 |
| Oh, Oprah! Many wealthy individuals were once poor. So I've heard. |
When I was little I thought it was simple: Grown ups have money; kids don't. Therefore, when I'm grown I will have money, either earned or won or inherited, I will somehow just...have money. Well, we all know how that turned out.
But is being poor the same as being broke? Similar. The same thing as Being on a budget? Maybe. If it's a super conscientious following of where every penny goes budget... but:
Even rich people are on 'budgets'.
To me, it means having so much debt that you can't conceivably even imagine being able to pay it back in your lifetime. Plenty of people die being in debt. Not necessarily because of it, but without having accomplished rising above the waterline of 'having enough' before their physical life expired.
I should've known we were poor when I was a kid. That I didn't is both a testament to my mostly idyllic childhood and a gold medal to my parents for providing for us so well. What we didn't have didn't become evident until I found out that most of my friends did have; and it was mostly technology based things like electric toothbrushes, video cassette recorders, video game stations and cable television.
Not until then was I aware that I was a 'have-not'. This dawning realization was accompanied by the knowledge of hindsight, that my friends had been going on skiing vacations and trips to Hawaii and expensive summer camps, and because of our location, I had been unintentionally befriending people I didn't fit in with in the grown up world.
Being poor means not having disposable income and not having enough money to comfortably pay for necessities like food, shelter, or medical expenses. Poor is equivalent to poverty level in terms of statistics in North America.
Being poor doesn't mean homeless, or uneducated, or not contributing to society. It means I can't afford to pay my phone bill, or go out to eat or the movies. It means not owning a home. Most of all it means I have to deal. Learn to not want more, and not feel bad that I can't have it. Deal with knowing that most people seem to have more than I do, and instead of letting it drive me crazy from jealousy or frustration, I deal with it. Count my blessings, and dream about being in their shoes someday.
This struggle to survive when you're poor isn't exclusive to people who are without possessions, including businesses. Owning a business might make one appear well-off but still be in the proverbial 99% because most small businesses can be successful while the individual owners may not be. Unless you have your own business, you are most likely employed by someone else.
Who decides how much you will be paid for the work you do?
Will it be what's fair, what you are 'worth'? Or more likely, the least they can possibly get away with paying you. The state and federal government mandate the minimum wage (supposedly based on the actual cost of living in different areas) which is just so...it's just ridiculous. Then the business owner, the manager, and the corporation will determine how much, if any, you are paid over that amount.
They don't tell you how much anyone else is getting, so you have no way of knowing if someone doing the same work is getting more or less than yourself. Yes I am thinking of men versus women here, but that's a side note. It's microscopic in terms of the Big picture. It's an inequitable system full of big holes as far as the betterment of our citizens and oh, that sounded really Communist or Hunger Games speak or something. But seriously: it's not fair and it's not healthy for people or families or community. What if entry level workers received hourly pay incremental to their years lived, and not their amount of job experience? Interesting, but that makes as little sense as how little minimum wage has increased over the years.
It should realistically be between $16 and $25 dollars an hour rather than the current range of $4 to $9 bucks. Living wage is supposed to mean an amount that will afford one to pay for food and housing. Minimum wage is currently and indomitably not a living wage. Not debatable. I can't even begin to get why it's an accepted norm and in existence. The exceptions of course are (most of the) unionized workplaces and professions like certain trades.
Being poor means you get by without the latest technology available; no smartphone for you! You don't have money for Christmas or birthday presents for friends and family. One of the worst things about being poor is lacking freedom of choice. You don't have choices. That's not completely true. I can choose to buy something or not. But (now) I always choose not. Because I don't have a credit card (anymore) and if I wrote a check it would bounce, and I know I am not approved for anything. When I was little I thought if you had stairs inside your house you were living in a luxurious place. I would literally tell first timers who came over that the directions to the bathroom were "through that door at the end of the hall then upstairs and it's the first door on your right." Of course the first door they opened was the only bathroom. I watched a LOT of Brady Bunch.
It was my dream fantasy to have an upstairs in our little house. In fifth grade we had an art project to paint a picture of where we lived and I made a fairly accurate representation of our house except I somehow left out the entire right half of it. When I realized my mistake I was full of shock and wonder. How could I have cut out an entire two rooms of the four room space? So I was subconsciously reflecting my feelings about our house, that it felt even smaller than it was. I should've drawn my dream house, with the upstairs and downstairs, and the goat I really wanted for some reason, instead of the reality cats.
I am inclined to claim that my personal poverty began when I accepted credit cards and student loans that I simply shouldn't have. But that was just ignorance on my part. So instead I am going to blame my parents. Not really, because that's not fair to them. But it really started even before I was born, because, I believe, my parents didn't make a plan for me. They didn't talk about money (except for fighting about it), or discuss finances, with eachother or us kids, and I now know it's a much more important ongoing conversation than any sex talk. We were the poor family in a reasonably affluent neighborhood. I discovered many years later that we were poor in the statistically wealthiest county in California. Interesting though it was, that information didn't make me feel any better believe me.
People in general don't talk about money. I think this is a very bizarre taboo. You're not supposed to tell anyone how much you make, or how much you owe. This discretionary tactic, purposeless as I think it may be, seems to grow exponentially the more money one has. The more wealthy people are the less inclined they are to casually discuss their money. Why is this? I wonder...
Because those folks don't want to share. They don't want to feel bad that they have more than you or me, but they don't want to have less. They don't want everyone else to have what they have, because then they wouldn't be special anymore. It's terrifically inequitable; but a very convenient layout.
Poor means learning how to present yourself to the world because you don't have the privilege of buying new outfits and clothes shopping anywhere you want to. I haven't learned this 'art of presentation' yet. I can identify it when I see it, but I don't know how to dress myself in an attractive and presentable fashion. I would be a perfect candidate for a makeover T.V. show, but I don't know how to work that angle.
It would be very cool to learn how to buy clothes and 'dress for success' and do my hair and makeup in a professional manner. Maybe that's one of the reasons I decided I wanted to study art, so I wouldn't be expected to dress up, which I am incapable of figuring out how to do on my own. In hindsight I should have gone into some type of medical profession so I could wear scrubs (pajamas) every day. BUT, like money, I honestly thought that those skills would just 'happen' when I became a grown up person. Naivete in Action.
