This is NPR's Life Kit. I'm Chris Arnold, and welcome to day two of your personal finance

tune up. This week, we are getting you pumped to tackle those personal finance goals

because I know times are tough right now, and some of you, look, I mean, you're really

struggling a lot more than normal. And for reasons that are out of your hands, I mean, it's a pandemic. All of us need to

give ourselves a break. And then for others of you out there, you might actually be saving more

money than usual just because you can't go out to eat or the movies or bars or get on a plane

and go on vacation. So there's an opportunity here for you to tackle that pile of debt that you've always wanted to get rid of.

But either way, getting at a debt is never easy.

And it can feel defeating and impossible even.

And I actually have a perfect story to capture this feeling.

It starts in a mythological landscape, somewhere far, far away from

your Zoom call homework set up. It's a dreary swamp in what is now Germany. And a man named

Baron Moonschazen, he's riding his horse, his mighty steed. Moonchausen is one of my favorite.

That's a yell's fishback.

She's a psychologist who studies human motivation.

And she told me this story about the baron because she finds it instructive about how we can do really difficult things in life.

So the baron, he gets himself into this bad situation.

He rides his horse into this swamp and he starts sinking into the mud. The swamp is

taking him like he's going to die. This guy indeed got stuck in a swamp and he basically takes his

hair with his big both hands and pulling himself by his hair outside of the swamp. And he's strong enough

so that not only can pull himself, it can also pull the horse that he's holding between his

legs. So that if you can imagine the picture, that that looks quite fantastic. Now, I have to admit,

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