[nicoffeine]

This seems like a sheltered view of poverty.

When you live in poverty, there is no such thing as peace or thinking about the future. You are trying to cope minute-by-minute with hunger, abuse, fear, and limitless insecurity. You know someone who is in jail, someone who has been shot/stabbed/murdered, and plenty of people who did all the right things and still failed to make it out. In a nutshell, there's no such thing as tomorrow when you hope to die in your sleep.

Self-fulfillment is at the top of Maslow's hierarchy. Until society provides for all the needs beneath it, having access to the internet isn't going to make a damn bit of difference.

[kevas]

I hate to write the following sentence, but you don’t know me and the experiences I’ve had throughout my life.

The stabbed, jail, etc... you mentioned... yeah, I’ve seen that first hand a few times, know many people who have gone to jail and are still in it for a myriad of reasons. Seeing & having that stuff around you doesn’t mean you grow poor.

I did the 6 year community college plan; I failed out of college and by every metric on my academic record, I should be a complete failure, but hey, I’m not!

All the issues you of poverty and how crippling it is, I completely agree with, but what you don’t understand is that it’s all a decision. It’s a decision to live how you are or seek a return that will be realized down the road at some unknown point. I understand what I just said would be extremely difficult for someone who would be in that current situation, but it doesn’t deny them the ability to seek that reward at some point down the road.

As I’ve said, it’s all a choice on what to do with your time. The fight within is the most difficult thing anyone could ever face, but face it one must to change.

One of my favorite sayings is “you’re not going to change until the pain of change is less than the pain of staying the same.” Basically... one must hate oneself so much that it would be easier to change than to live another day as one currently does.

Wanna guess how I changed? I hated myself that much.

[3131s]

Sounds like someone was bankrolling you through this period of failure?

And from you're own admission you "had to scrounge for change" a few times... I know people who nearly starved to death as little children. In fact there are starving, begging kids out on the streets all over the city I live in.

It doesn't sound like you have any familiarity with the type of extreme poverty that hundreds of millions of people on Earth live through, for whom it is clearly not a choice.

[kevas]

I didn’t have a bankroll during this time, but have a job that i found through a guy i knew who knew another guy at the gym, which kept me afloat.

I can say that I have been fortunate enough to not have ever been at that level of poverty and should probably adjust my statements accordingly. Looking back, as i wrote that, I most likely had just the States in mind and other Western countries, not societies that are considered 3rd world.

For those, I cannot fathom the issues they face nor will i even attempt to speculate as that would be just foolish of me.

[travisoneill1]

Why do I meet so many happy poor people when I'm out of bubble, then?

[Kye]

I guarantee you don't have the whole picture. People are good at putting up a front so other people don't know how bad things are.

[wyre]

You anecdote doesn’t mean anything. Poor people might be more likely to fake being happy so they can avoid judgement or any other reason to fake happiness.

It’s been proven in several studies that income is linked to happiness.

[asciimov]

Happiness is a choice. Being poor doesn't mean your sad all the time, it means life is tough, tougher than the lives of the rich. Even in the toughest of times, there is plenty to be happy about.

[nor-and-or-not]

Perhaps you are confusing kindness with happyness.