Last night’s thunder was just a tease. It brought a moment of rain, but left the ground thirsty for more. We assume weather patterns will repeat themselves; we are certain we can always rely on October rain until October rain gives way to October drought. That is the problem with reliable certainty; certainty is a fiction written in disappearing ink.
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Had I waited a little longer to put my house on the market, I might have found myself in a bind. Mortgage rates rising to roughly 7%, fears of unchecked inflation, and myriad other social and economic and factors ripped into a frenzied housing market, sucking the artificial wind out of its synthetic sails. For several months before I finally put my house up for sale, I was afraid the market might suffer an enormous “correction,” leaving me with a mortgage on the “new: house and rapidly-dwindling demand and a declining market value on the “old” one. Fortunately, my insistence that I put the old house on the market “right now” came at just the right time. Had I waited even two or three weeks, evidence of an impending market correction might have deterred prospective buyers from looking. And the price the Realtor recommended I ask for the house probably would have been unreachable. Thanks to the timing of putting the new house on the market, I dodged a bullet, as the old aphorism goes. Given today’s market, though, I am in a corner of my own making; I am tethered to a house and a mortgage that took the place of the freedom I might have enjoyed had I opted for a nomadic lifestyle. Yet living a peripatetic life would present challenges of its own; substituting a forced itinerant lifestyle for the comfort of a dependable home base.
The lesson I feel I am learning from my experience is this: try not to second-guess myself on irrevocable decisions. There’s no point in bemoaning decisions that cannot be unmade, nor wondering “what if” when it is impossible to revise one’s own history. It is healthier and less stressful to simply accept that my situation is what it is; accept it and move on. Make the best of reality as it is. I’m working on that.
The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.
~ Carl Rogers ~
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As I ponder my circumstances, it occurs to me that my “problems” are simply “circumstances.” Whereas I stew over home ownership issues, other people whose living arrangements have always involved renting instead of buying face a completely different set of challenges. Though renting/leasing may attach one to a shorter period of obligation, it exposes a person to the vagaries of rental rates and the potential for dislocations when properties are sold or repurposed. Trade-offs exist with every decision. The perfect life or lifestyle is an unreachable fantasy. Quoting someone who is working to learn the lessons of life, “It is healthier and less stressful to simply accept that my situation is what it is; accept it and move on. Make the best of reality as it is.”
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Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.
~ Carl Jung ~
