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After weeks of house-hunting, my clients had finally settled on the new home they wanted. They made an offer on a Thursday and waited for an answer from the seller.

Speaking through her agent, the seller promised an answer by Sunday morning, but by the middle of the day, she still hadn’t accepted or rejected the offer. By Monday, she sent word that she was ready to accept, but then she changed her mind and asked for more money. My clients made a compromise offer and the other agent said the seller had accepted. We waited for a signed contract.

But she didn’t sign. We didn’t receive the contract back.

My clients grew frustrated. After waiting nearly a week while the seller refused to make a decision, they had me send word that their offer would be withdrawn if the seller didn’t sign by 5 p.m. that day. The woman never signed. The offer was withdrawn.

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Josh was already sitting at a table when I came into the restaurant late Saturday afternoon. He had finished eating and was drinking a beer as he watched a basketball game.

I wanted to watch the same game, so I ended up at the table next to him. We chatted off and on about the game as it went along. He was friendly and didn’t seem to have a care in the world. At halftime, though, something came up about marriage — and he mentioned that he just left his wife today. He wasn’t wearing a ring.

I cautiously responded that he didn’t seem to be very upset about it.

“Yeah, it’s not really a big deal,” he said. “We’ve been married for four years and it turns out she can’t have a baby. Just found out for sure this week. I want to have kids to carry on the family name, so I told her I have to cut it off with her and find another wife. I hate it, because I loved her.”

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The instructor was leading the class through exercises designed to produce a set of individual goals and plans. It was Thursday morning and I was attending mandatory post-license training for new real estate agents in Birmingham.

“What do you want?” she said again. “Write it in a specific way. Do you want to be rookie of the year? Imagine yourself accepting that award. Do you want to hit a certain financial goal? Be specific.”

I started typing. I named a couple of goals. They seemed to be the sorts of things other people around me were excited about.

And then it hit me. I didn’t want the things I had just written down. I was in a group of about 20 people, most of whom seemed to want those things, so it was easy to fall into accepting their goals as obvious and right.

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