Not a Problem
WHEN I WAS A TEENAGER, I didn’t have a girlfriend. Now that I’m older, I realize not everyone had a girlfriend during their junior high or high school years. But at the time, I felt like I was the only one.
By this time, my father had passed away, so I only had my mother and older brother to confide in. My brother thought I might have a problem that prevented me from seeking female companionship, so he told my mother I should get counseling. This was the brain trust’s thinking, not something I wanted. Still, not having a better solution, I went along with the idea.
My first counseling session didn’t go well. I sat there and waited for the counselor to ask me a question. He didn’t. I stared at him and he stared at me.
The next time we met, I said, “Don’t you want to ask me a question?” He said he was waiting for me to tell him what I needed or why I was there. I told him the things that my brother and mother thought were my problems. His response has stayed with me to this day. He said, “If it’s not a problem for you, it’s not a problem.”
He also let me know that he didn’t feel I had any major issues. I was just shy. I thanked him and, with this new awareness of myself, left. My female relationships moved on from there, including taking a girl to a local drive-in theater in my first car. But my shyness was ever present back then. Things changed when I was a senior in college and met my first wife.
The advice from the counselor has helped me deal with the critics in my life. Those critics might ask, “Why the heck would you do that?” As a defense, I developed a routine of slowing down my decision-making process. Knowing the critics would be circling, ready to challenge my decision, I wanted to make sure any decision wouldn’t be a problem for me—and that meant making sure I wasn’t allowing others to make my choices.
How often are we influenced by those around us, including how we should use our money? It might be our choice of house, car or vacation, or perhaps the decision to save rather than spend. If we feel we need help making a decision, we might seek input from others. But allowing others to make decisions for us is, I think, a mistake. If we take their advice and it turns out badly, we have only ourselves to blame.
For instance, we’re often advised to hire a financial advisor. People who have busy lives are encouraged to focus their energies on the rest of their life and let a “professional” handle their finances. I believe this is a reasonable approach—as long as you make the final decisions or, at a minimum, you’re comfortable with those decisions.
If not, you’re letting others make choices for you. That can be dangerous. Making decisions with the benefit of other people’s opinions, ideas or experience can be helpful. But in the end, we need to own the decisions that we make.
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