Crisis and Hope
As I was listening to Dave Ramsey’s recent call-in show, a young woman called in to ask Dave his advice. She was 50K in debt, made $75K/year and had just found out she was pregnant.
“I’m only on baby step one. So I’m freaking out.”
Ramsey and Jade Warshaw walked her through her next steps, firmly but gently.
As they went through the call, the problems just kept piling on: Her mom said the caller needed her own place, her self-made business had to be put on hold, she didn’t know how much maternity she’d get. Ramsey asked about child support from the father, and she said that he had wanted her to get an abortion, specifically because he was in another relationship. He left her, and she was on her own.
It was one call that I really wished I had been on the receiving end to coach and counsel the young woman.
“This feels like such a crisis,” I thought. “People call when they are in crisis.”
It brought me back to my career development class. My grad students spend more than 2 hours going through the history of career counseling. But the most important theme that I teach them is:
Tragedies, disasters, crises, unfortunate events, and experiences in history tend to increase awareness of social problems, and therefore trigger desire to do something about it, and it stimulates the counseling field.
It’s also true of our personal lives. We keep moving along spending our money and time here and there, often without much direction, until a crisis or unfortunate event hits.
All of a sudden our true situation bears down on us and our natural (and sometimes appropriate) response is to feel anxiety or panic.
The young woman on the Ramsey call was trying to stay calm, but you could hear the panic just underneath the surface.
And it triggered her to do something about it. She called Dave Ramsey. He offered her a few of his resources and he pushed her: “But if I give this to you for free, do you promise to go through the training?”
“Yes, sir.” She said solemnly. “I promise. I will.”
Crisis can be a catalyst for genuine change.
While there are a select few who observe the mistakes of others and learn from them, for most of us, profound learning comes we feel that deep sense of panic and uncertainty. When we’re facing the debt collectors, or we just don’t know if the paycheck will hit at the right time, or when our job is in jeopardy.
But the reason I so deeply wished I could talk to that young woman was far more personal. I would have been able to say:
“My mom was in your situation. I was the baby. My biological father also said she should abort. So, she faced much of the crisis on her own, and had to make big changes and wise decisions. But we had love, and joy, and there’s the chance that your baby could do something to make this world a better place.
All because of the crisis you’re in, and the changes that you can make.”
