RE: Not About Prosperity or Poverty
There's so much going on here. You are exceptionally devoted to your blog content. That's refreshing
I'm going to have to schedule in a block of time to read your posts from here on in. Lol.
When I usually utilize the word, "poverty" it's meant in the general consensus and/or formal definition of the word itself. That said, poverty is very subjective.
Subjective to what or whom? That's what makes it subjective. A child from a wealthy family can easily be poverish of a warm family, real friends, or a realistic grasp on survival.
I suppose that's really taking the everyday definition out of the word.
As a Canadian, my poverty is drastically different than millions of others in the world. But, to call it easy would be grossly unfair.
I like how you give the word new meaning in that poverty is simply ones ability to succeeded with what is available to them. That's great. That's true, but only up to a certain degree.
With less available, achieving goals becomes secondary to survival. Poverty is the struggle, our inability to get past day to day survival.
In my city we are VERY lucky to have AMAZING resources. There's MANY places for 3 hot meals a day (often cooked by volunteer chefs or farm owners), there's about 11 or more "food stands" that's filled multiple times a day with free breads, fresh farm fruits and veggies, frozen pizzas or cooked pizza from local places. There's 4 places to get "food bank" donations each month and 2 churches that offer a free 10$ grocery card a month. Free coffee, laundry, showers in town and some churches are known to be a safe haven for the unfortunate despite the city trying to prevent it.
Sounds great, right?
What do you think single mothers living on $1000 a month do when lowest rent for a two bedroom is 1300-1400? They often illegally shack up with someone they hardly know so to survive, they spend their time going around town to those stands to get food for the kids and free good quality clothing and school bags and boots.
Traveling around town all day is time, physical, and mentally consuming. Everyone is tired and sore.
The relationship they have goes sour; they fight. They need therapy. Their children likely have many dr appts because poorer children are ill'er.
I respect my city for the resources and praise it however, sometimes making good use of what one has isn't enough.
Poverty is more than resources, creativity, financial or intelligence- it runs much deeper than that. Povery is a culture. 😔
Plain Oatmeal:
Here is a warning and a disclaimer and an oatmeal spoiler alert. A lot of what I write online are like rough drafts of my daily life, blog posts, outlines, which means some of it or most of it can be confusing, boring, long, repetitive, delusional, crazy, etc. So, in other words, my daily blog posts can be all over the place like plain oatmeal. But a post with a title like this might be like flavored oatmeal.
Poverty Puzzle
Yeah, that's right. A dumb person might be intellectually in poverty. Heartless men who can NOT watch a romantic chick flick film with their GFs are poor, emotionally. Your example is a good one as we all can be in social poverty, AKA lonely.
Lucky
So, if you grew up with more than others, then you might be lucky. But you don't have to feel guilty about it. Maybe, you could, if you want, help others. But how you go about helping others is a big debate. It is a big question. In other words, there are different ways you can help via your money, time, resources, words, advice, presence, wisdom, videos, pictures, posts, GIFs, memes, Bitcoin, etc.
Vietnam Poverty
While living in Vietnam, I saw some of the worse manifestations of poverty. So, yeah, starvation, struggling to survive, is real poverty. In contrast to the richest in the world, people in the middle class may feel like they are below the alleged poverty line.
Being Resourceful
My dad gambled away my mom's $10K apx inheritance (from like her grandma or something) around the early 1990's and he would always drink and gamble probably to this day. So, some people, like my father, could feel like they are in poverty. However, they may have enough money to survive. But they may not be good stewards of what they do have. But that is not to be confused with people who don't even have money to waste. In some cases, some people can waste their money and then end up looking like they are as poor as really poor people who never had anything like that in the first place.
Winning Lotteries
Many times, when people win the lottery, then they end up dead, bankrupt, very poor, in jail, or in a ditch, about five years (or less) after that. This happens a lot. But they won't tell you this on the news. Many times, people win and then waste their winnings on a bunch crap. So, they go crazy and girls gone wild minus the girls. It takes wisdom and good habits to manage a lot of money. It is a skill that must be carefully developed. Otherwise, you end up crashing and burning, generally speaking, statistically speaking.
Church Ministries
You talked about 3 hot meals in your city. I've seen similar outreaches in America and in Vietnam. I've even helped out a few times. Generally, people help people as opposed to government. People can do a better job via the free market or through non-profit organizations that may take donations.
San Francisco
You talked about single mothers. Yeah, and in places like San Francisco and NYC, rent can be expensive as well. So, yeah, they can end up in those situations like you said. Right. People can get sicker and sicker because of that. Yeah, poverty is a culture. That culture, like a disease, can spread like fire from country to country if left unchecked.