Closing On Our First Home example essay topic

Personal barriers can inhibit our ability to think critically and the ability to make sound decisions. Some barriers such as depression, anger, passion and stress can lead to negative and even irrational thoughts. In my case, some of these barriers affected me when I was making one of the most significant decisions in my life. About thirteen years ago I worked for a computer reseller that specialized in selling IBM hardware for export into Latin America.

I was a salesman and was doing quite well earning a pretty good salary and commissions for a young urban professional. I was on top of the world, recently married to my wife and already expecting our first child. We decided that we needed to get out of the small apartment and began to look for our first home. Our search began and one of the first barriers I came up against was fitting the idea of the home we wanted into our budget. We wanted to be in the type of house that all of my colleagues and fellow salesmen where buying, the big 5 bedroom, 3 bath home in the expensive neighborhood. How could we possibly buy something of lesser value?

We would not fit in. We were more concerned about what others were going to think about us rather than thinking about a practical home to fit within our budget. Both of our parents quickly helped us to see the light. After a couple of months of searching we finally found the perfect little three bedroom, two bath, starter home. It fit well within our budget and was going to only cost an extra $300 per month more than what we were paying for the apartment.

The home was in a new development that was fittingly called "My First Home" development. The house was being built and would be ready right around Christmas time. We were so excited about the new home and could not wait for the day we would move in. We would drive over to the job site every night to take pictures of the house as it was being built. We still have those pictures today and often reminisce about the experience. The time had come for the closing on our first home; it was going to take place the second week of January.

During the last two or three months while we were waiting for our house to be built, things at the company that I was working for were becoming a little shaky. We had hit a slowdown and business was not going as good as it had in the prior months. My sales were still pretty good but as a whole, our company was going through some tough times. We were a franchise of a larger company and several of the other divisions had already been closed down.

"Stress is excessive demand upon the body or mind, producing physical or psychological strain" (UOP, 1999, p. 38). I was beginning to feel the psychological affects of the stress I was under. The negativity was rampant throughout the office. The stress of Christmas, the new house, the fact that corporate could shut down our operation, all of this with the added thought of having to deal with this adversity when our baby was on the way, stressed me so much that it began to affect my health. It was December 24th and we were scheduled to go in to the office and work a half a day and go home for the holidays. When I got to the office, I noticed the gloom had gotten pretty thick, you could almost cut it with a knife.

I walked over to my cubicle to find a letter on my desk addressed to me. It was a letter from the company notifying me that the company was closing its doors and that I needed to remove my personal belongings and vacate the premises. I actually laughed out load, I thought it was a joke; I didn't want to believe that this was happening on Christmas Eve. The reality was it was not a joke, we all packed up our belongings and left.

That evening we were all meeting at one of the other salesman's home for Christmas Eve dinner. The sales team had over the last few years grown pretty close and spent quite a bit of time together. It was a depressing evening, one of the saddest that I can remember. We were all thinking about how we were going to deal with this and making plans to find new jobs. To be honest, this threw me into a deep depression. Here I was without a job, my wife four months pregnant, about to close on a new house, what was I going to do?

The first thing that I thought was to cancel out on the house. I debated with my wife back and forth, she wanted to go through with it and I wanted to cancel. My depression had me feel that this situation was so hopeless that I never thought about finding a new job and going through with the house. I even began to think irrationally and wanted to start selling all of our belongings that had any value. My wife asked that I speak to a particular friend of mine that always had a positive affect on me, so I did. He told me that I should go through with it and that everything was going to work out.

He lifted my spirits and focused me on the fact that I was a good salesman and that I could find another job paying me more than I was making at the last company. He told me that I had to do it for the little one on the way. I pulled up my bootstraps and made the decision to go through with the house, even though I did not have a job. My wife was still working and she still had insurance coverage to cover our medical bills for when the baby came. Suddenly I began to think more clearly, I began to plan how I was going to explain my situation to the mortgage company in order to go through with the closing. I decided to act as if I was still employed and told them to contact me at home since I was going to be on vacation for two weeks prior to the closing.

They had already gone through the employment verification process, etc. The day finally came and we closed on our first home. It took me about two months, but I finally found a great job paying me more that I was making at my previous job (that friend of mine must be psychic). My son was born five months later and all was well. Looking back to the decision that I had to make, I made the right one. With a little help from my wife and a friend, I was able to overcome my depression that was clouding my critical thinking abilities.

It's amazing how stress and depression can have such a profound affect on our thinking abilities. Since then I have learned to deal with stress and have learned to manage it so that I do not let myself slip into depression. I can't say that I have not been depressed since, but I am now able to recognize it and have learned to pull myself out of it so that it does not affect my critical thinking. Reference: Kirby, G., Goodpaster, J., Levine, M. (1999) Critical Thinking. [UOP Custom Edition]. Needham Heights, MA: Pearson Custom Publishing.