Yes, there is life after bankruptcy
But only for those who are willing to work at it.
This is a site about recovery from bankruptcy. I like to think of it as a motivational site, more so than an informational one.
There are plenty of sites out there, most of them written by people smarter than myself, that will tell you the "ins" and "outs" of filing for bankruptcy, the legal considerations, the effects upon your credit, and so forth, and so on.
This site doesn't.
Well, okay. It does go into a little bit about some of those things. But it's not a site for legal advice I am not a lawyer, nor do I play one on television; neither do I claim any particular expertise about things financial over and above what I've read on other sites, what I've learned from people who are experts in that sort of thing, and what I've learned from my own experiences.
Neither will I tell you how to go about filing for bankruptcy, whether Chapter 7 or Chapter 13 is better for you, or anything else having to do with the actual process of filing for bankruptcy. That's stuff you need to ask a lawyer about, and again, I'm not a lawyer.
There also are other online resources out there that specialize in providing that sort of information, such as the very excellent Bankruptcy Forum. I have no desire to re-invent the wheel.
No, what I hope to do here something quite a bit different: I want to motivate people. I want to encourage visitors to get off their butts, overcome their bankruptcies, and do something with the rest of their lives. And the first step in that journey is a simple one:
Get over it
Yes, get over it. Most people who file bankruptcy go through long, drawn-out periods of depression, self-doubt, and guilt. Well, fine, if that's what you're into. Enjoy your misery. But if you want to recover from bankruptcy and start seeing it not as a failure, but as an opportunity to rebuild your life, then get over it already.
Look, everyone makes mistakes. People who go bankrupt just happened to make financial mistakes. It happens. And punishing yourself for the rest of your life will accomplish nothing.
Others go through a period of anger: anger at "the banks," anger at family members, anger at "the system" (whatever that is), anger at clients who never paid them or CEO's who downsized their places of employment, and anger at anyone or anything else that they blame for their financial problems -- whether justifiably or not.
Again, if that's what you want to do, then go for it. Enjoy your anger. Bask in your righteous indignation. Punch walls, cuss, swear, bend your bartender's ear, whatever. Because you know what? You may be right.
Unfortunately, none of it really matters. In the end, you're still bankrupt; and all the mourning, crying, ranting, raving, cussing, and swearing in the world isn't going to help you recover.
So again, get over it. Either that, or please go visit some other site and stop wasting my bandwidth. This site is for people who want to succeed, not for those who want to sit and pout.
A time to be born, and a time to die
People of my generation age may recall a song popularized by Pete Seeger titled Turn, Turn, Turn, the theme of which was that everything has its time and season.
The words, however, are actually drawn from the Bible (from the third chapter of Ecclesiastes, to be exact), and they carry particular wisdom for those who have filed bankruptcy.
Bankruptcy has been called a "financial death," which indeed it is. All of your past mistakes are rolled up into a big ball and tossed in the trash. Your entire financial existence, both your successes and your failures, are wiped away.
But bankruptcy is also a new financial birth, and it will grow into something with or without your help.
Unfortunately, what usually stands in the way of a person's economic recovery after bankruptcy is his or her grief over the life they're leaving behind -- especially if he or she misused credit to "get the good things in life," despite not being able to afford those things.
Debtors who file for bankruptcy waste altogether too much time grieving over things like not being able to buy a new car because their "credit is shot," not being able to take expensive vacations, not being able to buy expensive clothes, and so forth. But when you think about it, most people who file for bankruptcy really couldn't afford those things in the first place. That's one of the reasons they got into financial trouble.
So really, what have you lost? In most cases, something you never had, anyway.
Nonetheless, the first few years after going bankrupt are often filled with reminders of the lives debtors used to enjoy before the weight of debt made those lifestyles unsustainable. These reminders can come in many forms, such as:
- Seeing a car like the one you used to drive passing you on the highway, while you're driving an old clunker.
- Walking past an expensive restaurant you used to enjoy, but can no longer afford.
- Watching your neighbor's kids being sent off to the same summer camp that your kids used to go to, back before you filed for bankruptcy.
- Not being able to buy all the presents you'd like to give your loved ones at Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Festivus, or whatever other holiday you celebrate.
- Having to say, "No," to your child when he or she wants to go on the school ski trip, or simply wants a new bicycle or a decent pair of sneakers.
Reminders of the "good times" are everywhere.
And when these reminders happen, it's natural to be sad.
When things like this happen and you're reminded of the "old days," I suggest you take do two things.
The first is to take comfort in the words found in Ecclesiastes 3: To every thing there is a season, A time for every purpose under heaven. Whatever you had in the past, both the good and the bad, was for the past.
And the past is now gone.
But a new time is beginning: one in which you have the freedom to make the right decisions, based on the hard lessons you've learned from the past. And that brings me to my second suggestion: Get over it already. You've punished yourself long enough. Stop your grieving, stop your blaming, learn from your past, and move on.
What it gets down to is this: You're bankrupt. The things you used to have and enjoy are gone. Now you have two choices: You can either wallow in your misery and self-pity, or you can get off your butt and start rebuilding your life.
Remember: Bankruptcy is an end, but it's also a beginning. I suggest you make the most of this second chance!
