We all experience setbacks, but I guess it’s how you handle it that can make you a better person. The other day, May 11th I got an email from PayPal about some suspected fraudulent activity on my debit card. At first I was like phishing email, but this email had my registered user name along with my real name associated with it. Although at first glance I was a bit suspicious of the email I still went to PayPal, through my browser bookmark and not the link in the email. If you ever get a suspicious email never follow the link!
I immediately knew something was up as I had a balance of about $450 in PayPal that somehow was now down to about $8. What the fungus was going on with my account. There was a couple of charges from that day, a Sunday, that I definitely did not make. I pretty much stayed around the house on Sunday working and chilling. There was a charge of $42 then another of $400 from a Circle K store. I sometimes will stop off at a Circle K on my way from Beale Street to get a cup of coffee or water after a long night of womanizing and debauchery.
These charges, were from a date back in late April that someone at the Circle K was attempting to “correct” the original transaction of $1.42. Apparently someone had gone back and tried to say the charge was not $1.42, but $42.12 and when they thought they got away with it, why not add another $400 to that. Good thing PayPal noticed what was obviously suspicious and stopped the transaction and notified me immediately before they would release any money.
OK so they stopped the money and told me I needed to fill out an affidavit of fraud to regain the money. Even though the money was posted as pending they could not legally release it to me either as they would be obligated to investigate the transaction and until such time as that occurs the $442 would be held in escrow: limbo. Shitty considering I budget myself for the month and that was spending money.
So this is where all the Karma comes in and why I believe bad joo-joo happened. The night I spent the original $1.42 on Madison Ave, Memphis at the Circle K I was on my way to a rave. We started the night at my friend Bobby’s house and were supposed to get some mind altering party favors for the Rave party later on. It turned out it was bunk and as such I was out $40 bucks, but so was everyone else too. I guess that’s what I get for trying to have that kind of fun, especially since it had been a very long time since the last time I tried to have fun like that. My friend Bobby didn’t want the night to be a waste so he chipped in some other goodies he had around for a while and they turned out to be wasteful also. OK so the night was a fucking dupe and then to top it off, here it is three weeks later and I get robbed again.
I budget my money pretty well, putting some aside for savings and I don’t touch that. I want to have something to fall back on. I have been working very hard to help out a friend and have been promised the world, but I’ve also been around the block. When people promise the world to you and yet it never materializes you have to have something to fall back on. I am working on a project that will provide me with self sufficiency if the promises are not fulfilled. I’ve learned a long time ago talk is cheap. I’m not going to get into it to much here, but I will say my contingency plan is about to take affect and I’m looking out for me. Nobody else cares about my bills, so I sure as hell have too. You can’t hold me down!
Plus I also have a pretty good job that I am sure I can depend on, but always in life you need to look out for number one. I like my job, albeit like my friend who has been promising me the world, I hear a lot of promises coming my way from work too. I would hope that they are fulfilled, but too many jobs have come and gone for me not to have a contingency plan. I guess I’m a bit tainted after working for all these marketing companies that promise you everything, you work your ass off to get them there effectively doubling their income and yet your income never seems to increase. It happens all to often and regardless of how fond I am of the people that I work with I still have to look out for me. It always amazed me when someone tells me get us to this level and here’s what I’ll do for you. That point comes and then there is always this whine that follows well you did get it here, but now this has come up.
But those are past experiences and I’m not going to dwell on them, but like I said, I’m also not going to rely on anyone but myself either. That’s why I have a budget and a savings account. Anything ever happens I can pick up the pieces and be on my way and quick too, but currently I’m pretty happy with my job.
It seems in my life though when things like the PayPal dilemma happens things always start to get out of hand. For the longest time I was faithfully following the Laws of Attraction after many years of hardship. I always beat myself down and brought about this undeniably self-depreciating bad Karma into my life. Something went wrong, I would say that’s because I suck. It was bad enough that something did go wrong, but then on top of it, me to beat my self up over it and blame my horrible luck just brought more of that horrible luck my way. I know absolutely without a doubt that the Laws of Attraction work. You can say what you want about it, but I am living proof that they do.
It started with myself wanting to smoke a little Ganja and eat a mushroom or two. I knew that prior to my new way of thinking I had negative connotations associated with drugs of any type. So right away my mind reverted back to the negativity of days gone by and sure enough everything about that night went bad. Not only did I lose money on the bunk mushrooms, then my PayPal got robbed months later, but going right back to that night. The more I thought about how bad it pissed me off, the more things went wrong.
I have this super old Jeep that I am trying to fix up and sell. It has issues, but I am going to list it on Craigslist and just be honest about its issues. Just two days ago, while I’m in this horrible mood because of everything that is going wrong, the jeep that has been sitting in one spot for months gets a flat tire. Now mind you, I have not driven the jeep or moved it since I bought the BMW. Just from my bad negative thought patterns I was putting out, the tire goes flat. My pop and I pulled it off today and filled the tire with air and its fine. Not a problem at all.
The only reason the tire is OK, is because yesterday I finally snapped back out of the terrible mood and got into a good mood. I was like, OK I’m a little broke, but so what I have means, I’m capable, I can make money without touching my savings and everything is going to be OK. I was putting positive thoughts out there and they were going to come right back. I had a 28 foot ladder I had been meaning to sell but just was too lazy to do it. Yesterday I evaluated my situation, changed my mood, listed it on Craigslist and sold the ladder for my asking price all within an hour. I had money in hand and was heading out to Cordova to hang with Darryl in just two hours.
The moral of today’s blog is never when your down, sell yourself short. There is always a way whenever you want their to be a way. You are limited only by your actions and reactions. Setbacks do happen, only because we allow them to happen in the first place, but in the time before we are able to control our lives better we need to just reevaluate whats important to us. Your life, my life is whats important and living it to the fullest takes dedicated effort to make it the best. Eventually we will be able to live out our lives in complete comfort and happiness, but in the meantime perhaps the setbacks we experience are teaching steps to help us in realizing that life is precious and we need to live each moment as such.
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