Day 29: easier said than done

Advice: it's easy to give, harder to take.

Especially when it's your own advice.

When you're giving it, you feel powerful and wise and mature. Just call me "Dear Abby."

But when the tables turn and you're presented the opportunity to actually take that advice you so sagely doled out just a few blog posts ago? Eh - it's not quite as easy.

In a post called Perspective is Everything, I warned against blowing things out of proportion. In A Thankful Heart, I stressed the importance of being grateful for what you do have, not mouring what you don't. In Must Be Funny, I joked about our obsession with money and how it can't buy happiness.

Today, my newfound level-headed-guru persona was tested. I can obviously talk the talk (I've been doing it for 29 days) but can I walk the walk?

I don't have a job. Obviously - that's the point of this whole thing. But I have been doing some small things on the side to earn a little cash, like babysitting. Yeah, I'm a babysitter. (And proud of it. Children are the future. #ForTheKids)

My employer (aka the dad who hired me to watch his kids - "employer" sounds more legit) sent me a check last week to pay me for nurturing the young impressionable minds of his children with endless rounds of HeadsUp and Would You Rather. But the check never came.

What did come, though, was a notice from our apartment's leasing office informing us of suspected mail thievery (is that a word?) happening in our complex. That's right, package prowlers. Letter looters. Stamp snatchers. Correspondence kleptos (that one's a stretch. Ok, they all are. You get it.)

My employer talked to his bank, who confirmed not only that the check had been stolen, but that it had actually been cashed earlier today. By someone who wasn't me.

After talking to the bank, my leasing manager, the renter's insurance company, etc., it became increasingly clear: the money's gone.

Ok - time to put my advice into action.

Well, first, I'll allow myself a minute to be really, really, pissed.

Ok - now, time to put my advice into action.

Don't blow this out of proportion. I lost a few hundred bucks. That sucks. Accept that it sucks, accept that I've done what I can, then move on. The world's still spinning. I'm safe and healthy. I'm ok. And - this is the hardest part to tell myself - but, if these people are breaking into apartment complexes in the middle of the night and stealing mail, chances are they need this money more than I do. Perspective: My apartment mailbox may have been broken into, but an entire apartment complex in London burned down last week and people lost everything, some even lost their lives. Through that lens, this is truly no big deal.

Be thankful for what I do have. Be grateful it wasn't worse! What if the check had been for a few thousand dollars? What if it wasn't a check that was stolen at all, but a handwritten letter with the last words and final wishes of a long lost relative? (Ok,maybe that's a little dramatic.) I have a lot to be thankful for, and a crappy mail thievery doesn't change that. They can take my mail, but they won't take my joy! (Embroider that on a pillow, stat.)

Remember it's just money. And money doesn't buy happiness. This one was hard to choke down, especially seeing as I'd recently gone on a bit of an online shopping spree, knowing this particular check was on it's way. And those new shoes, that new purse, and those four new outfits kinda did feel like they were buying me happiness. But this small incident - which is all it is, a small incident, not a colossal disaster - reminds me that money is just money. Not the key to a soul-igniting, spirit-enriching life.

Wow, that's some pretty good advice.