Losing half my income

There is a visceral pain to uncertainty—and for many there is no greater source of uncertainty and anxiety than money.

No matter your income, this anxiety is hard to avoid. There is chaos in our money world. Salaried or not, you can never guarantee that the money you received this month will come to you next month.

Because income is always dependent on others (your employer or your customers), there will always be these little insidious doubts:

Will others value me as much next month as they did this month?

Do I trust myself to live up to others’ expectations and to continue to earn their respect or their business?

These subtle doubts are one of the sources of uncertainty in our finances. Whether we acknowledge them or not, doubts like these can nag at us and obscure our self-worth. I was forced to grapple with these self-doubts head on yesterday, when I learned my income might be cut in half.

Immediately, I became fearful. What was I afraid of?

Money? The potential lack of money in the future? The hypothetical future in which I can’t pay my bills or, worse, I need to ask for help?

Just the day before yesterday, I went to bed with such confidence in my self and my ability. Then yesterday I was panicked by the news; I felt weak, hopeless. I felt insufficient, like my funds.

That stark emotional contrast stood out to me. I asked myself, How could I so quickly become fearful about something that had so recently blessed me in abundance? Something about it felt irrational. I felt sick to my stomach. I needed to get to the bottom of my feelings: What exactly am I afraid of, I needed to know.

I began by pondering what had tangibly changed in my life. My tummy was still full from breakfast. My rent had been paid for the month. My refrigerator was still fully stocked. My puppy slept soundly on the couch. My girlfriend in the other room still loved me. I still lived in my current abundance.

As far as I could tell, nothing had changed in my life, except for the promise of new money to come. I had become dependent on that money. I felt entitled to that money, and betrayed by its broken promise.

Ah, there it is! I have felt this feeling before – entitlement. Entitlement is how you justify blaming everything outside of yourself for your own struggle.

I grappled with my own feelings of entitlement when I was job hunting in the early days of the Coronavirus pandemic. I felt this anger at the world because I couldn’t get any of the jobs I wanted. I’ve done everything I was supposed to do, I reasoned. I graduated and got my degree. Now where’s my career? My paycheck?

Entitlement is that voice that says: You (the world) owe me (something). It is also completely bogus.

Entitlement derives from the different stories we are told by our family and society. These stories will differ based on your family’s background: race, socioeconomic situation, politics, et cetera.

In my case, as a white man, my story foretold that I would go to college and get my degree, then the world would reward me with well-paying and steady employment. Maybe that prophecy would have been fulfilled if there hadn’t been a globally disruptive event like the 2020 pandemic. When things didn’t shake out the way I expected, the way I had been promised, I was pissed. I resented the world for not living up to my expectations.

When I examined this resentment, I found it was rooted in my own privilege and entitlement; it grew from the dissonance between how I expected the world to work for me and how it actually works. My frustration came from my belief that the world owed me a job and a paycheck.

That’s entitlement: the world owes me something.

However, when I looked closer at that belief, it disintegrated. The big lie that was fueling my frustration fell apart because it didn’t resonate with who I wanted to be or the world I wanted to believe in: Why would I want the world to owe me anything? I want to deserve everything I receive and earn it through hard work.

Fast forward to yesterday when I was coming to terms with the prospect of losing half my income. If nothing tangible has changed in my living experience, then my consternation must represent a discordance between my beliefs and my perceived reality (my world). If that is the case, I am responsible for updating my beliefs and bringing them back into harmony with reality. (Remember, the world is not responsible for aligning with me—that is entitlement).

Then the question becomes: What are my false beliefs?

False belief 1: I need that half of my income to survive.

Reality check: That’s probably not true. I’ve lived on much less before. I can scrounge for a month or so, if I must.

False belief 2: I have no idea how to make ends meet without that money; I’m desperate!

Reality check: Not true. I know how to make a budget. There are plenty of things I’ve been buying that aren’t necessities and can be cut out. Also, I (thankfully) have some savings if I really need some cash for bills.

False belief 3 (the kicker): I will be looked at as a failure by my friends and family without that money.

Reality check: Actually, I know they will still love me no matter what. I know this because I know our relationships are deeper than money and because I know my love for others does not change with their income. Plus, like I said, I’ve gotten by on much less before, and they still loved me then… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

After all that, I started to feel a lot better: I debunked my false beliefs; I reminded myself of my ability and adaptability, and I reassured myself that the most valuable things in my life – my close relationships – will still be there for me no matter what.

With my beliefs changed, my story has changed; my emotions have calmed; my agency has revived.

I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul. ("Invictus," William Ernest Henley)

I am no longer fearful of losing that money because it’s loss is not a threat to my survival or self-worth. If I am never to receive more of that money, at least I know I was worthy of it while it came to me; I shall be worthy of more again.