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Do We Practice Being Poor?
An old friend asked what I believed to be a rhetorical question, ‘Why do we always practice being poor’. I didn’t have an answer, but I gave it a lot of thought. My first reaction was that you can’t practice being poor because it is not a personal choice. To practice is to perform an activity or exercise repeatedly or regularly to improve or maintain proficiency. Poverty results from political decisions by the powers that be and the social acceptance by the masses of the state of affairs.
How we react to the state of affairs will determine whether we practice being poor. Poverty itself implies being dependent. When we practice being poor, we accept the political decisions that were designed to keep us poor instead of trying to overcome our suppressions. While poverty is a reality, it doesn’t need to be our reality indefinitely. Whether we accept the state of affairs is a personal choice. When we set goals and shut down after the first bump in the road we practice being poor. When we correct our course and persevere after a minor setback, we practice the art of success.
While success looks different from one person to another, poverty is not an aspiration for anyone I know. We all want success, but do we put forth the effort to accomplish that? Whatever your vision of success is, getting there can be a challenge. When we accept the status quo, we embrace restrictions. You can do this, but you can’t do that. Why can’t the sky be the limit? When we embrace restrictions, we practice being poor.
The practice of being poor is a spirit of mind. Spiritual qualities are those intangible qualities that define the individual. Do we have a poor spirit or a rich spirit? To be poor in spirit, we lack all hope of finding power in ourselves and feel demoralized and dejected. We feel empowered, confident, imaginative, and knowledgeable to be rich in spirit. So, while we can’t always control the fluctuations in our material wealth, our spirit of mind is a constant factor in reaching our goals.
A while back an old friend asked what I believed to be a rhetorical question, ‘Why do we always practice being poor’. I didn’t have an answer but I gave it a lot of thought. My first reaction was that you can’t practice being poor because it is not a personal choice. To practice is to perform an activity or exercise repeatedly or regularly to improve or maintain proficiency. Poverty is the result political decisions by the powers that be and the social acceptance by the masses of the state of affairs.
How we react to the state of affairs will determine whether we practice being poor. Poverty itself implies being dependent. When we practice being poor, we accept the political decisions that were designed to keep us poor instead of trying to overcome our suppressions. While the state of poverty is a reality, it doesn’t need to be our reality indefinitely. Whether we accept the state of affairs is a personal choice. When we set goals and shut down after the first bump in the road we practice being poor. When we correct our course and persevere after a minor setback, we are practicing the art of success.
While success looks different from one person to another, poverty is not an aspiration for any one I know. We all want success, but do we put forth the effort to accomplish that. Whatever your vision of success is, it can be a challenge to get there. When we accept the status quo we embrace restrictions. You can do this but you can’t do that. Why can’t the sky be the limit. When we embrace restrictions, we practice being poor.
The practice of being poor is a spirit of mind. Spiritual qualities are those intangible qualities that defines the individual. Do we have a poor spirit or a rich spirit? o be poor in spirit we lack all hope of finding power in ourselves and feel demoralized and dejected. To be rich in sprit we feel empowered, confident, imaginative and knowledgeable. So while we can’t always control the fluctuations in our material wealth, our spirit of mind is a constant in the equation to reaching our goals
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