Regardless of where you are in your life right now, you are no stranger to trouble.  I know I’m not.  It seems that not a week goes by where I’m not faced with some issue or a tough decision that must be made. 

You may not think so, but all of these things weigh heavily upon us.  Our minds, our health, our spirits and our attitudes are not all at their peak.

Well, I came across a very short, but inspiring story that I’d like to share with you today called The Trouble Tree.  You may read it below:

The carpenter I hired to help me restore an old farmhouse had just finished a rough first day on the job. A flat tire made him lose an hour of work, his electric saw quit, and now his ancient pickup truck refused to start. While I drove him home, he sat in stony silence.

On arriving, he invited me in to meet his family. As we walked toward the front door, he paused briefly at a small tree, touching the tips of the branches with both hands. When opening the door he underwent an amazing transformation. His tanned face was wreathed in smiles and he hugged his two small children and gave his wife a kiss.

Afterward he walked me to the car. We passed the tree and my curiosity got the better of me. I asked him about what I had seen him do earlier.

“Oh, that’s my trouble tree,” he replied.” I know I can’t help having troubles on the job, but one thing’s for sure, troubles don’t belong in the house with my wife and the children. So I just hang them on the tree every night when I come home. Then in the morning I pick them up again.”

He paused. “Funny thing is,” he smiled, “when I come out in the morning to pick ‘em up, there ain’t nearly as many as I remember hanging up the night before.”

~Author Anonymous

So for those of you out there with any type of trouble today, consider creating your own trouble tree.  Your family, friends and your own mind just might appreciate you for it.

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A Quick Announcement

Last week, I posted a giveaway for you the readers here at Personal Finance Notebook.   Thank you all so much for your wonderful comments.  Your words made me realize that although this community is very small, I have a good concept going here and I need to be extremely dedicated to improving and marketing it.  I have to remind myself that this is a work in progress.  Rome wasn’t built in a day. 

In the next few weeks, I’ll be implementing a few changes, updates and additions to the site.  Just a little side note, if you are signed up as an email update reader, please be on the lookout for a personal email from me in the near future. 

Also if you didn’t make a comment, but you read the articles posted here (maybe you were a little shy), thank you as well.  I know I say this all the time, but I really appreciate the time you take to read Personal Finance Notebook each week.  It can only go up from here!

Ok, Ok…enough with all the preliminaries, 0n to announcing the winner of the $25 Amazon gift card.  The winner is:  Eric Watermolen (commenter #3)  Congratulations, Eric!

Ghost Tree Image by John-Morgan

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Today, I would like to tell a story about an incident that happened to me last summer and the positive that came from it.

What happened…
It was late July of 2008 and I was working for a small subcontractor in the Baton Rouge area .  They were informed that the large contract they were helping to manage was not going to be extended as they presumably thought.  Because of this fact, the majority of their employees (including myself) were going to be laid off.  I was really o.k. with it, being that I needed the break.

Well, during the first week I was at home, I decided to put my truck in the shop to have a minor dent repaired.   After a week the repairs were done, everything was great and my truck was beautiful again.  The next day, I took my brother to the National Guard Base as he was going on his 2 week yearly military training.  He’d given me some information to give to our mom to take care of while he was out of town.

I decided that since I was out, I would drop the information off to our Mom while she was at work.  I stopped right behind her car on an angle, but instead of putting the car in "Park" I kept my foot on the brake.  As my Mom was talking to my daughter and our dog (Missy) through the back window, Missy started to gag on something she shouldn’t have eaten.  I panicked…..OH NOOOOO!  SHE’S GOING TO THROW UP IN MY TRUCK!!!!!  Not realizing it, I took my foot off the brake and the truck started to roll.  You can imagine what happened next…

My mom started to scream at me…calling my name.  I thought she was talking about the dog.  She just kept screaming and actually started to irritate me.  Finally, at the point when I was “hitting her car” she yelled….. "MY CAR!!!", but it was too late.

My first thought was…"I JUST got my truck out of the shop yesterday, I’m currently unemployed, what am I going to do?”  I got out to assess the damage to both vehicles.  I bent my front driver’s side and her rear passenger side.   Arghhh, not a great start to the day.

My Reaction…
I left the scene shaking and nervous.  I was so mad with myself, "How could I be so careless?"  Now, I was going to be out of another $500 to repair my truck AND I was still out of a job AND we were a few months away from paying off our debt.

Initially, I was having a little bit of trouble managing my emotions.  I just knew that later on my mom was going to hit the roof.  I replayed the  coulda, woulda, shoulda’s in my head.  I immediately called my insurance company on my way home and told them what happened.  I must say that they treated me with the utmost respect and care.

My mom called to let me know that no matter what, everything was going to be alright.  Sidenote: I hit her car and she’s calling to console me (go figure).  I then realized that even in this moment, I had to find a way to be – grateful.  I’d been listening to many different audio series centered around positive thinking and how to draw it into my life.  I had to now put it into action.  I immediately changed my sorrowful and somber attitude and decided that no matter what…everything WAS going be alright.

The Result…
The following week, I was called for a job interview and guess what?  I was got the job.  Was this because of my great attitude towards the negative that happened in my life?  Was it the fact that I chose joy instead of wallowing in self pity?  I choose to believe so…

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You see, personal finance is not always about the dollars and the cents.  We will always have small to major events occur in our lives.  We have to face them with a positive attitude and the courage to know that everything will be fine.  Mistakes are made, bad decisions are made, BUT situations can still be turned around for our good.

"Learn to get in touch with the silence within yourself, and know that everything in life has purpose. There are no mistakes, no coincidences, all events are blessings given to us to learn from."  - Elisabeth Kubler-Ross