There’s something very serious that’s been on my mind. If you’ve been following the recent news of Madoff (the largest Ponzi scheme in the world) you’ll know that in the last couple of weeks, one of the individuals who had a lot of money invested committed suicide. His loss was a large percentage of his net worth. It was a culmination of his entire life’s work. He had people relying on him, dependants, family, business associates, friends, other investors that he had given advice to, etc. He felt like he had let all these people down. He’d lost everything. How could he start all over? How could he face all of those people? They’ve always seen him as successful l, when in the end he turned out to be a failure. Many of us can empathize with this billionaire who invested in Madoff, just because we've feared the worst.
We found this investment that would finally pull us out of our current income bracket and help make our financial dreams come true. Some have felt that it will make up for all other failures. Plans were made on how the additional money was going to be spent. Many were going to go on trips. Others were going to get out of debt, and some were going to finally become millionaires. Expectations were high.
The last 7 months haven’t quite met those expectations. We are now asking ourselves if the money is all gone. Where is it? Will I ever see it again? Am I going to have to start over building wealth? Do I now look like a gullible shmuck who fell for someone’s scheme? How could I have been so stupid? The fact is many of us put in money we can’t afford to lose. Some actually put home equity into this and others may have gone behind their spouses back. At some point during the last seven months we’ve all felt anger, hate, betrayal, blame, stress, anxiety, depression, guilt, alone, helpless, hopeless, and failure. These feelings are natural. They come straight from our sympathetic nervous system which triggers automatic processes within us forcing these feelings to surface.
We want to blame someone. Many of us will blame ourselves, even though that is irrational. Would we tell others to do that? Then why do it ourselves? We want to go after the person who is truly to blame, but can’t at the moment. So, what happens is that energy comes right back to us and we end up going after ourselves.
The reason I bring this up is because of the simple fact that many of us have experienced this the last 7 months. I have recently heard the following words from some of you, “foreclosure, world turned upside down, bankruptcy, divorce, lose everything”, and worst of all, the word, “suicide”.
Whether it’s all gone or not this is what many of us have gone through already. I just don’t want to see anyone do something irrational. We need to keep the anger and energy from taking on a life of its own. The way to do this is by channeling it, talk about it, and allow it to continually drain out and escape. We need to hear ourselves talk about it. The blog has been a big help for some in that regards, but it might not be enough. We all need to reach out and call the other clients that we know. Let’s look out for each other and be the support group that is needed.
Dear, Jeff Lowrance. You are a liar.
15 years ago
