Open Letter To The Poor

Hello, poor people. I would like to start out by saying that I have dedicated my life to helping poor people and that I have been working very closely with you over the past twenty years. Some of the most likable people that I have ever known have been poor people. Heck, I used to be poor. In fact, at one point I was down to the last four dollars in my bank account and still had not paid my bills that month. I had accumulated over 96,000 dollars in unsecured debt. I know how much it sucks. I recall laying in my bed each night with all this bad math running through my head and wondering how I was going to pay my rent. I refused to declare bankruptcy or take government assistance back then, but I got dangerously close. Just remember, you have something to offer society regardless of how insignificant you think you are. Money is just a means to an end and not a scoreboard for how well you did in life.

However, I do have some bad news and you should probably be sitting down for this… If you continue to be poor throughout your entire life in the United States, it is probably one hundred percent your fault. I know that this is not a very politically correct thing to say, so I figure I better say it now while I still have freedom of speech.

Failure in life is painful. Whether you experience poor grades in school or a personal bankruptcy, any kind of failure in life can be very damaging to the psyche. I am convinced that the secret of personal success is how one deals with the pain of that failure. There is a very powerful self-protective mechanism called “rationalization”. As one deals with personal failure in life, it is very easy to look around and find external reasons for its existence. Most people can find something: a parent who abandoned them, physical or sexual abuse as a child, the socioeconomic class or ethnicity that they were born into. Are all of these things setbacks? They certainly can be. But look around and you will find many people who have personally overcome setbacks like this and even worse. It can be very soothing to the subconscious to attribute your personal failures to others. The problem is that although this can be very calming to the mind, it destroys an important negative feedback loop and keeps you from correcting your past mistakes, thus sending you on a permanent path to failure.

Once you are convinced that your problems are really no fault of your own, it becomes much more easy to justify using the political system to force your fellow citizens to help you with your plight. You turn to politicians who feed into the narrative that supports your own rationalization. You accept support without even questioning its origin. You somehow justify that you “deserve” the fruits of other people’s labor without having done anything to earn it for yourself. Many of you continue to vote for politicians that make you promises that they cannot possibly keep. You support a government that expands the money supply in an attempt to keep these empty promises which starts devaluing the few dollars that you actually have. The price of everything around you continues to go up. You feel like you are being financially crushed but you don’t seem to see that you are a part of the problem.

I have a few simple steps that will help set you on the right path. If you have been poor all of your life, then why not try something new? The first step: You make yourself accountable for your fate. We all have setbacks, some more than others. You have to realize that your personal obstacles can be overcome regardless of how challenging they appear. Be persistent and never give up.

Step two: Find your discernible skill. You need to find something that you are good at that gives you an advantage over others. Having an education or high IQ helps, but this is not absolutely necessary. Learn a trade skill. Become really good at something. Don’t count on a labor union to falsely inflate your value in the workplace. Don’t even necessarily wait for some other person to give you a job. Find a way to go out and make money. Be creative. There is no job that is beneath you.

Step three: Delayed gratification. Learn to truly distinguish between your wants and your needs. Downsize your life and increase your income until you can save at least ten percent of what you make. Pay yourself first and treat your savings just as importantly as you would your rent. Avoid debt like it’s gonorrhea. High income alone will not automatically protect you from poverty. I have known many people making six figure salaries that don’t even have two nickels to rub together at the end of each month. The average Ethiopian earns twenty two dollars per month and would probably have some great suggestions regarding areas in which you could cut your personal budget.

Step four: Vote wisely. Vote for the person and not the party. Be cautious of career politicians and candidates that promise to give you things. Don’t support a political party just because your parents did. Vote for what is in the best interest of your country and not just you personally. Vote for politicians that will put our economy on a level playing field with other nations that engage in slave labor practices. Learn about our country’s past and decide on your own where it should go in the future.

Step five: Change your focus. Instead of focusing inwards on your own problems, start focusing outwards toward the world. Start discovering ways to make other people’s lives better. This will make you more valuable to society. Your value to society will usually correspond closely with your income. But please remember that regardless of how much or little money you make, this will not affect your value as a person.

Step six: Quit making excuses. If your first thought after reading this starts with something like “Yeah, right. But…” or perhaps “I can’t do that because…” then you better prepare right now to be poor for the rest of your life. You are like this powerful elephant who has been captured with a tiny string tied to your leg. The only thing really holding you back is… you.

Good luck. Once you have learned how to pull yourself out of poverty, don’t forget to teach others how to do the same. And always remember just how awful it felt to be poor, so that you never let it happen again.

Sincerely,

Recovering Poor Guy