Pronunciation: \pə-ˈthe-tik\
Function: adjective
Etymology: Middle French pathetique, Late Latin patheticus, Greek pathētikos capable of feeling, pathetic, from paschein to experience or suffer
Date: 1598
1 : having a capacity to move one to either compassionate or contemptuous pity
2 : absurd , laughable <a pathetic costume>
Caution: This blog entry may not exactly be about what you think it is.
There has been a lot of media coverage about financial “Ponzi” schemes that have recently surfaced. Bernie Madoff has been accused of $50 BILLION dollars worth of investment fraud. $50 BILLION! This is all unraveling due to the world’s current economic situation which was a long time in coming.
I was driving home earlier this week thinking about how the majority of society lives a “Ponzi” lifestyle. Borrowing money to pay for goods and services they simply can never afford. I’m not talking about financing items within your means rather about an average single wage earner mortgaging a huge house, then financing all the furnishings and electronics while leasing a luxury car they can’t afford. Subsequently they are then relying on credit cards for day to day living expenses. In essence, carrying on a lifestyle one can not financially sustain long term. You may know it as keeping up with the “Joneses” or using today’s income to pay debt accrued months, years and decades past without ever really paying back the principal or creating equity.
Somewhere along the way we as a society have been misguided. If you spend more than you earn, you accrue debt- simple. If you eat more calories than you burn then you accrue fat- simple. If you don’t pay back debt, whatever form it assumes then at some point you are bankrupt. This is a rather simple concept which has been dumbed down over time. Society is instead taught to lean on creative financing, false miracles or denial in an attempt to correct the root cause of these issues. We are always looking for that magic bullet that will absolve debt, fat, bad relationships, a sullied past, personal hang-ups or whatever the problem at hand may be. As we all know, try as you may that magic bullet simply does not exist.
Reflect back to May when you resumed writing proverbial checks that you couldn’t cash. All was seemingly well until it caught up with you again. You found that the grass isn’t and wasn’t always greener on the other side of the fence. The worst part is that you knew better. What you have chosen to do with the outcome of that situation is pathetic. You are morally bankrupt and there’s no magic bullet here.
I’ve said my piece, please stop.
