Frannie Farmer said: You are brave - I can't even begin to think about writing down (or saying) my debt ...

And this made me think. Just a little bit, mind you, since I am somewhat averse to thinking. Mostly it made me think back and remember, which is more like daydreaming. Now daydreaming I can handle. It doesn't require too much effort, so I tend to do that more often than actual thinking. But anyhow, why would I want to write down all of the private details of my debt for all the world to see? And so that is the purpose of this post.

It's not so much that I am brave. I just don't really care. I look at is this way:
Anyone can look and see my debt on here. And is that a bad thing? My friends could look at it and then they would know how much debt I have. And then what? They could be helpful. That would be good. Or they could be derogatory. But then are they really my friends to start with? Would I really want someone like that as my friend? How about the people who regularly read my blog (if any). Would their reading about my level of debt affect what they think of me? Do I care if I lose readers over it? What if they talk about me?

To me, there is just not a lot of risk. The worst that can happen is that someone will look at how much debt I have and they could happen to be a person who works for a service that helps with debt relief and then they could send me an email offering me their services and I could hit the 'delete as spam' button. And while I admit that would be frustrating for all of three seconds, it isn't enough to make me refrain from posting about my debt. Because there is a lot of good that can happen.

The good that can come of it outweighs the bad. Someone could see that I am paying my debt off and offer me support. That would be good. They could offer me tips. Ok, that could be good or not, depending on if it is a good tip. I am a reasonably intelligent person, or at least I fancy myself one, so there is a good chance that I wouldn't need whichever tip someone offers, so if that were the case it still wouldn't be bad. It would be neutral.
Someone could look at my debt, and as they see me pay it off over a period of time, they could be inspired by it, and decide to pay off their debt. Or they could see that I am paying off my debt and also know that there is something that I want to buy and then stop me from buying it, that way they would keep me on track. And that one has already happened. (Thanks Leigh Ann.)

But for the most part, I am writing about my debt for my own selfish reasons. I learned a trick years ago that has made life easy for me. It works like this:
Whenever you have a problem with something, most of the problem is usually that you are keeping it a secret. Once you break the secret, the problem usually goes away on its own. I'll give you an example for illustration. Everyone who reads my blog should know by now that I am married. My wife is more or less the center of my life. I go out of my way to never put myself in a situation where I would be tempted to cheat on my wife. But I have a thing for blonds. I don't want to. I would like to only ever be attracted to my wife. And usually that is the case. But every now and then there will be a blond who will make my jaw drop. So how do you handle something like this? I told my wife about it. I explained it all to her and told her that I have no intention of ever being unfaithful to her. And you know what? Problem solved. And to boot, sometimes she will go blond for a while.
Now take it a step further. What if there was some really bad problem that someone had. What if someone was a freaky pervert? How did they get that way? Did they just wake up one day and decide that they wanted to be all screwed up? Or did they get there progressively? Did they start off with pornography and then start having strange fantasies? Did they then start picking up hookers and acting out those fantasies? And then did they then become a freaky pervert after all that? Well what would happen if to start with they had let people around them know that they had a problem with pornography? It seems to me that if you have a problem with porn and everyone around you knows about it, assuming you are hanging around with reasonably normal people, you would no longer have a problem with porn.

Anyhow, I think everyone got the idea now, so I won't run it into the ground. I'm not any sort of sociologist or anything. I'm just some guy who keeps a blog. So what do I know? But the world according to Jagular says that if you have a problem and you let everyone know about it, most of the problem is gone already.

So brave? I don't think so. Now everyone knows what kind of debt I have. But that helps me out in the long run. And if someone wants to read all about my debt and think badly of me, I would ask why in the world are they wasting their time reading some guy's boring blog for their own self-aggrandizement.