From AJC – Cherokee County News:

Fields, 62, became a poignant reminder of the housing bust’s impact on thousands of lives across metro Atlanta, where almost 100,000 properties were foreclosed on in 2010. Property owners are not the only ones hurt; so are people, such as Fields, at the end of a ruinous process set in motion by recession.

“I was foreclosing on the homes of people I have known my entire life,” Fields said Monday, two weeks after he walked away from his job but still carrying its burden. “I tried to do all I could to help them. But there’s only so much you can do. Your job is to collect taxes.”

In the good times Fields said he seldom dealt with bad news. “There were almost no foreclosures, and the tax digest was in great shape,” he said. “We would have collected 97 percent of taxes by the end of the year.”

Then, about a year ago, the gravity of the downturn gripped him and wouldn’t let go. A man who described himself as “normally happy and upbeat” was suddenly nauseated all the time. He didn’t have any energy. Daily events he once took in stride turned into crisis after crisis.

“I would talk to somebody or deal with something, a foreclosure or a lien, and I would just have to step out of the office to regain my composure,” he said.

Sometimes, our bodies or our minds tell us to stop doing what we’ve been doing. This appears to be one of those cases.

Many of us believe we live in a world of hard, cold facts and reasonable decisions arrived at after due consideration. Well, guess what, the heart has its own rhythms and its own needs. Sometimes those take precedence.

James Pilant