This afternoon, I spent an hour ( waiting for and ) talking to an employee of the customer service of a Dutch company that takes care of study loans / debt.
Before doing so, I had emailed a recently hired accountant for advice. It all has to do with my ( lack of ) income in 2019 and many previous years.
Long story short, I studied in University for seven years ( three years of over time - not out of fun but pure desperation, no deadline for my final thesis and building depression ) and accumulated debt from a loan in those last 3 years. This is pretty normal in The Netherlands and I guess many other countries. Those loans are easy to get and we forget to think of the consequences later on in life.
Although I graduated 13 years ago, I have earned so little since my graduation that the debt is still there and - of course - went up over time.
If... Then
If I would not have been so picky in my jobs ( always have been, being a sensitive creative ), then my financial situation would be totally different. I struggled for almost a decade though ( since 2007 ), emotionally and financally ( I'm pretty sure these two go hand in hand ) and finally gave up the fight. I was burnt out, gave up on trying to fit in and quit my last job, in June 2016.
Since then, a lot of things have changed. I spent half a year on The Canary Islands ( September 2016-March 2017 ), discovered crypto in May 2017 ( and started investing ). I then left The Netherlands and moved to Portugal in 2018. I also inherited money from my grandmother and received an early inheritance from my parents ( to buy my first house, in Portugal and renovate it ) and, most importantly, I never went back to work ( for a boss ) ever again. I just lived off my crypto investments ( crypto blogging payouts included ).
The aforementioned years might sound like fun but believe me, I struggled a lot. Depression is a recurring beast but I am starting to get better and better in taming it. It's almost like a pet now, that I sometimes forget to feed.
Note to self: perhaps I should stop feeding it.
Today, before calling with the Education customer support, I started thinking of If... Then scenarios and realized that, If I would have invested all the money I inherited from my grandmother in Bitcoin, back in December 2018 and HODL-ed it, **then ** I would now have a couple of hundred thousand Euros. I would have been able to pay off my study debt easily and would be living debt free. Even if I would just have HODL-ed those Bitcoins for about half a year ( instead of waiting up till now ) and reinvested some later on.
Of course, all of that didn't happen. I decided to renovate my Portuguese house instead ( it's up for sale now ). I also sold most of my crypto ( too early in 2019 ), when I preferred not to ( of course those coins went up loads afterward ), exchanged a big chunk of my Bitcoin holdings for some coins ( Dash included ) that hardly went up and so on and so forth.
To make a long story short, I hardly own any Bitcoin at the moment.
It would be easy to feel frustrated. To beat myself up over making bad financial decisions over and over again, to curse my bad timing.
But, let's be honest, this happens to all of us or - at least - most of us and this is an opportunity to learn and level up, something I love to do.
The Past is the Past
it does not exist, only in the mind. Let's Focus on the Now.
I don't know about you but if I focus on the now, I really shouldn't complain.
At the moment, I am staying in this huge house in the Portuguese nature ( at 5 km from my twin sister and her family ). I don't need to set an alarm. I am my own boss. I work when I want to work, if I could call it work at all. I manifested the life that I was looking for for ages and am living it right now.
Aside from that, some investments are starting to look good ( thank you LEO! ) or feel promising ( DCity, BRO, LBI ) and it feels like I can now give pretty decent advise to friends and acquaintances that have gotten or are planning to get into crypto investing.
In fact, I start to feel more and more abundant, year after year, month after month. I am feeling extremely excited at the start of 2021 ( logically so with the current crypto bull run ). I can't help but think that - if I play it right - this is gonna be the year where I can deal with my debt and build my savings for the years to come.
Instead of focusing on having hardly any Bitcoin and on my University debt ( scarcity mindset ), I prefer to focus on the now and what I can do to make my future even better.
Wouldn't it be nice to...
be financially healthy? To not have to struggle with tax officials, over and over again. To not have to come up with yet another excuse for why I can't pay off my debt? To just pay it off and forget about it?
Yeah, that would be awesome and I am getting there.
So, if like me, you're one of those people who tend to think in If - Then scenarios that only make them feel worse, try to change this unhealthy habit into "Wouldn't it be nice to..." thoughts ( The Beach Boys were right ) instead.
Start dreaming up your future, thereby changing your now ( as well as your future ). It will make you feel better instantly and that change of mindset is gonna set some serious gears into motion that will change your life for the better.