Living Fearlessly in a Bad Economy

Things are bad, and according to Obama, they're going to get worse before they get better. Woe is us. Cash flow is low; job instability is high. Uncertainty prevails.

My husband and I have micro-analyzed our family budget, looking for even the smallest expenditures we can cut. At dinner the other night, we announced to our kids that we are having our cable turned off. They moaned. They griped. They groaned.

"Why?" they whined.

"Well y'all," I explained, "we've just got a bad economy right now."

"If you've got a bag of money," said the youngest, exasperatedly, "can't you use that to buy our TV shows?"

She understands what's happening about as well as the rest of us. And there truly is no use sitting around listening to pundits explain it or trying to decipher it ourselves. It is what it is, and somewhere in it is a fresh opportunity, a door waiting to be opened.

In the meantime, here's how I'm keeping up the fearless life in the face of darkening adversity:

1) I've decided to value making memories over purchasing products, substance over stuff, experiences over expenses. Instead of spending money, I'm spending time. A happy memory lasts a lot longer than the thrill over a new pair of shoes.

2) There is no guarantee that my job will last past May. My contract may or may not be renewed. No matter. I will continue to perform my duties to the very best of my ability. If the economy causes my position to be eliminated, I will walk away with my head high, knowing I couldn't have worked any harder.

3) I'm being honest with myself about the things over which I have control and the things I don't. In the past, God has used the chaos or confusion of a difficult situation to build me into a better person. I have faith that those things I can't control are in His hands. He will take care of me.

And maybe, somehow, some way, on the other side of all this, the bad economy really will turn into a bag of money.

Southern Girls Living Fearlessly in the New Year

Every [woman] should be born again on the first day of January. Start with a fresh page. Take up one hole more in the buckle if necessary, or let down one, according to circumstances; but on the first of January let every [woman] gird [herself] once more, with [her] face to the front, and take no interest in the things that were and are past.
~Henry Ward Beecher

As January 1st approaches, I have to assess if I really accomplished all that I set out to do this year - get organized, manage my time better, read more books, focus on the truly important things in life . . . live fearlessly. Then I must put it behind me. Face forward and meet the New Year head on. Because if I'm seriously honest with myself, I have to admit that the only thing organization ever did for me was create a clean slate for new chaos.

Instead of making the same-old-same-old safe resolutions like travel, lose weight, spend more time with family and friends, get in shape, eat healthier, I'm going to accept that I've probably done the best that I can with those tried and true standards over the years. In 2009 I'm stepping out on a limb and taking a chance on a new approach to evolving into a better person:

• Say "No" - I will say "No" to doing anything - joining a club, leading a group, organizing an activity - that I cannot or will not give my best to. I will not allow a guilty sense of obligation back me into a corner.
• Make no comparisons- No matter what the talking heads in the media try to get me panicked about this year, no matter what my friends and neighbors do, I'm going to spend my time and my money only on things that are important to me and my family.
• Live life as a work of art - I will cherish experiences over things. I will collect beautiful memories instead of stuff.
• Foolish versus Fearless - I will remember the difference between foolish and fearless and will not do anything to compromise my life or my dignity. This includes skydiving and skinny dipping and other sundry activities of that nature.
• Change is not just the coins jingling at the bottom of my purse - It is an uncertain world in which we live. I will accept change in my circumstances as God's way of offering me a new opportunity or His desire to alter my life's direction.
• Be a light of this world - I will speak kind words, make charitable contributions within my means, and engage in behaviors that build my community regardless of recognition.

Happy New Year!

May you and those you love embrace all the possibilities it brings at the stroke of midnight.

Southern Girls Living Fearlessly - Day 26

" . . . live life as a work of art, rather than as a chaotic response to external events . . ."
--Mihaly Csikszentmehalyi (Bet you can't say that name 5 times, fast.)

There are days, like today, when I wake up overwhelmed by my life; burdened by a daily schedule that allows no time for silently standing still to take a breath and appreciate just where I am in the course of things. No, I've got to get four kids out of bed, make sure they're wearing appropriate school clothes, hustle them downstairs to make lunches and eat breakfast, herd them out the door to school, get them there on time, and get myself to work. Then work, work, work. After that, I run children to soccer practices and games, ballet, the store to get supplies for oh-my-gosh-mama-I-forgot-about-it-and-it's-due-tomorrow school projects, dentist appointments, orthodontist appointments, youth group, etc. etc. And somewhere in the mix I've got to find a minute to cook dinner, help with homework, and have meaningful conversations with the people I love.

