Today is August 24, 2013 and it’s Saturday morning. Earlier today I was watching several youtube videos on making money, getting out of debt, etc…. I watched Dave Ramsey rant on students who are trying to protest because of their student loans. He was calling people stupid, dumb, and idiots, etc…. Which shouldn’t be done! His method was a bit rough and offensive but much of what he said was the truth. We should take responsibility for our own debts and not blame the government because the fact of the matter is that nobody put a gun to our heads and forced us to take out these loans. Dave Ramsey is right about that. I, Shawne M. Jackson, take responsibility for my own debt.
Even though I have acquired a lot of debt I am thankful for my college education. I am thankful that I was given the opportunity to go to Baker to receive my Associates Degree in Business and my Bachelor’s Degree in Graphic Communications. I have used my skills to start my own business Shamonj Gifts LLC and I have managed to publish some books which is what I have always dreamed of doing ever since I was in middle school. I am also thankful for my Master’s Degree in Psychology and the second Master’s Degree in Mental Health Counseling that I was actually working towards.
For the Mental Health Counseling Degree, I actually have 3 more classes left and I would love to finish. I have a practicum and two internships left. After I pass those three classes I was supposed to take the NCE and become a licensed Mental Health Counselor. However, I have experienced a minor setback. I called the school a few weeks ago only to find out that I am over 100,000 in debt and that there is no more loan money for me to take out unless I do a graduate plus loan which would add more debt and interest rates to what I owe already. I’ve been browsing online to see if I can find some options. Dave Ramsey has a customized college guide that teaches students how to go to college loan free. I was thinking, now why didn’t someone tell me about this before I signed up for college? Click here to check it out!
After watching Dave Ramsey’s video, I watched a few other videos. Several videos inspired me. Another video that inspired me is the video about a family who changed their spending habits and got out of 120,000 debt in about 5 years. I was like WOW! I want to do that too!
Then I went on to watch a few other youtube videos. The youtube video that inspired me the most was a video with a guy named Adam Baker who talked about how him and his wife decided to sale all of their stuff to pay off their debts and move to Australia and do what they love. He asked a question. That question that he asked is what does freedom mean to you? I want to share with you what freedom means to me. Freedom means to me waking up every morning, in prayer, in worship, not having a care or worry at all. Freedom to me means having joy everyday, peace everyday, and spend a lot of time with God/Jesus Christ. Freedom to me is to be able to build an Relaxation center in my own home and in a writers cabin Freedom means to me to be in position to be able to buy whatever I need, desire and be able to be a blessing and buy for other people. Freedom for me means that I would be able to pay off student loans, pay for students to go to college, fund a project, business, event, cause that is making a difference in the community. Freedom for me would be able to use the majority of my time volunteering, spending time with my family and friends and have billions of dollars in the bank. Freedom means to me to be in a healthy mindset, a healthy weight, building a healthy body, build healthy friendships with different people, and more important having a strong fulfilling, relationship with Jesus Christ. Freedom for me is the ability to take vacations with my husband, go on a lot of date nights, and just spend a lot of time with that person. Freedom for me is to learn a new language when I feel like it, buy a car when I feel like it, take a vacation when I feel like it, take college courses when I feel like it. Freedom for me is creating and establishing multi-billion dollar businesses, giving people jobs, starting schools, and educating billions of people. Freedom for me is to have what I want, to do what I want, and when I want to do it or have it. Freedom for me is having faith, walking in God’s wisdom, blessings and favor, and inspiring others. I ask all of those who is reading this blog to please pray for me that God helps me in my current situation that God gives me wisdom on how to handle it and what to do, when to do it and how to do it. Also ask that God blesses Shamonj Gifts LLC to be able to make a difference. Just pray as the Lord lead you. Also, please feel free to leave a comment answering the question, what does freedom mean to you! God bless each of you