Dear Ms. TheologianI work full time and have just recently picked up a part time job to pay off some bills. How can I balance the two jobs? The full time job people wouldn’t be too keen on knowing I have another job.

Dear Anonymous –

Theologically (and we do know this is a pretentious way to begin a sentence), Ms. Theologian thinks there are two main issues here: fear and liberation.

In order to even interview for a part-time job, you needed to conquer fear–fear of losing your first job, fear of being without money, fear of debt collectors. Recognizing that you needed to do this must have been difficult and you should feel good about yourself.

(Ms. Theologian agrees with you about not telling the first job about the second job. It’s none of their business. She assumes that the schedules don’t overlap, because that would be a challenge.)

As far as liberation, virtual enslavement by debt (particularly evil credit card companies) is certainly one of the challenges of modern life. But the wonderful thing with liberation is that once you are free, you are free (picture Ms. Theologian flitting around in her own dance of joy). And being free of debt (particularly bad and unnecesary debt) is a wonderful thing.

Based on her own experience, Ms. Theologian would recommend this:

a. Be kind to yourself. Allow yourself to rest when you need to, eat regularly, go to bed as early as you can, and banish negative thoughts with mantras like, I’m getting out of debt, I’m helping myself, I’m a good, strong person doing the right thing. Something along those lines.

(Please avoid the temptation to berate yourself. Ms. Theologian is prone to such interior monologues, “How could I let this happen? God, I’m so stupid. This is really insane. I can’t do this. I suck.” Ms. Theologian hopes by revealing her monologue of low self-esteem that you will see how unhelpful it truly is. No one functions well this way. Use the positive mantra, my friend, use the mantra.)

b. Set up short term goals and a time frame. Figure out how much you need to save or pay off each week and give yourself a little reward when you save that amount. Set an overall time frame to do this as well. Do not plan to do this forever.

c. Do not fritter. By this, I mean that there are a lot of time- and money-sucks in the world, including, but not limited to IMing, eating out, and new clothes. A little of these–totally fine. Doing any of these all the time–most of us would be broke and fired.

d. Find a moment of quiet every day. Just find a moment (even in the bathroom stall, if there is no other place) to just be and let your mind rest.

Let me know how it goes. And don’t skip those steps.

–Admiringly,

Ms. Theologian