Acting Beyond the Ordinary

I have a good friend, a former Realtor®, who has been embroiled in a legal battle for a couple of years now. Sadly, she entered an ill-advised partnership with someone on the renovation of an historic property only to be squeezed out of the opportunity by means of her partner's conniving and greedy machinations leading to messy and expensive lawsuits and counter lawsuits. All of this has combined to push her towards the precipice, that dark place where few of us wish to look.

In the years of legal wrangling and desperate positioning to avoid destitution, she has exhibited a phenomenal depth of fortitude and endurance, sprinkled with some very human denial. Few people I know would withstand trials such as hers and survive. In her I see an ordinary woman who has lived through so much pain she is simply compelled to heroism. She just won't give up…no matter what!

The national press is driving me nuts! Daily, I read articles written by doomsayers, harbingers of disaster espousing with great dramatic flourishes the demise of our nation's economy, implosion of the housing market. To what end? Whom do they serve? Is theirs a self-fulfilling prophesy - write about it enough and it's certain to happen so it may be written about some more? Is the state of our economy really a surprise in the first place or is it just history repeating itself - the stock market crash of '29 or dotcom bust wrapped in stick-built on-site homes and vinyl siding?

What we're not hearing about are the success stories. Stories, for instance, about real estate agents in markets such as Phoenix who are transacting business, are growing, are thriving. Stories about young couples buying their first home, paying a fair price to reasonable sellers who recognize they've made a profit in their smart-minded investment of several years.

Our propensity to fearfully dwell on the idiotic and greedy does a disservice to all who simply buckle down and do what it takes to live through and overcome adversity. This real estate market is a cycle like any other. People need to live with a roof over their heads and banks will gladly help them do so. Where is it written that all who covet it shall own a home or run a successful business? A sense of entitlement is not a business plan, nor a 750 credit score the product of wishful thinking. Success is the phoenix rising from the ashes of failure. I know no one who is successful who has not failed at some level in their business or personal life. Success is that fibrous muscle which, with every stress, painful and injurious repetition has grown stronger, denser. Heroes are those who, despite their ordinariness and fearfulness act to achieve results well beyond what they conceived possible.

I celebrate those who, despite all the gloom and doom, have rolled up their sleeves, said "there's work to be done here" and forged ahead.