THE HABIT OF SAVING 261It is terrible to even think of going through life like a prisoner in
chains, bound down and owned by somebody else on account of debts.
The accumulation of debts is a habit. It starts in a small way and grows
to enormous proportions slowly, step by step, until finally those debts
take charge of one's very soul.
Thousands of young people start their married lives with unnec-
essary debts hanging over their heads and never manage to get out
from under the load. After the novelty of marriage begins to wear of£
the couple begins to feel the embarrassment of want, and this feeling
grows until it leads, oftentimes, to open dissatisfaction with one another
and eventually to the divorce court.
Those bound by the slavery of debt have no time or inclination
to set up or work out ideals, with the result that they drift downward
with time until they eventually begin to set up limitations in their own
minds, and by these they hedge themselves behind prison walls of fear
and doubt from which they never escape.
No sacrifice is too great to avoid the misery of debt!
"Think of what you owe yourself and those who are dependent
upon you, and resolve to be no man's debtor" is the advice of one very
successful man whose early chances were destroyed by debt. This man,
however, had been able to throw off the habit of buying what he did
not need and eventually he worked his way out of slavery.
Most of those who develop the habit of debt will not be so for-
tunate as to come to their senses in time to save themselves, because
debt is something like quicksand-it has a tendency to draw its victim
deeper and deeper into the mire.
The fear of poverty is one of the most destructive of the six basic
fears described in Lesson Three. The person who becomes hopelessly
in debt is seized with this fear, their ambition and Self-Confidence
become paralyzed, and they sink gradually into oblivion.
There are two types of debts, and these are so different in nature
that I will describe them here: