A Great Loss Can Be a Great Opportunity to Change Your Life for the Better

Suffering a loss can ultimately be a good thing.  It can be the fresh break that allows you the freedom to reinvent yourself, make you better than you were before, "better, stronger, faster," and happier.

At the end of 2008 I was successful and I did like my job.  It wasn't my dream job but it paid well and I was good at it.  But I felt my life was stagnating.  This job was not what I went to college for; it didn't match my background at all; and though it offered the opportunity for tremendous financial success when I looked at the job I would be doing if I was truly successful in this business I dreaded the idea of being promoted no matter how well it paid.  I didn't want to be sitting up in bed at two in the morning with a Blackberry and cancelling vacations because I was understaffed and overworked.  I was already working twelve and fourteen hour days, and missing out on many of my favorite activities.  My deepest desire was not to quit working altogether and become a Cycling Bodhisattva Astronomer--though come to think of it that would be pretty cool--but I didn't want to commit my life solely to making money either, which was the only intrinsic value of what I was doing for a living.

Still, why not?  What did I have to complain about?  I had money.  I could do whatever I wanted two or three weeks a year if I planned my vacations well.  People dream of this kind of success.  But I had no aspirations at the time, for anything, and was unmotivated.

So when practicing Buddhism, which consists of chanting Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo and reciting two chapters of the Lotus Sutra to the Gohonzon (a scroll with Chinese and Sanskrit characters on it which embodies and reflects your innate enlightenment) it popped into my head to "chant for something to chant about."  And WHAM! I lost my job.  In the musical chairs which was the economy of the time, my company had bought another company, which somehow was in the position of displacing employees to make room for themselves in the office space and budget.  A lot of us lost our jobs that morning, but everyone else was at the top of their game so they had absolutely nothing to worry about and more than half were near enough to retirement and rich enough that they immediately said they were just going to take the rest of their life off from work.

I had no such luxury, and to top it off, I had never been unemployed since I started working at age thirteen.

That would have been an ideal time to change industries.  I had only been in that one for four and a half years, and my other experience was still fresh enough to be relevant.  But I was unfortunately conditioned at that point to think that if I made any less money than what was already four times the per capita income for my zip code that I would starve.

Why am I going this far back, long before I was hit by a car?  And why all this Buddhism stuff?  It's relevant to my point, I swear, so stick with me.

It was six months before I found my next job.  It was humiliating.  When I told the experience at a Buddhist meeting after what I though was already a rather amazing personal transformation, I cried like a child.  But the new job was not only in the same industry but wasn't nearly as good a job or place to work--though it paid slightly more, which to most people in that industry is the sole meaning of life.  I still had a lesson to learn.

A month after I started the new job, the head of the department died of cancer, a hot shot from Houston who flew in on a corporate jet, lived in a suite at the Marriott, and was driven by limousine everywhere he went replaced him, there was a merger, the people who hired me were the first to go in the process of completely replacing all staff, and finally I was one of the very last to be let go exactly one year later.

Again, chanting about my professional life, it somehow popped in my head that I would get my next job within a month.  Right after the thought occurred to me it was followed by, "What?!  A month?!  Are you insane?!"  Somehow, in my mind there was no taking it back.  It was out there.

And sure enough, a month later, I had landed a job in a whole other industry, not doing exactly what I had been doing before.  Victory, right?  No, it was even worse, but it paid buckets more--the most money I had ever made in my life--and came with a signing bonus which enabled me to put a down payment on finally buying a car.  It was a kind of victory and continued misery all wrapped into one.

My new boss was the worst manager I have ever encountered.  I would figure out later that the only business she had managing others was by title.  And I foresaw that I would be one in a long line of people in a department which had very high turnover except for a couple of select, long time coworkers.

A week after starting the job, I was hit by a car and disabled.  And that's where the start of this blog's story begins--two years ago, save a week.

I have tried the desperate move of looking for another job in the same industry I was in when this story began, but it seems I have successfully removed myself from the running.  And now I really have no choice but to do what I really want to do, what I should have been doing the whole time.

So an accident or personal tragedy can be ultimately a good thing.  But it depends on you.  Don't be willing to do 'anything' to survive.  A willingness to do anything isn't going to get you a decent job much less make you rich or happy.  And it's not the road to success either.  The more determined you are on your goal, and the more effort you make towards attaining it, the more successful you will be.

My goal before was to make money, and I did, and it made me miserable.  Now my goal is to work for the happiness of myself and others, and I feel I am already succeeding.  In the next few months, and next few posts on this blog, I'm going to prove it conclusively.

Insurance Basics for Cyclists: Insuring Both Bike and Rider

Today I'm going to discuss the insurance you should have in place to cover you in case of an accident while out on the road.  I'm specifically referring to cycling here, but certainly this applies to all sorts of other applications, including running, or even as a pedestrian carrying virtually any personal possession.

