How I Defeated the Fear of Poverty by Becoming Homeless for One Day, with Just $1, Part 1

Hello, everyone. I'm Software Developer from Poland. I love programming. I read a lot of self-help books and I want to share everything I know with this awesome community.

We live in the word where fear is everywhere

We fear diseases, death, losing the beloved one, being alone, and other things, but the biggest fear in our life is the fear of poverty. In today's society, poor people are worthless. They don't have high social status, they are constantly humiliated and disregarded.

We are often our worst enemy

We allow the negative emotions in our minds that drastically decrease the quality of our life. The worst thing is that we do it voluntarily. Somehow, for many people, negative emotions have been so ingrained in their life, that they can't imagine living without it.

If start to look on our mind from the outside, we can come to the conclusion that we never experienced the majority of things that we fear or if we did, that our current emotions in this moment highly exaggerate this situation.

Best friend carpet

Yesterday I was homeless, more specifically I was trying to live like one to meet the poverty that I was fearing for a long time. The day before I went to sleep on the carpet placed in my garage with just one blanket. The temperature was around 60°F (15°C) and during the night it decreased even more. The first thing I noticed when I woke up is that the cold temperature really helps you get up. You just need to take off the blanket and you instantly awaken because of the cold.

Here in my garage:

The quest for water

My equipment was t-shirt, hoodie, trousers, sneakers, ID, haversack and a $1.

Harversack from Czechoslovakia army.

I felt great like a new great adventure just started. I walked through the city thinking "what the fuck I am doing". I didn't have to wait long for the answer, my animal instinct told that I need to get water. So I started looking for the plastic bottle. Fortunately, I found one in the trash bin in the park.

The bottle that saved me

Now I need to get water. The toilet in the train station wasn't an option because I had to pay $0.5 for using it. I was thinking about where I can find a free toilet and headed to the river. It was cold, I would freeze if I stop moving. After a couple of minutes, I realized that I can go to the public library. Bingo, there were even two toilets on two different floors. I didn't even have to use the coatroom because I had no coat :). I drunk some tap water, cleaned the bottle and made reserves. It was the best water I've ever drunk in my life, really.

Hard decisions

I was the first time in this library and I wanted to explore what's inside. Unfortunately, I had to pay $0.5 for the library card. Fuck, it was half of my money. I said that I need to go to the ATM and went to the hall while fighting with thoughts in my mind. I had to eat something, too! Finally, I came to the conclusion that it is an investment and it's worth the money. All of this for just $0.5, it was insane. I filled the papers and received a new item - a shiny library card. There was a progress.

I used the card to get into the library and I found the wall full of magazines. I got the pile of them on different topics: computers, entrepreneurship, motorcycles. Immediately I reminded myself moments in my childhood when I lent about 40 computer magazines from my school library 10 years ago. I realized that since then I read just one or two magazines. I was constantly working and learning new things, that I didn't have time for it until today. I was very touched. I spent about three hours reading them. I didn't remember when I was so relaxed as then.

In the corner of the library I found the computers, but unfortunately, the internet wasn't working and it got windows installed. Meh, I pass.

Special collections

There was a second library room, called "special collections". Hell yeah, apparently some conference just ended there and there were a special collection of cookies and coffee :D I was hungry as fuck, but the librarian was busy helping some mom and a primary school kid with the choice of audiobooks. I wanted to ask if I can get some treats. In the meantime, I was looking for some nice CD's to listen to. There was a CD player, as well as one for vinyl with a high-end amplifier and headphones. Great, I love quality music equipment. The variety of music was enormous for me.

Finally, came my turn to talk with the librarian. She was very nice, I asked to lend the CD's I picked and we started drinking coffee and eating cookies while listening to the music. I didn't expect the investment to pay off that quickly.

For the first time in my life, I was listening to the vinyl. I was testing the quality of the hardware. I don't remember for how long because I left my watch at a home and there was none on the wall. Back then the time for me wasn't existing. I was enjoying the present moment as never before. Somehow I was happier while being completely broke.

To be continued, stay tuned for the next part, it will surely come soon, you can follow me to don't miss it.

If you read this in April 2017 or later, check my profile, because it's already published.

Disclaimers:

• I'm not native English speaker, any corrections are highly appreciated.
• My phone is broke, so I didn't have the chance to make more photos, the shown one I made with a big camera that I didn't want to take with me