My husband and I often look at each other, in that rare instance when we can pull our heads up from the task at hand, and ask, "When did everything get so crazy?" Sometimes I feel like the only thing I can control is the pages of my calendar where I write down all of our obligations. After that, I just bounce from one thing to the next, trying my best to survive the unpredictable chaos that so often defines my existence.

Survival mode, however, tweaks the garden club member in me, who knows that life is more than just responding to turmoil, both inner and external. It's more than checking off days on the calendar. She makes herself known, rising to the top of my psyche, reminding me, "Lucy, you can lump it or like it, BUT sugah, you chose it. So suck in that bottom lip and learn to enjoy it. No one likes a complainer or a whiner, so make your day the best it can be."

That's when the poor, poor, pitiful me, who was ping-ponging through the afternoon gets her come-uppence. It's no way to live. The business of daily life is only an excuse for not living a beautiful, better existence. And the fearless woman is always living better than anyone else.

I was not meant to be a frenzied carpool mom. I was meant to be fearless. I fearlessly make my life a work of art when I take the kids to the drive-through car wash and we ooh and ahh like we did when they were little. I make art when I ask them to tell me one good thing about their day at school instead of nagging them about homework. I create beauty in my life when I light a candle, or brew a cup of green tea, or read excerpts from literature to my children, or write down home decorating ideas, or even smell that clean fresh scent of my children's clothes for the next day.

TODAY'S ASSIGNMENT: Buffer yourself against the hard knocks of daily life by living today as work of art. Listen to your garden club persona. She's trying to tell you that you are bigger than unexpected dips, dives, and detours in the day. You control the beauty of your life just by the attitude you express toward it.

Take time today to decorate your home for the season. Make it a warm, cozy retreat that pleases your senses and expresses your creativity. Light a candle, place a pumpkin on your doorstep, place an arrangement of fall flowers on the kitchen table. These simple acts allow you to embrace the day, rather than fear the havoc it may bring.

Southern Girls Living Fearlessly - Day 25

Accept that bad things will happen.

When my oldest son was 3 and my second son was 1 and I was pregnant with their younger brother, the oldest child stood on the side of a shopping cart and pulled it over on himself, slamming his head to the asphalt parking lot. As I lifted his body, his eyes rolled back in his head and he lost consciousness. At that moment my maternal instincts kicked in. I scooped his limp body into one arm and grabbed the baby in the other arm then ran to the front of the store, shouting at a woman headed in the same direction to call 911. I know the voice that came out of me must have sounded like that of an animal.

Miraculously, my son recovered without even a hospital stay, and for the most part appeared unscathed by the entire incident. I, on the other hand, was profoundly changed. I couldn't even talk about it in the days following, until one morning I was on my hands and knees cleaning the floor under the kitchen table, a daily chore with two young boys, and had a revelation.

These are not my children. Never were. Not mine to cling to so desperately. I have been given the gift of stewardship over them. We were selected for each other with the understanding that we supply what the other needs, AND that our creator can take either of us back when it pleases Him.

This experience prepared me for the morning, a little over two years later when my daughter, only one week old, spiked a very, very high fever. I will never forget the ambulance ride from our small county hospital to the MCG Children's Medical Center. Or the commotion that surrounded us in the emergency room. Or the tears that kept welling in my eyes, quietly trickling down my face, and my fruitless efforts to fight them back. Or standing in the hall listening to the pitiful wale of my tiny infant as residents whisked her away to a small room to perform a spinal tap. And I will always remember the prayer I said, standing there alone, time completely stopped:

Lord, I know she is yours and not mine. If you need her back, I will try to understand and I am so thankful for the week you gave us. But I also want you to know that I really would like to have more time with her, please. Amen.

I have tears in my eyes right now thinking about how he has given me seven years.

You might think that these experiences set me free to enjoy without fear the time I've been allotted with my family. But try as I might, I still held too tightly to my children. I tried to protect them from every threat to their happiness and health. I refused to go away on trips with my husband, because I didn't want something to happen to us and our children to be orphans. For me family trips were an all or nothing deal; we all go or we all stay home. I stood by that, even after a friend said, "So you'd rather that you all go down in a fiery crash together, than for your children to miss you but live long fulfilling lives?"

Last winter my husband made me face my fears. He planned a week long trip to Costa Rica for the two of us. When I tried to worm out of it, he took it as personal rejection. In the last few days, while making final plans and lists for my mother-in-law who stayed with our kids, I had to come to grips with getting on a plane without my children and leaving the country.

