Broke in Mexico
Two weeks ago, I found myself lost in the Mexican countryside with only two hundred dollars in my bank account. Which would be fine if I was 20 and I was backpacking my way through Mexico, but I’m 31 and at 31 it’s no longer cool to be the guy with two hundred dollars in the bank.
And it’s not to say that I don’t work. I do. I have a job, an office, a nice car, but like many people I tend to live above my means. And expenses crept up on me, checks I forgot I sent — cleared, and before I knew it, there I was with no cash. And if it’s one thing you need in Mexico it’s cash because AMEX won’t bail you out of jail.
So for four days, I sat there imagining that I was going to have to call my agoraphobic mother in Connecticut and ask her to not only leave her house, when I knew she couldn’t, but to also wire me money to a taco stand that doubles as a Western Union office.
And there I was broke in Mexico wondering what it was I did, that led me to this situation. I thought about my successful friends, they have good careers, stable lives, families, and here I am — a single, struggling writer, with no guarantee that I’ll even be marginally successful.
But that’s part of the problem, it’s easy to look at other people’s lives in relation to your own and draw conclusions. It’s easy to play the “What If” game. What if I had become a lawyer? Got my MBA? Didn’t drop out of Med School?
But at the end of the day, you can’t compare yourself to other people because if you do, it will literally drive you crazy and you will never be happy.
