Lead Foot Indiscretions

I look back and think of all the choices that I’ve made, most of which I thought were good ideas at the time, but over time have proven themselves to be mistakes. Probably the biggest of which was the choice to not save a portion of the Social Security money that I received for the last 3 years of high school after my father died. I could have still lived a very comfortable life and graduated with $18,000 in savings. Another one of these moments came when my mom retired and used her retirement money to pay off all of my debts; I had a clean slate, I owed nothing to anybody. What did I do with that new found freedom? I bought a used PS2 on my Discover card with a zero balance $190 balance. Did I pay this off the next month, or in the next two months? Of course not, I just kept adding on because I had a thousand dollar limit. The latest of these was 3 years out of my life when I made really good money as a truck driver. If I would have just spent any 6-7 months out of those 3 years and paid on my debts, I would be completely debt free.

My wife tells me all the time that it’s useless to dwell on the past, or spend so much time thinking about the mistakes that I’ve made in my life. At the same time though, she says that she doesn’t have a lot of faith in me to make good decisions for our family, or that I can provide for us. I now the old saying is, “those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it.” So I think that’s why I spend so much time thinking about my mistakes; not because I think it’s going to change anything, but because I don’t want to make the same mistakes again. Of course, my dad’s already dead, my mom already retired, and I can’t get a truck driving job again for about a year and half because of my lead foot indiscretions in my personal vehicle. Maybe I do need to just let it go and focus on the future, since it’s not looking like I’ll have the chance to make any of these same mistakes again.