You have more endurance than you know.
Two years ago, I sat in the conference room of my then-job with my colleagues watching the news. We were watching our state’s governor discuss that our state had its first reported cases of COVID.
That same week, we were told to get our computers and not return to work until we were told to do so. We all expected it would be a short duration of remote work – something akin to a snow day (or week). That was the beginning of remote working. It was March 16, 2020.
Early in the pandemic, we knew so little. I remember going to the grocery store double-gloved and without a mask, fearful that I would touch the virus. We celebrated my sister’s beautiful (tiny) backyard wedding, the births of sweet babies, and so many other occasions which normally would have drawn large crowds, instead with only our closest family. We all kept thinking, and waiting for, COVID’s ending at some distinguishable point (summer of 2020, perhaps?). Now, two years into it, COVID still looms and doesn’t seem to be leaving us anytime soon.
If I told you that you would have to endure something seriously unpleasant for two years, you would tell me that you could not. I would tell you that I could not. We don’t want to suffer through things we believe will be hard. We choose not to. We want to get to pleasure, and away from pain, as quickly as possible. This is completely rational behavior.
Yet, we bear the unpleasant all the time. Without even knowing how unpleasant it is. We suffer through things that are “normal” just because the alternative might be more unpleasant (although it very well could be more pleasant). We might suffer for years through bad relationships, jobs we hate, and copious amounts of debt, not even knowing how bad it is.
My husband and I began paying off our debt in January of 2018 and we made our final debt payment on February 6, 2020. Twenty-six months. I knew it would be a long journey. Before we started, I mapped out the journey and calculated it would take us three years. And, in the beginning, I thought, “No way. There’s no way we will put all our extra money towards debt for three years. We have to live life.” But, once we began, I saw the light at the end of the tunnel. I saw what would happen if we changed our financial trajectory and paid off all of our debt; If we were mindful with money; and, if we could save and invest rather than buying some of the luxuries we saw our peers buying. The journey was hard and if you had asked me when we started if we would have made it, I would have said no. But this only lasted two years, instead of three, and it drastically changed our life.
Whether you are aware of it or not, you just survived two years of an incredibly challenging time with loss, change, fear, and exhaustion. Knowing what you can survive, if two years is all it takes to change the trajectory of your whole financial future, would you commit to doing it?