I had a little epiphany that not only enabled me to go on that trip, but was truly the first step of my journey into the fearless life: I had to accept that bad things happen. They just do. Events, tragic or otherwise, for the most part, are beyond human control. I have been given stewardship over my children, but I cannot protect them, or myself, from every potential heartache.

What I can protect my children from, however, is the sorrow and regret over life not lived.

TODAY'S ASSIGNMENT: Accept that bad things happen. Hug your children, your spouse, your parents, your friends. Then do something you've avoided because of worry over "something bad" happening, such as letting your husband buy that motorcycle he really wants, taking a summer sabbatical to sail up the Atlantic Coast, letting your child go out of state to college, etc. and etc. Something bad might happen, but you've got to do it anyway.

Southern Girls Living Fearlessly - Day 24

Well, I won't back down. No, I won't back down. You can stand me up at the gates of hell, but I won't back down.
--Tom Petty

Tom Petty channeled his inner southern matriarch when he recorded that song. Every southern lady worth her salt in the silver-topped crystal shaker has convictions; strong beliefs deeply rooted in her heritage, passed down over generations. And she stands by her convictions no matter the challenge. She may politely change the subject so as not to make her company feel ill-at-ease, BUT she will nevah back down.

A southern girl who doesn't stand for something will fall for anything. Swaying with every breeze, adrift on the wave of opinion and trend, does not become the fearless woman. It's those core beliefs that hold her spine straight and help her mind her posture. Fearlessness requires us to honor our beliefs.

Backing down from our principles, because of worry over whether or not a friend, or, worse, a man, will like us if we disagree, ruffles the petticoats and unhems the hoop skirts of all those proud southern women who came before us. Not only that, but we leave ourselves open to shamefully saying and doing things that we'll regret. (And if it means anything, fearless living means no regrets.)

So start channeling your inner matriarch. And if you can't channel her, channel Tom Petty and his inner matriarch.

TODAY'S ASSIGNMENT: Download Tom Petty's Won't Back Down as your new ringtone on your cell to remind you of who you are and where you come from.

Then take out your Book of Lists and write down at least three core beliefs/convictions that you will stand by, come hell or high water, in this wired and wacky world.

Southern Girls Living Fearlessly - Day 23

Start with a clean slate.

Some days I think to myself, If I could just start all this over again, I would do the whole thing differently. I've often thought about how, if I could go back in time and get a re-do on my college years, I would break up with my high school boyfriend before getting there, I would major in journalism or math, I would study harder my freshman year, I would get to know some of my professors better. If only, if only.

But, I'll never get a do-over on anything. Not really. Nevertheless, today I got as close to a do-over as anyone gets and it wasn't initially as blissful as I thought such a chance might be. At work on Monday, our computer network contracted a permanent flaw and lost all the data everyone in my division ever saved on the netshare. Today we were informed that it is irretrievable.

I lost years of work. Plus, I lost all my documents, spreadsheets, and power points generated from intense research over the last several weeks. There is no record of my accomplishments, other than a few printouts. The data I am supposed to analyze has vaporized.

It tweaked me today, when I found out that I now have to re-create all the spokes on my wheel that will keep rolling forward whether I'm prepared or not.

At home tonight, however, when that little knot in my chest started to unravel and I had a moment of clarity, I realized what a rare opportunity I have - a chance to start fresh. I can redefine my job and how I execute it. I can take risks with it that I never did before. With no comparisons of old to new in existence, no point of reference, I can conduct a total re-do.

Oh, sweet euphoria. I've got a clean slate and the possibilities are exciting and endless. And it leaves me asking, Why wait until fate gives me a second chance? Why not give myself the gift of a do-over here and there? And while I'm at it, why not give permission to my friends to start over, too?

TODAY'S ASSIGNMENT: Today all you have to do is accept my permission to start over tomorrow, regardless of what you did today. You are relieved of your obligation to any path you've chosen that no longer suits you. Today is the day that you quit the volunteer committee that has become a burden to you. Today is the day you tell your spouse you want to make a career change. Today is the day you take the first step on your course to fulfilling a dream. Today you are throwing off all the burden of trying to live up to the expectations of everyone else and you're starting anew as the authentic YOU. It's the do-over of a lifetime. All you have to do is accept my gift.

Southern Girls Living Fearlessly - Day 22

Just as long as I'm in this world, I will be a light of this world.
- Joan Osborne, on the CD Little Wild One


It's a terrible habit we women develop of criticizing people. We can see flaws from miles away.


