupidity.

In the past 24hours I have found out that two of my children, we will call them child green and child orange have each had a similar personal failure recently.  Child green had to be confronted,  with evidence, and even then child green denied what it had done.  In fact child green denied the personal failure until I told it that I knew without a shadow of a doubt what it had done.  And then child green made excuses.

Child orange came to me and told me of it’s personal failure.  Confessing, apologizing, and offering ideas as to how it could make changes in the future.

Which child is the more trustworthy? Which is more responsible?

I have a few things that put me over the edge.  One of the big ones is when someone, male or female, wont “man up” and accept responsibility for personal failure and then make changes to ensure that it is unlikely to happen again.  I despise lying.  Excuses disgust me.

I don’t understand why we have become a society that does not fail, that has no fault, and that is merely challenged rather than morally corrupt.

Yes, I do see things in black and white.  Things are right or wrong.  I have been known to drive 20 minutes back to a store because the cashier gave me 50 cents too much in change or failed to charge me for something.  Why? It is the right thing to do.

If you have had a personal failure in your life of any sort you will not ever get around it by making excuses for it or calling it a challenge or ignoring it.  You have to look at the thing for what it is, eye to eye, until it disgusts you so much that you don’t ever want to be associated with it  again.

Be in control of your life.  Be in control of yourself.  If you are doing something that is wrong and it is only mildly bothering you then I promise you are not seeing it for what it is.  There is someone else in your same situation that is doing the right thing.

If you are having an affair because your spouse is not meeting your needs in some way..you are not challenged. You are in the midst of a personal failure (and sin).

If you are lying on your tax return, or not paying taxes that are due for what ever reason then you are in a personal failure.

If you have bad credit it is not challenged.  It is bad.  You need to change your thinking and your lifestyle.

Change requires action.  If car dealerships want to offer easy credit to people who are credit challenged then they have become co-dependent.  They are enabling people with issues to continue on in those issues without consequences.

Our country is co-dependent.  The easy mortgage terms for credit challenged people is one of the big things that caused the economic collapse that we are feeling now.  You can blame it on a president, any president,  if you want but you might as well just take a real look at it.  The citizens of the US like to live in luxury whether they can afford it or not.  Then they want someone else to pay for it.

The bailouts? Stupid.  Eventually someone is going to have to take responsibility, man up, and work through the economy to get back on track, hopefully wiser about spending than before.  I doubt it but there ya go.

I know, kind of ranty and lots of rabbit trails…but this is such an important character trait that it has an effect on every single thing you do. No matter what has gone on up until this point you still have the choice between the right thing and the wrong thing.

Personal failure is not a challenge.  We are living in a time of economic and moral collapse and it is our own faults.

Whether you are male or female….man up and change.

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