Never Been Poor

The deepest sort of poverty is poverty of spirit.

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Poverty equals lack of money. Isn’t it as simple as that?

I don’t think so.

Poverty is more a state of mind than a state of money.

Movie mogul, Mike Todd, famously said, “I’ve often been broke, I’ve never been poor”. Money is gained and lost all the time. Neither gain nor loss is permanent. Money is a poor way to measure comfort. People are, “comfortably well off”, not with discretionary cash, but with discretionary opportunity. There is little discretionary opportunity in the pursuit of dollars.

It is nearly impossible to smell the roses when your single-minded concern is the market price of the roses.

The exception to this are businessmen like Mike Todd, who care more about the game than the score. They thrill in the roll of the dice, as do all gamblers. Gamblers like to win, but they like the game more than the money won or lost.

Another exception to fixation on money are people who have no place to spend their money - even if they had some.

Tribal families, from ancient times - ‘till now, and around the world - are self-sustaining. They grow, raise, or make everything they need. My own tribal family, during the 1940’s in north Missouri, rarely bought anything. They never had much cash-on-hand, but they’ve never been poor.

Small farm families are largely the same, even now.

Commercial farmers make more than they need and sell the surplus to hungry city-dwellers who’ve forsaken self-sufficiency. No wonder urban society believes poverty is about lack of money. Money is their only means to avoid poverty.

In those cases, those with little money really are poor.

A deeper sort of poverty is poverty of spirit; an emptiness of the soul. Empty souls are more tragic than empty pockets because empty pockets are easier to fill than empty souls.

Both vacuums are related to the fashionable abandonment of traditional community life for urban anonymity.

Friends made in cities are less likely than an extended family of kin to do much about your impoverished needs - whether of dollars or soul.

Poverty is more a state of mind than a state of money.

Some, like the smiling villagers of the dirt-poor countries I see in video documentaries don’t seem to realize their crushing poverty.

I guess they have a different state of mind.

By K. L. Shipley

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