For many decades I lived in just that very place. It is a place where there is constant uncertainty, anguish, and sometimes desperation. It is a place where happiness is hard to achieve and your optimism is continuously damped.

Though, despite those bad conditions, many people seem to like living there. Actually there is some incentive; perhaps the One positive thing in that place: Competition! Indeed, so many people live there that they all are in a fierce competition to see who can outdo the others.

The landlords are Mr. Ego and Mrs. Arrogance, and their grown up child Show Off. The developers and marketing strategists who invite you to live and encourage you to stay in that place are very strong and well organized: Banks, Credit Card Companies, Automobile dealerships, Furniture suppliers, Fancy clothing stores, High life magazines, Media, Publicity agents, and a few others.

You can’t find that place in the map, but it can be right under your feet as you read this. It is a place where you usually pay high rent calculated in Debt, Credit Card interests, collection harassment, family relationship upset, and even insomnia.

Why do people like to live there? Because it constantly gives you:

• The flashy gratification of superiority
• The unfounded pleasure of distinction,
• and The priceless sensation of an accomplishment we have not earned.

It is like a fantasy world. That place is called “Beyond Our Means.”

A good friend of my youth, Ricardo Rojas, was an excellent maintenance technician and would frequently bring up his peaceful lifestyle out of that place, but I, as probably many others, did never believe him. He was making a very good income and still his style was frugal. He did not go out to restaurants as frequently as many others, or show off prestigious brand clothes. He is probably doing very well these days, in his late 60s...

Until recently I have realized how much I did pay in rent for living in The Worst Place for so many years. It is simple to detect if anyone is living beyond their means, the first clue you get it in the mail one or more times per month, is called Credit Card Statement.

In case you do not totally pay your credit card balance every month, check what you are paying in financial services, commissions, interests, platinum yearly fees; that amount is an important part of the rent you are paying to live beyond your means.

Investors and banks get paid that rent. Fancy clothing that you can’t wear again so you don’t look like the picture of last year, may be another important part of that rent. Other part would be the difference between the prices of your brand new vehicle compared with an almost identical one-or-two year used one.

Living beyond our means is spending today the money you may (or might not) make tomorrow, but paying an inflated price for that privilege. It is deceiving because you are always given the open access to much more assets than you will really be capable of paying back in your lifetime. This takes you to use more of your credit all the time, which makes the happiness of your creditors and keeps you literally working for them.

If you carry any debt in credit card for say 5 years, paying the minimum each month, it is likely you are paying more interest than the money you borrowed when you made a purchase in the first place. Interests in credit cards are justified to be high because there are plenty of irresponsible people fueled by the “Renegotiation Industry” comprised of pseudo-“Professionals in Negotiation” who will get the banks to accept payments below the capital debt. So the most honest people end up paying for the irresponsible.

You will probably agree that it is...
The Worst Place To Live… Move Out!

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