When most people think about debt, they think about money. They have a mortgage or a car loan. They carry a credit card balance. Whatever their personal debt situation is, it's usually monetary in nature. Even if a person is debt free from a monetary perspective, that isn't the only kind of debt.
Think about debt you owe to friends that have helped you move. You have a certain debt to be repaid the next time they call up and ask if you'd be willing to pitch in carrying a sofa and a few boxes. That's a favor debt.
In software development, or indeed in system administration, there is the notion of technical debt. Places where hacks, kludges, quick fixes or dirty processes are put into place to keep things moving, but that eventually are going to fail, be difficult to maintain or will hold back future projects because they can't be worked around and have to be fixed or replaced represent some examples of technical debt.
There is maintenance debt. Those times when we skip an oil change or a tire rotation for lack of time, money or attention and end up paying later in the form of major repairs, tires that have worn unevenly to the point they can't be used, or a catastrophic failure at an inopportune moment.
In fact there are may kinds of debt that we face on a regular basis. A concept that I came up with on my own, but I imagine others have done the same before me is that of life debt. This concept collects all of these non-monetary debts under a single umbrella. Life debt is something I have in abundance.
Over the next couple of months I have to deal with one of my outstanding life debts. It's a big one.
I had a business once. I closed it a couple years ago, but I'm still dealing with the side effects of that closing. I learned a lot owning a retail business. Much of that from making mistakes. As time passes I can't say for sure that I remember everything correctly, but that really isn't important. What is important is what my memories tell me about how to run a business in the future. In later posts I will explain that more completely. For now suffice to say that I hope I can take the smoldering remains of that business and use my experience to turn them into something better. Maybe several better things.
Monetary debt usually comes with some sort of schedule. Life debt doesn't always, but when it does the consequences of failing to meet that schedule can be worse than a late fee. Since I am being forced to handle the life debt associated with my store on a really short timetable, it is in my best interest to use that timetable to my advantage.
I'm going to need every advantage I can get.
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