I was having a conversation with a person about his views when it comes to doing the right things in life which sometimes require that you take a hit financially. For example, if someone has just scammed you out of thousands of dollars and it looks like it could possibly cost you more at the end to pursue it even if you did win, would you do it still?

As an example, there was actually a story that happened recently where a women had a very good case against a doctor of some sort who had a reputation of not exactly being entirely professional and was actually convicted for past events. Although she really wanted to do something about it, she was told that it would be a very expensive process to do so. As a result, she didn’t go through with it as the financial risk was pretty high.

I guess it really depends on your current position in life.

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I was talking to a person before who was trying to convince me to buy some kind of life insurance. It was definitely one of those hard sell pushes and he kept emphasizing on how people are going to be in big trouble in life if something happens to them and they are not insured.

I don’t know about everyone else, but this kind of technique usually discourages me from making a purchase. It just kind of puts you in a defensive mode in wondering “what’s the catch?” type of scenario. Some reasons for this type of approach that I hear is that sometimes people just don’t realize the importance of something and so you need to approach it in these types of ways.

I personally think the educational approach is better as it helps to make the other side think more while allowing them to make genuine decisions on their own.

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I was watching that Kitchen nightmare show yesterday and there was an interesting theme that talked about how the general manager of the restaurant was ineffective in his role. The interesting comment was how he was being labeled as a person who was scamming and taking advantage of the owner of the restaurant by pretending that he didn’t do anything wrong. Of course, he was very defensive about that.

Most people that I have met are usually very open when they know that they have done a below par job and then somehow try to make up for it. It’s one of the main ways to grow as a person I’d say. At the same time, you can’t help but to have that feeling that you took something without equally giving back in those situations. The funny thing is for the people who don’t want to admit it, just like the above example, I usually see them get very defensive while trying to justify their actions in almost everyway.

I think it come down to appreciation. All the people that I have seen personally that do become extremely defensive in these types of scenario don’t really have the same level of appreciation for time and money as others. Of course than can be an extremely generalizing statement, but that has been true for the most part that I have seen. If you take a lot from someone, then you should give a lot too I’d say.

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An interesting thing happened today at the office. There was a person that knocked on the door and we had no idea who it could be. It turned out to be an artist who did paintings for a living and attempted to sell his work to us for a over $100.

Although I didn’t talk to the person myself, I was told what it was all about and how the person attempted to sell his work by implying that he was a struggling artist of some sort. The person who answered the door was telling me how he didn’t know if he was being scammed as he has seen people do these types of sales techniques before where they give you a sob story to get you to purchase things emotionally.

I have seen these kinds of things on TV before, but have never actually had it happen to me personally yet. That is pretty courageous I must say in trying to sell door to door in an office building environment.

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One of my family members today was telling me how she felt bad that a person she knew was constantly struggling with money. Whenever possible, she offers to pay for one of the person’s small expenses. The conflict though is that she believes she should stop doing so since the person is well within a middle age range and is still reluctant to save or plan for the future.

That raises the question on just how far should you go before saying no more to a person? Should you just watch them continually destroy themselves financially or should you persist until something clicks? I am actually going through a similar type of circumstance in terms of trying to help a person I know with his finances.

It definitely is frustrating when you try to help someone and yet they are still reluctant to make the necessary changes in their lives. My situation is a little more interesting as the person specifically asked for help and as a result he began to show me items like his credit card bills. The crazy thing is whenever he knew he did something bad once we made a plan for him to follow, he would be reluctant to show what he spent his money on. It gets even more silly as when he does save money as a result of a change, he then spends what he saved on something else that he tries to pass off as an essential purchase.

Like with that, do you simply say forget it and let them possibly wreck their future since they are not taking it seriously? It’s like a choice between being a good person by persisting to help another despite their reluctance to change or allowing them to continually harm themselves with a good chance that the damage will be permanent. It can be a tricky thing when it comes to generosity.

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