I Want My MOJO Back!

Hmmm, can't figure it out. Somehow I lost my MOJO and I have no idea where it went. I have a pretty good idea how I lost it. That's relatively easy to figure out. Heck, I'm sure there are plenty of people out there that have lost theirs recently. You don't even need to watch TV, read the newspaper or go online to know that the economy is hurting these days and it has more than likely affected someone you know. Family, friends, coworkers, perhaps even you yourself have been affected in one way or another. Recession has become another household word.


Unemployment is hovering around 10% but here in So. Cal. it seems more like 25%. For the most part, 'basic' jobs are non existent. The days of walking in to your local auto parts store, grocery store, even a pizza delivery place, plunking down your paper application and at the very least landing a part time job are over and done. Nowadays you pretty much need a PHD to bag groceries. Well, at the very minimum an MBA. There are so many over qualified people out of work these days that it has created a major bottleneck at the door to HR.


Add to that the fact that if companies aren't outsourcing all their job openings, then they are eliminating the jobs all together. When I think about the hourly wage required to survive in this country, it's no wonder businesses are looking overseas for labor. Add to that the taxes, insurance, etc. and it's just off the charts. We just can't afford to hire our own. Not sure how or even if we will ever get back to 'normal', whatever normal is. Been so long since we've seen anything normal around here, if it does show up more than likely we won't even recognize it.


With the general consensus being that the entire country is pretty much in the crapper, no wonder I along with quite a few others have lost our Mojo. Now I define "MOJO" as motivation, drive, desire, pretty much any reason to get out of bed in the morning. A reason to get out there and battle another day, to struggle against all odds, continuing to hope for a better outcome. A better life. When the odds continue to be stacked against us, with no signs of clearing up anytime soon, it's tough to continue forward knowing that it will indeed get better. Difficult to even find a reason to keep trying let alone stay focused on it.


Then I got to thinking about the world and the economy in general. After all I'm sure most would agree that the entire world economy has been affected, not just in the US. With the media continuing to create this feeling that the sky is indeed falling, on everyone, it's no wonder this 'viewpoint' is so wide spread. And being a Realtor, watching the housing market drop off the cliff and into the ocean, a big chunk of the world as I knew it has left the building and more than likely won't return anytime soon.


But let's take a look at this from the other side. So Real Estate, New Constuction, both Residential and Commercial Real Estate in general have gone south right along with the Stock Market. Everybodys 401Ks are worthless, most peoples Portfolios have lost at least half of their previous 'perceived' value. I stress the word perceived here because just as in Real Estate, it's only money once you sell the home or cash in the stock. Until that point it's all play money. So in essence you never really had the money anyway. You were just banking on the rest of the world order following suit which would cause your 'paper' to go up in value. Well, as we all know that didn't happen.


So lets take an overall view of this situation. Even if Real Estate, the Stock Market, Auto Makers and basic Unemployment were all taken into account along with the general slowdown of the economy itself, that still leaves plenty of people out there working. Continuing to bring home a paycheck, paying bills and buying goods and services. The whole world hasn't gone under, just a very large portion of it but it seems much larger than that as the media continues to focus on the bad news, as they always do because as we know all too well, bad news sells better than good news. And if you tell people that things are bad enough times, they will begin to believe it and they will also tell the people around them so that they have someone to commiserate with, someone to feel their pain. Next thing you know, the world is waiting in a big line at the edge of the cliff, ready to jump off.


But hold on here. Just because a very large portion of our population is hurting doesn't mean they all are. I was reminded of this over the last few days as a friend of mine has been going through lots of struggles lately. He's in the constuction trade, a very hard hit segment of our economy. Work for him has been pretty much non existent over the last couple years. When he does find work, he's working for half of what he used to make and begging to get those jobs at that. Competition is very fierce as so many big companies are drastically cutting their labor rates, making it difficult to say the least for the 'little guys' to survive.


Which brings me around to my point. His father bought an old '32 Ford Coupe sometime to prior to my buddy being born. He had hopes of restoring it someday but like many before him, life and his family had to come first and so the project was put on hold.


The car sat covered up in the back yard, just a dream that never came to fruition. His father passed away I believe approx. eight or nine years ago and his mother passed a couple years after that. My buddy 'G' had loved that car since he was a kid and after his mother passed, he was the most likely of the family to ever get it running and so after jumping over a series of family hurdles, it became his. Not having the resources to do it justice, it remained in pieces yet all the while the dream was still there to resurrect it as his father had always hoped to. Imagine the sorrow he recently felt when he finally had to give in and realize that after 50 years, he was going to have to let go of the family dream and sell it. The guilt was overwhelming but money problems and his own dire situation have forced him to have to face a harsh reality, one where survival meant having to let go of a family 'jewel'.


Long story short, the 'new' owner came by with the money last monday, the car and all its parts were loaded up and off they went. Lots of tears were shed as reality sunk in that the dream of restoring it was never going to come true.


He held on as long as he could but yet he couldn't fight the inevitable. All he could hope was that the new owner would do the car justice, restore it the way both 'G' and his father had hoped to. And I have to admit that I truly felt bad for him. I have been involved with antique and classic cars from as far back as I can remember. My father was also a car buff and so I couldn't help but feel his pain as the life long dream of the family was on its way down the street, hopefully to fulfill the dreams of another family elsewhere.


That's when it really triggered me, forced me to realize the guy that just bought this car had just plunked down $20,000.00 without really thinking much about it, with plans of putting another $50K in it! Yes, he plans on having a minimum of $70K in the car. That's alot of mortgage payments, monthly bills and pork 'n' beans. Obviously he's not hurting for money. Come to find out there was another interested buyer in Washington that was ready and willing to purchase the car also, if the 'family friend' decided to back out of the deal. More proof that not everyone in the US is broke.


We continually hear so much about the demise of the economy, how the recession has a grip on the whole country so that the thought of another person having any money just seems purely absurd. And yet, here are two gentlemen that have obscene amounts of money, money that they have no problem spending on 'toys' or whatever else they decide they want. And so it got me to thinking, "I wanna be like them!" I want to be in a position to be able to do what I want, when I want and not have to be able to worry about not having a dollar to do it. Now, I myself have never stopped thinking about money since over the last couple years I have more or less lost everything but more recently what I had lost was the desire to fight, to go out and get mine! Sure, that's a lofty dream and I realize that everyone more or less has that same dream but I also know that many of us have gotten so wrapped up in the demise of the world that we have lost all hope, any sort of faith that there truly is a way out of this mess. A way of living a much better life, for our families and for ourselves.


So with this little scenario playing out more or less right in front of me, it surely opened my eyes to the fact that there is still hope out there. I'm a firm believer in the ol' saying, "If one man can do it, so can another" and so I am going to do my best to stay focused on that, to keep my eyes on the prize because one thing's for sure, I'm in it to win it and if I don't keep trying, I'll never get there. I have a feeling that more than likely I'm gonna find my Mojo again as well. Matter of fact, I'll bet it's right around the corner.