Seduction – something that attracts or charms.

Compulsion – the action or state of forcing or being forced to do something

Many people are beguiled by the seduction of debt. It has the promise of giving you what you can’t truly afford right now with the ability to delay reckoning with reality (paying for what you cannot afford) to some nebulous period in the future. Many times the seduction is due to the striving, clawing and clinging of present life circumstances that the reprieve a vehicle purchase might bring or a residence in a more desirable part of town or satisfying that craving you’ve always had since your younger days.

Do you understand how pressing a current situation like living in “the hood” and needing to escape or driving around in an embarrassing hooptie or having the only change to your daily wardrobe be your necktie can be? Ever live through any or all of these situations or worse? For all the proposed benefits of those seductive debt situations swooping in to save the day, there is the ever-present truth about the nature of debt – seduction eventually leads to compulsion.

Debt is insidious and it will strike when you don’t expect it with unrelenting pressure and without regard for your financial condition, character, family situation or any other virtue or heart-wrenching circumstance. When faced with the seduction of debt, channel that inner discipline that we were all taught as kids — delayed gratification; because debt does not care who you are or what your circumstance is. It will cease to draw you in with sensual allurement but rather it will repulse you with contemptuous compulsion; pay me! Pay me now!