There are many articles out there about how to live on less.  We all know what we can and should be doing to make our budgets work: Cut expenses or increase income. Many people in the US are burdened by a sense of entitlement.   Being a part of the 1980’s “Me Generation” definitely promoted the self-centered sense of entitlement.  I graduated from college and felt like I was on top of the world and all I had to do was sit back and wait for the good things to start happening.

The possibility of not having television, not having garbage pickup, not having money for new clothes or the latest gizmo never even occurred to me.  The middle class was getting wealthier in the 1980s, and I was going along for the ride. I remember planning to have enough money to have a housekeeper so I would not have to do the things like toilets and dishes. The idea of living without a dishwasher was unheard of.  I was completely on board with the self-centeredness of society.

Then I got married and had children.  Instead of working so I could have someone to do all those little nasty chores for me, I wanted to stay home. Therefore, I had to learn to do all the chores myself. I had not learned young because I just wasn’t interested, and I had planned to hire help.  We learned to live on one income with a growing family.  Then we learned to live on unemployment. Correction, nobody lives on unemployment, you barely survive on unemployment.  During these lean times we learned to haul our own trash to the dump, do without new things, decline invitations because we could not afford a gift, live without all the newest gizmos and gadgets, live without television, make do with only one car, and to shop carefully with what little money we did have.

Talk about changing attitudes, Scarlett had to go from the Southern Belle to wearing curtains! The picture is from Costumes of Nashua website.

In order to survive, I had to change my attitude on many things.  First, I had to understand that not only must I clean my own toilets and do my own dishes, I must be willing to do the same for other people, and not only for community service, but perhaps for a source of income (gasp!).  Throughout my entire adult life, all the various hardships I have faced, I have been my own worst enemy.  This sense of being better than the circumstances I was faced with made me want to pull a Scarlett O’Hara, “I will think about that tomorrow” and ignore what really needed to be done today. It is not a wise way to live, and I knew it.

I learned patience when my mother had cancer.  I learned to be less of a perfectionist when I had children. I learned to do things for myself when I wanted to stay home with my children instead of working.  I learned I am no better than anyone else, and I am not entitled to special treatment or an easier life, or a guaranteed amount of money, or perhaps even a dishwasher or a roof over our heads when my husband was unemployed.  I have learned the only way to survive life’s hardships is to deal with life as it comes, work hard, and to always lean on God.  Without God, one can easily despair, one can fall into bad habits, and one must keep re-learning the same life lessons.

If you believe everything happens for a reason, if you believe you are to learn from life and look for the messages God is trying to teach you, then it is easier to muddle through. It seems as though life’s lessons are harder with each passing year and more people are struggling every day. This recession is touching so many families who are struggling with their own attitudes, as I did.  It is for this reason I am grateful for my Catholic faith.  We can rejoice in the hardships by offering up those difficulties for the sake of others such as the souls in purgatory, the sick and infirm, the conversion of Russia, and all those worse off than us. There is always a cause which can benefit from our suffering.  What a gift to know we can use our trials to provide comfort.  May God bless you as you struggle with your own cross.

Hardships are God’s way of trying to teach us a lesson.  Sometimes it is a personal lesson, sometimes it is a collective lesson (perhaps for a family or an entire nation) but there is always a lesson. If you ever wonder why bad things happen to good people, I think this could be why; this is one of the big lessons we need to pass on to our children.  We need to stop, let go of our predetermined notions, our attitudes, and listen to what lesson we are supposed to learn.  Then, and only then, will we find peace, and hopefully a solution to our problems.

Lily lives in NY with her husband and six children.  She writes about both her struggles to learn her lessons and change her attitudes as well as the joys in her life on her blog, Never Fading Wood.  Stop by to say hello.

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