BICYCLE INSURANCE:

The standing myth is that there is no such thing as bicycle insurance in the United States, that if your pricey bicycle were totaled in an accident by you or someone else that you would have to pay for the replacement entirely out of pocket, or that you would need to be a homeowner or car owner to have a bicycle or other non-motorized sports equipment covered.  The fact is insurance for your bicycle and other equipment is actually very cheap, and anyone can get it.

I, for example, have a Renter's Policy with State Farm which covers all my property, including my bicycles, anywhere in the world.  The policy costs me less than $25 a month.  But any Personal Property coverage will cover your bicycles.

As discussed in an early post on this blog, when I was hit by a car in October 2010, I didn't wait to see how much the insurance of the driver who hit me was going to pay for the damage to my bicycle; I called my insurer--State Farm--told them it was totaled, the make, model, and year, included the wheelset, and the make, model, and MSRP of the new bike which would be a 'like or better' replacement.  No inspection, no needing to find a receipt or even say how much I paid for the bike.  I received the cost of the bike less depreciation and deductible (the amount of money I pay out of pocket for each claim, which in this case was $500).  State Farm sent me a check for about $1,500 and when they collected the full amount of the loss from the insurance company of the driver who hit me, they sent me another check to refund my $500 deductible.

The only mistake I made was forgetting I should have also included my helmet in the claim.

HIT AND RUN INSURANCE:

I used to practice looking at license plates and trying to remember the numbers in case of a hit and run, until I realized you can't even read a license plate unless it's right in front of you much less memorize it when you've just been hit by a car.  And even if you could, what if the driver successfully denied hitting you, or they didn't have insurance, or it wasn't a car but another cyclist or pedestrian.  This is where the Uninsured Motorist coverage of your auto insurance kicks in.

By the book, Uninsured Motorist covers you in case you are in a car accident with another driver and they have no insurance or inadequate insurance to compensate you for your injuries--or in the case of a hit and run.  What almost no one realizes is, this also covers you while cycling and as noted above in all other circumstances as well.  You could be walking across the street when you were hit and this insurance would cover you.

So, again to use me as an example, let's say the driver who hit me on that Autumn afternoon fled the scene and we never found her or she had the absolute minimum statutory coverage for Liability--which is $25,000 in New York State-- or no insurance at all, but I had $100,000 or $300,000 in liability coverage on my own car insurance with an Uninsured Motorist limit equal to that.  I could receive, from my own auto insurance, the difference between what the driver's insurance paid and the full amount I should receive up to the limit of my auto insurance policy.  And I wouldn't even have to go after the driver in court to collect this difference because at that point the loss belongs to my auto insurance carrier--so they would go after the driver and even send me any additional funds they collect.

Also note that collecting from your insurance under Uninsured Motorist would impose no penalty on you whatsoever.  Your rate wouldn't go up one penny and this would not effect points on your license.

Unfortunately for me, at the time I did not own a car--though I do now.

LONG TERM DISABILITY / ACCIDENTAL DEATH AND DISMEMBERMENT

You know those Aflac commercials, where the guys are sitting in a park with their kids and both have broken legs.  They are Disabled from work.  No work means no pay, and unless you're very wealthy you need to be paid just to pay your bills and live as normal a life as possible until you are able to work again--if ever.  And you don't have to be disabled from a very physical job either.  My job at the time was sitting at a desk, talking on the phone, using a computer, file management, and some travel.  About the worst injury I could have at work would be a paper cut, so I had no idea what my employer could do for me other than maybe give me a couple of weeks of unpaid leave.  I couldn't even sit upright in a chair.

Honestly, before I was hit and became disabled, I thought this coverage only applied if I lost a limb or were killed.  I always bought these coverages in case of that kind of injury so my wife would receive all the money she possibly could.  I always bought the maximum.  It was some time after my injury before I realized I was qualified for even Short Term Disability.  These coverages are typically offered to you as a benefit at work, and they cost very little, but they pay when you need it.

Again, I can only use myself as an example.  I had this coverage but didn't really understand what it was.  Moreover, I had only been at my job a week when I was injured, so I didn't think I could actually collect.  And I didn't realize that my injuries qualified me as 'disabled' because I thought that only applied to permanent disability.  Even when I discovered that I was certified disabled, I had no idea that I would qualify for more than a couple of weeks, much less months, and then years.

I certainly never imagined that I would be so badly injured that I couldn't work for more than a couple of weeks, barring terminal illness which was unlikely for a cycling god like me (right Lance?).

So without going into the details, I recommend you buy all the disability and life insurance that is available to you, and when you are injured immediately file a claim.

NOTE: This is not legal advice and does not represent a professional recommendation.  Each case may be different and you should contact your lawyer or insurance representative about any questions you may have about your coverage and circumstances.  This post also may be edited or deleted in the future at the author's discretion.  But I do sincerely wish that everyone gets adequate coverage in case disaster strikes as it did me.