In a confidential whisper, during a recent funeral service, a woman sitting next to me on the pew leaned over and confidentially whispered, discreetly pointing toward a female down the row, "Can you believe she wore flip-flops to church? I guess at least they are black," she chuckled.


To my ears, nothing sounds worse than a scathing remark about another person spoken in a conspiratorial accent. Whether we're framing our negative comments with "bless his heart" or "bless her heart" or not, if we are truly honest with ourselves, we have to admit that we're not being very nice. Didn't our sweet southern mamas always tell us that if we didn't have anything nice to say, we shouldn't say anything at all? Didn't our sweet southern mamas teach us to love our neighbors as ourselves?


Sticks and stones might break bones, but words can rip the soul.


Living fearlessly means changing the world. We can change the world. Our words, spoken in that lilting southern drawl, can be a light in this world.


Why did that lady next to me at the funeral feel the need to speak out loud her assessment of our fellow mourner? Was she trying to add humor to a tense situation? Was she attempting to establish herself in my opinion as someone who knows her etiquette? Did she have a brain tumor that caused her to randomly rattle off every thought that came into her head? Had her mama never told her not to talk in church?


Whatever the reason, she didn't intend for her comments to make the world a better place, even if she didn't consciously seek to make it worse. But had the victim of the comments overheard, she would have been hurt and embarrassed, not built up.


TODAY'S ASSIGNMENT: As long as you're in this world, be a light to this world. Fearlessly use your words.

1. Give an honest compliment to a total stranger.


2. Give an honest compliment to a person you love.


3. Give an honest compliment to yourself.

Southern Girls Living Fearlessly - Day 18

Don't put up your umbrella until it starts raining.

A lot of us are standing around under opened umbrellas because it might rain. Although we southern belles are the queens of big hair, we recognize the difference between a big do and puffed up frizz. The latter mane is one to avoid. Yet, if we always agonize over rain ruining our locks, we've constantly got one hand holding up the umbrella, leaving only one to work with; thus we're only half as productive in life.

Like a good southerner, I'm using a metaphor to explain a common hindrance to living fearlessly - worry. And I myself am not immune to it.

Tomorrow, my husband leaves for a hunting trip to the arctic circle wilderness of northern Alaska. He and three other men will be dropped by a float plane along a river bank with the understanding that the pilot will return in 10 days to collect them at a designated point 50 miles down river. They will have no guide, no roads, no hotel rooms, no grocery stores, no doctor, no pharmacy, no wives with common sense. Just them, the grizzlies, the wolves, the caribou, and the packs on their backs.

Even though I laughed when the three other men intimated that their spouses won't need to fret about the bears because my beloved is the slowest runner, to say that I am worried is an understatement. It creeps across my mind on a daily basis that there's a chance he might not come back. There's a chance he might meet up with a grizzly bear. There's a chance his pilot might not return. There's a chance he might get hopelessly lost. There's a chance he took all the wrong supplies. There's a chance he and the others will run out of food. There's a chance a terrible accident might happen. There's a chance the pilot might crash.

When I think all these nagging thoughts, I start reaching for that umbrella - Where are his life insurance policies? How will I manage the business on my own? What are all of our loan and bank account numbers? Who manages our investments? What will I tell the children? - and I hold it over my head just in case the sky starts falling.

But holding up that umbrella won't stop the rain from coming down. It won't stop my husband from going on his oh-my-gosh-I'm-almost-40-and-what-have-I-done-with-my-life adventure. And it won't alter any possible consequences or outcomes. I have to have faith that God has him in His hands. And I have to keep telling myself that one midlife-crisis excursion to the Alaskan backcountry beats buying a motorcycle.

And if it does rain, well then, I'll wash my hair a fix it again, knowing God has me in His hands. Until then, I'll leave the umbrella hanging on the hall tree so I can enjoy each day as it comes, take care of what I can, and let go of what I can't; which also allows the people I love to go out and do the same.

Some parades get rained on. This doesn't mean there shouldn't have been a parade. It's time to quit worrying and start living the fearless life.

TODAY'S ASSIGNMENT: Get out a map of the world. Mark everywhere you've been in your life (since birth), then look at how far you've traveled.

Next mark three places you would like to go. Think about how much faster you'd get there if you just closed up that umbrella and used both hands.

(Lucy Adams is a freelance writer, weekly newspaper humor columnist, and the author of If Mama Don't Laugh, It Ain't Funny, available for purchase from Amazon.)