I signed on for Blog Action Day today, because the subject, poverty, is near (if not dear) to my heart, and because I needed the inspiration. It’s been ages since I posted anything here, and poverty, or my struggle to escape it, is a large part of the reason why.

Poverty means to me struggling to find avenues through which I can make some money, enough to pay the rent and groceries. I’m not feeling very inspired, though, because I’m still struggling.

There is something about chronic, bottom-line insecurity about where next month’s rent is going to come from the sucks the life out of my muse. Yes, it’s a drag. Some have told me to just ‘get a job’, but with the sort of jobs I am qualified to perform, I’d be taking away from some young person just getting started. I have skills, I have a business, I have valuable services to offer, and I’d much prefer to work in my own area.

Do I sound whiny? I admit, it’s hard to avoid feeling pathetic sometimes. I’m trying to find a way through the self-pity to that magical platform of self-empowerment, you know, the place where I Make Things Happen, pull myself up by my bootstraps (hm, I’d like to have a pair of boots with straps) and turn my life around.

I’ve done it, too. Lots of times. But I keep falling back down onto my bottom line, which is a lot lower than I’d like it to be.

Here is where I planned to write about the tragic tale of my childhood growing up in dirt-poor conditions, without electricity or running water, in bare-bones squalor and so on and so forth. And it’s true. As a result, I did become accustomed to a much lower standard of living than most people on this continent would consider acceptable. Dirt held no horrors for me. My expectations were low.

That’s changed, at least somewhat; I’ve grown up. I’ve learned the positive value of recycling for the sake of the environment, not because I can’t afford to let things go to waste. I’m choosing my lifestyle now for philosophical and spiritual reasons, not because I have no other option. I’m prepared to accept a higher level of abundance and the responsibility that goes along with that. Yet, low expectations and the belief system that underly them are grooved into my brain at some very deep levels. I’m struggling with my belief in, and expectation of struggle.

I’m not alone. Even people with plenty of money deal with what is called ‘poverty consciousness’. Even if you have never lacked, even if you grew up with plenty of everything, stuff, toys, clothes, the works, the fear of lack and loss, struggle and suffering is still very deeply imprinted into this culture. Putting money aside ‘just in case’, stockpiling and hoarding, buying insurance against an unforeseen disaster are all symptoms of this background terror that we tend to avoid noticing.

I know people who have millions of dollars in investments yet still shop routinely at gargage sales, and not because they think garage sales are cool. Because they feel poor and want to save a buck. There is never enough for them.

I have no safety net, no steady job or reliable income; I go month by month and some months I do pretty well and feel buoyed by the positive flow. Other months, I realize just how thin my margin really is and I scramble to survive. This is one of those months.

Yes, there are many many people in the world much worse off than I, and I feel I ought to be writing about their plight. Single moms on welfare, struggling to feed and clothe their kids and pay the rent. It’s impossible, I should know. I was one of them. Families struggling to pay the mortgage and ever-escalating bills, with growing kids. Oh yeah, I did that too, while I was still married.

Third world kids, running naked in the front yard in raw dirt with no running water, no amenities, no electricity, no modern conveniences, not sure what there was going to be to eat that day. Hm. Yeah, that was me.

I’ve had it a lot worse in my life than I do now, that’s certain. I live in a sweet warm home with good friends and a room of my own. I’m grateful every day for all that has changed. I feel very lucky that I’m grown and my children are all magnificently functional, contributing members of society so I needn’t worry about them. They are lucky too. Somehow they escaped the poverty trap that so many of my other family members, and myself, are still caught in.

Lots of people are still scrabbling just to scrape together the necessary means to live. I don’t have any answers, just my own experience and my current struggle, and the feeling that there is something wrong with this picture.

I know, the big picture is overwhelmingly bleak. There are other bloggers out there posting about the appalling conditions in the poorest countries of the world, where little children pick over the toxic wastes of our western so-called civilization for bits and pieces to sell just to stave off starvation. And despite all my personal focus, I know I’ve never been there. I can’t write about what I don’t know. It’s overwhelming to think about it. I am choosing to start with what I do know, and hope that when I get a handle on my own experience, I’ll have the tools to move on to serve the greater whole.

Poverty on a global scale is a completely different species of experience from what I’m talking about. Just so you know I’m not trying to paint myself into that picture. I’m not quite that self-absorbed.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 15th, 2008 at 3:19 pm and is filed under general. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.