While Archimedes exclaimed eureka when he discovered the law of floatation, I woke up abruptly from sleep (at 2 am) sighing I get it! Because yes, I get it. I get it. I get why everyone is quick to rebuke poverty. Poverty is a canker that messes up your mind and makes you feel less human.
Money issues aside, growing up in a disadvantaged position causes many issues for you mentally. For example, I realise that it's part of my inability to say no. I have the fear that saying no might be the blockage to an apparent "breakthrough".
It may also explain why I seem to be shy. I realise that when I meet people, I am reluctant to speak - although I tend to have great ideas. And I used to blame it on my stutter. I'm largely not the first to speak because I've had the notion that my ideas, and to a large extent I, wasn't good enough.
I mean, how on earth does the boy with torn uniforms (11 years ago) have views better than GIS-educated scholars? Or why do I think I deserve a fair price for my creativity when I've been fortunate enough to be granted an opportunity? The mercies of the advantaged have been showered on me, and I should be proud to accept them humbly.
Then you socialize with kids from rich homes and they're extremely confident, know their rights and cannot tolerate bullshit - reinforcing the notion that yes, you poor peasant don't belong among the elite. To be among the elite then leaves you with 2 options. To work twice as hard to get half as far or to pretend. Fake it till you make it - knowing very well that you're what? Poor.
And so poverty makes you prone to making compromises. Because a seemingly insignificant no might be the difference between a meal and going to bed in hunger. It ties up your hands - making you a meaningless slave. Steals away your options.
So it makes sense why although I tend to want to push people towards a path of self-improvement, they don't respond. I'm missing the mark. I need to break my back through ruthless learning and self-improvement to survive. They don't. They're not poor. They haven't experienced what I have. They won't. It is I that needs the ruthlessness, not them.
How can you, a person who's had to sell bread at a young age for survival, convince someone who was chauffeured to school daily that life is hard? Or do you think the person who still receives parental allowances at age 30 would believe you who's depended on scholarships your whole life that life is hard. For you, it is. For them, it's not.
Poverty steals the joy from your life because the little time you spend resting would see you making lots of opportunity cost calculations in your head. You're a king of budgetary not because you realise the essence but because you have to. It subtly teaches you that you deserve to survive and not necessarily have good things. It preconditions you to accept crumbs when you deserve a truckload of food.
I will not be poor.
