Inner Whizdom

This day feels almost holy.

I know that Barack Obama is a human being, and I don’t want to burden him with my expectations. But I’m very hopeful. Everything I hear about his philosophy and approach is meaningful to me. Responsibility, listening, coming together, our better angels. I believe in this direction.

One of my Facebook Friends posted that she couldn’t wait until 1/20/13.  I felt kicked in the chest when I read that. This is a person with whom I shared my shock when Bush won the 2004 election. I know that she is a religious conservative. I wanted to try to understand how others could feel so differently from me.

I guess it’s time to do that again (and continuously).

I deleted the ebill I got this morning from Bank of America. They’d added late fees onto the finance charge they applied days AFTER I’d paid off my entire balance and closed my account. I was so angry with them from before that I was just going to ignore it forever and they could go jump in a lake.

That lasted for an hour or so. I started feeling twinges of yuck about the whole mess and finally looked online and documented all the payments and blah blah blah then called their “customer service” department, steeling myself for another fight.

Instead I got a pleasant man named Rocky who looked at the records and agreed to remove the finance charges. Just like that! I was a little off balance because I was ready to be aggressive but his demeanor diffused some of that. And instead of being an asshole myself I just asked him to please make the charges disappear and he said okay.

Thank you Rocky (he must be a new hire from one of the banks that went under).

I’m proud of myself for facing the fear and for trying a pleasant approach before getting defensive.

I’m on the receiving end of some predatory practices from Bank of America. Apparently they weren’t making enough money off of me so they tripled my APR because my payment was 2 days late.

I am fortunate that I have some options. Through some finagling I can close my account and never do business with them again. But I got a taste of the despair I’d feel if I were not able to tell them to shove it.

Shame on you decision makers at BoA. You don’t need to do business this way.

I had another frustrating interaction today about my non-happening iPhone.   There doesn’t seem to be any way to make it happen because I live in the boonies and the business model requires that customers go only to certain stores (2 hours away that won’t hold a product until I get there).

As I sat here trying to choke down the tears, and vowing to never do business with still another establishment because of the way they treated me, it occured to me that I have choice about the way I’m feeling about this.  Getting upset today for something that may or may not happen in the future is really a waste of time. I surrender my attachment.