If you were poor, you would not have the time to make those sacrifices. Instead all your free time would go into minimum wage job whose long term return is not being homeless and barely scraping by. Wealth give you the opportunity to not be homeless and invest in yourself instead of working, the long term returns of which are dramatic.
People are poor because they are never given the opportunity to create wealth. I create wealth because my parents and various nations' tax payers paid for me to dick around doing just about anything I wanted for the first 22 years of my life, and kindly encouraged me to learn something useful in the process. People are poor because they don't have that opportunity/encouragement.
I know it's fun to be envious of rich people, but I grew up in poverty, and so far I've earned myself 5 years to focus full time on my stuff. I know it's a little harder, maybe, but all I had to do was go to work first. Most people go to work anyway.
Being poor does suck. However, being rich does not prevent your life from sucking. All the money in the world won't prevent you or a loved one from passing due to an untreatable illness. All the money in the world won't buy you friends or genuine respect. It can't buy you love (though it can buy you sex).
Furthermore, you don't need to be rich to avoid the hardship of being poor, you just have to make a sufficient amount to afford quality housing, food, health insurance, and minor luxuries.
This is insightful. One should point out however, the inverse does not hold true. Poverty is not a universal sign of laziness or inaction. You can become poor in spite of working very hard. It is important to keep this in mind lest we become completely unsympathetic to those less fortunate, who, in some cases work very hard and yet have nothing.
Also, as an aside I'd like ot point out that material wealth is something that isn't universally pursued. Some people a happy investing in other things instead once their very basic needs are met.
Somebody on Quora once wrote beautifully about how it's impossible for the rich to ever understand what it's like to be truly, horribly poor- because there is no escape. There is no safety. The writer described how, even when he was in dire straits, at the back of his mind he knew that he could count on maybe extended family or something or someone to pull him out of trouble. The poor have no such privilege. True despair means being truly, completely cut off.
So there's really very little a rich person can do to walk in the shoes of a poor person- because even if say, Bill Gates gave away ALL his fortune and got himself into crippling debt or something- at least some people will recognize that he's Bill Gates, and treat him differently for it.
No simple solutions to offer here, just saying dis shit is complex.
Great article! Having been poor for most of my life (means living month to month for over a decade) I often hear people who have access to money , wealth, or resources say that “money doesn’t matter”. Always makes me laugh.
That's losing their wealth, not becoming trapped in poverty. Wealth (as in hard cash) is fleeting. The behaviors that create wealth are not. I truly contend that, in America at least (what I'm familiar with), everyone can achieve a solid life. You might not be wealthy, but you will be able to support yourself and provide for a family. People losing their wealth does not mean they become destitute, nor should it. It just means they fall into a more 'normal' cohort.
I'm going to offer a defense of his definition, then cast it aside and offer a better definition.
If you're poor, you spend a lot of time doing tasks yourself that other people would outsource. (Food preparation, home repairs, etc.)
If you are employed, you probably invest a lot of time working relative to the returns you get. You probably spend a lot of additional time commuting, or doing other tasks adjacent to your job.
If you are unemployed, you're almost definitely going to spend a lot of time scrambling for some sort of income.
This is less tangible, but you also spend a lot of time worrying. True poverty means never getting to relax, because any number of small problems could turn into financial disaster.
Which brings us to the definition I'm going to offer: Wealth is security. It's knowing that you can quit your job at any time, and have enough in the bank to tide you over until you land another. It's knowing that if your car breaks down, you can afford to get it repaired, and afford to rent another or take Uber in the meantime. It means being able to focus on getting emergency medical care for a loved one without worrying whether you will still be able to make rent.
I'm richer than the poor people the article alludes to, I grew up poor.
I can't give you any advice until I know why you don't want to be poor. What would be different in the world where the poor person in question (you?) wasn't poor?
The wealthy are the only people who meaningfully can, and they're the only people who have a reason to. Being poor sucks. There's no point to life; if I was hit by a bus or jumped in front of a car while on break today at my miserable, entry-level job, it'd be okay for the world and I wouldn't feel like it was a loss for me. It'd actually be better. I wouldn't be wasting all daylight hours working a job I can't stand and being too exhausted when I get off of work to even read.
I was only afraid of death when life had hope. Now that I'm pretty much poverty-trapped, at least for the next few years, I'm fine with death.
Death is for the miserable people in the world. If you have the means to avoid it, your life is good enough to justify avoiding it. Life is great when you have time and low stress, so there's no reason not to try and preserve it.
Being poor mean that nice guy (in mid 20s/30s) who stays in same rented basement for remainder of his life. Despite his average coding skills and gracious attitude on zoom meetings, it's concluded that he was broke and dirt poor, only after news of him taking his own life, was verified by his landlord. Depression is hell of a thing, eh.
Edit: or dead. Recent example: http://metro.co.uk/2018/01/23/homeless-man-died-days-council...
reply