Debt--a Sort of Slavery

“My father taught me,” said Anne Morrow Lindbergh, “that a bill is like a crying baby and has to be attended to at once.” To a conscientious person, unpaid obligations are always a cause for concern. One reason is that he who owes another does not altogether own himself or his future. Some of his time, his life, his substance, is not in honor his so long as he owes anything to others.

One of the great lessons to be learned by those beginning life together−as well as those who have lived long−is that payment must follow promises; that good credit, the right to be trusted, is one of the most valuable assets of life; and that debts do not dissolve themselves. In all honor, debts must be met, value for value; and what we cannot afford to pay for today is not necessarily easier to meet tomorrow. As a whimsical economist has commented: “Expenditure always rises to meet income.”

But it does not necessarily work the other way; income does not necessarily rise to meet expenditure. And it matters little how much we think we want something−if the debt incurred in getting it is a burden and embarrassment, the luster of it is soon lost. A past-due, unpaid, or unpayable debt is a sort of slavery.

We cannot always begin where others are−where perhaps they have arrived after long years of sacrifice and service.

“Be content [not] to want things that are not of absolute necessity, rather than to run up the score,” said Sir Matthew Hale. “Such a man pays, at the latter end, a third part more than the principal, and is in perpetual servitude to his creditors; lives uncomfortably; is necessitated to increase his debts to stop his creditors’ mouths; and many times falls into desperate courses.”

“A mortgage casts a shadow on the sunniest field,” said Robert G. Ingersoll. And Emerson observed, “A man in debt is so far a slave.” Furthermore, “consolidating” debts does not pay them. It merely changes the time and place of payment.

Human wants are insatiable. Man is seldom satisfied. And restraining the desires that would lead us deeper into debt requires both self-control and not being too much troubled by the problem of comparison. We should look to what we owe, to what we have, to what we need, to what we can do, and seek ever to be solvent. A man can have little influence unless he is sound and solvent.