How’s It Going?

I had to see my accountant today for the dreaded doing of the taxes.

Hagar wears his hair in a gray crew cut, military-style, that, oddly enough, looks kinda cool on him. He does it stick-straight up like a newly sprouted lawn.

After the initial handshake and how-di-do’s he says, “How’s it going?”

Now, when your accountant asks you “How’s it going?” you have to assume he means  fiscally.  As in, are you making a profit? how’s your bottom line?” But not with Hagar. “How’s it going?” could mean, “Are you happy doing what you’re doing?”

So I answer that question. I say:

“Great. I’m happy. My students seem happy. Everybody’s doing well as far as I can tell: learning how to breathe, stay cool, vanquish the stress monster, like that.”

That’s what I say, because the Excel spreadsheet gives him the other side of that, which is: I showed a loss.  But even showing a loss he said what I did this year was “remarkable, really great.”  He said given where I am, the county I live in, where my business is located, what I am doing is “incredible.”

And this from a financial perspective.

Never has loss felt so nice.