What's Your Mirror?

In the early part of this century, I lost my home, my business, and a person I believed I loved.  It sounds like a long time ago when I put it that way, doesn’t it?  By definition, though, anything in “this century” can’t be more than twenty years ago.  In this case, it’s less.

People will tell that family and health is all that matters.  That’s true – to a point.  But when you don’t know where you’re going to sleep tonight, or how you’re going to feed your children, that same precious family and health doesn’t feel like it’s doing you much good. 

We were lucky.  I was able to farm children out to various locations.  The cats and I camped out on a friend’s couch.  And when the homelessness part was still a “hope to avoid” and the business already lost, the “what was I doing about this” end of things was already settled.  And three weeks in, we were finally able to move into a home. 

My friends, and others around me, had plenty of opinions on the income front.  Given that we lived in a small town where the top two occupations were “professionally disabled” and “professional welfare”, some of these opinions involved the very true statement that I’d get as much money on welfare as a single parent of three as I would working most jobs.  They weren’t wrong – good-paying jobs weren’t in great supply locally, and by the time I factored in gas money (let alone travel time) to one of the several larger venues 40-50km away (25-30 miles), options to honestly exceed the welfare sum were both few and unlikely. 

And yet, I chose the job route.  Welfare would have been easier.  (So would bankruptcy).  There were certainly positives to it, including the ability to be present when my children came and went from school, more time to look for a place to live, and the ever-present opportunity to work under-the-table for cash.  At that point, I’d been paying taxes for over 20 years already – and this was one of the things our taxes pay for.  I still chose the job. 

Was it the right choice?  It was for me.  The job was boring.  My hours sucked – royally.  I certainly didn’t have much time for under-the-table cash work to supplement my pay, though it was certainly a relief when the child tax credit reflected our newly reduced family income.  I did meet some terrific people, and am still in contact with some of them to this day. 

So why was it right for me?  At the end of the day, it was important to me to be able to look in the mirror and feel that I was doing the right thing.  I needed to set a good example for my children – there were enough multi-generational welfare examples in our town that my addition would have been redundant.  I also felt strongly that getting a better job while on welfare wasn’t going to be the piece of cake I’d want it to be.  

I’d like to say things worked out perfectly.  They didn’t.  My crazy hours meant I often wasn’t home to supervise homework or ensure that kids got on the school bus.  They meant I sometimes came home to throw crowds of smoking teenagers out of my basement at midnight.  There are undoubtedly plenty of benefits our family would have seen from my increased presence.  

But at the end of the day, I have hardworking children with stable jobs who go out and work for what they want instead of waiting for it to be handed to them.  I think that’s a pretty good result. 

There are still times in my world when the right thing isn’t the easiest one, or even the one I want.  There are times when a lesser right thing might be ok, or enough.  That mirror of self, though, remains my constant.  If I can’t look in the mirror confident that I have made a choice of which I’m proud, chances are good it’s the wrong one. 

How do you decide on the right choices for you?  What’s your mirror?