The Bank Next Door
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I had no idea of the scale of what was about to happen. But I was beginning to get really nervous about my decision to buy that apartment. First, there was the value of the property itself to worry about. Then there was my ability to pay for it.
Having some sort of original idea, along with the ability to execute on it, seemed like the ticket to the big leagues on Wall Street, or even off of it. If I could get there, then money wouldn’t be an issue. I tried to stare down my fear with visions of success. But as it became more and more clear that the bank next door was headed for bankruptcy, I was beginning to dread completing the contract.
Wall Street was about to start dropping people like sandbags from a hot air balloon. It was going to happen one way or another, and I realized too late that I had given up my parachute. My first fear of money; not having enough of it, was coming to life. I was going to become a slave to that stupid Brooklyn condo.
I felt shame because I had fallen into exactly the same trap as the “average” American homeowner. My financial intelligence had to be better than that. But it wasn’t. So much for being a budding quant/stock-trading genius on a quest for the truth about capitalism.
Those days really felt like war to me. I mean, to be honest, everything feels like war to me; I always feel like there isn’t enough time, that death is looming over me, threatening to take me back to wherever I came from in the case of even a tiny mistake.
