Similar concept to why people who provide advice always have difficulty accepting it, some to the point where they cannot accept it. I do accept advice, though the issue is that I have trouble sticking to routine. It's a reflection of poor compliance; poor discipline.
My girlfriend's 21st birthday is coming up soon and I've been more stressed than excited. I sigh hoping that it will be over because I am just afraid that things won't turn out the way she expects and she may have a very hard time with it. I'm having both financial and personal difficulty finding a gift - I know she would expect something special and sentimental. Believe me, I do want to get her such things with beautiful brands and amazing gold, silver or leather. Unfortunately, such things cost astronomical amounts of money. Not that I'm saying they're not worth it; it's just that I don't think I can justify spending such amounts as a student that is trying to save not only to survive by myself this year and the next, but also focus on my future - save for my future.
But I've already committed to helping her with paying for the venue and the bar tab as well as helping her with her trip to Thailand. This is in addition to a dinner I promised I would take her to, which means a very respectable restaurant. On top of this, I am supposed to get her something as well. So all of this will cost in the thousands, not the hundreds.
During my intense year of full-time work, I managed to save a fair amount of money for my future and definitely the future between my girlfriend and I. And when I say full-time, I don't mean 35 hours a week. When it struck January 23, 2009; it was my girlfriend's birthday and I thought I'd surprise her by taking her to an amazing restaurant with my best friend's car. He had a BMW 735i, which is a limousine and near impossible to find amongst people my age. So I borrowed his car and gave him my car as security. Not more than 45 minutes later, he calls me telling me that he has crashed it on a bridge and the front half of the car is completely destroyed: the tyres, the radiator, bonnet, doors. The only thing that was solid was the windshield. Being my best friend at the time, he promised to get it fixed and instead of giving it to a well-known panel beater (because he knew about cars and their repairs well), he gave it to some person who had excruciating back pain and had immense difficulty walking let alone fixing a car.
All I wanted was my car to be fixed before medicine started - I didn't want to have to concern myself with anything except medicine. But that, of course, didn't happen and I had to get my cousin involved to threaten him to pay us. Amazingly, 2 months in telling me he would pay or organise someone to buy it, my cousin convinced him in 24 hours. See that poor panel beater with the back pain managed to fix it but because my friend kept rushing him, he didn't do a good job at all and blamed my friend. So I wasn't in any mood to accept my previously immaculate car as a putt putt piece of shit. Don't get me wrong - it wasn't cosmetics that concerned me; when the gears didn't change properly or the transmission couldn't be changed to Park, that was a serious problem. My cousin threatened him and he paid me out for my car.
So now I was carless and had sixteen thousand dollars to go and look for a car. I had to get something quickly because medicine had started and I just wanted to forget about all of this and breathe. Unfortunately that didn't happen either. I bought a Volvo and the very day I drove out with it, I had issues and that is NOT an exaggeration. The spark plug cables failed the very day I drove out with it so only 1 or 2 of the pistons weren't working and the car felt like it was a tractor, shaking everywhere. I had nothing but headaches for 18 months with that car, spending well over seven thousand dollars fixing this and that, until nobody in my family could take it anymore. I had to get something else and now, luckily, with most of my savings, I was able to purchase another car and get rid of that monstrosity Volvo calls a car.
That explains why I hesitate to spend money the way I used to, even if it is for my girlfriend. I lost all my savings to gambling, bills (some mine and some not) and cars; the remaining expenditures I wouldn't call 'losses'.
So back to my girlfriend's birthday - I'm shitting bricks because I haven't much savings and whatever money I've saved so far in this holiday period is reserved for my survival this year and next for my clinical training (i.e. rent, food, petrol, etc). Yet, I have promised so much and I'm afraid of showing up empty handed, cancelling something. She reassures me that she will pay back the contributions I made to her birthday party venue, but what dignity do I have left if I accept that?
Besides the fever I have right now, I've got work over the next four days and my parents are in Melbourne. I sincerely hope they are having a good time. I have to develop another few things by this Tuesday when I meet the radiologists regarding the summer scholarship I'm enrolled in.
It's amazing what comes out of me when I sit down. I didn't even think I would write about the things I just did. The reality is that I feel that everybody has the right to enquire on a statement I made.
"You work so much, how come you don't have money?"
"Why do you need to save?"
"Why do you need to work so much?"
My response is "Why not?" - what makes people believe that saving is so bloody easy? It's one of the most difficult things to do because the companies that lend have made it so darn easy to spend anywhere, anytime. You can shop online, buy over the phone, take large sums of loans with the swipe of a card and with the swift signature of a pen in your hand.
I better get some sleep. I hope I can write more over the weekend.
"Complying..."
No comments:
Post a Comment