What Is Poverty? (Blog Action Day Post)
What is poverty? Is it a financial situation? Is it a moral challenge? What about an intellectual one? Maybe it is most and foremost a mindset and esteem issue.
Poverty is measured in financial terms. It can be said that an impoverished people live on pennies a day. Yet, if they have adequate shelter from the natural elements, ample fresh water, plenty of nutritional food to eat, environmentally friendly sustainability and provide a loving atmosphere within the community is that still called impoverished?
If generation after generation is educated by the skilled within the community and compassion is shown to those ailing and feeble among the population isn’t that a clear measure of true wealth?
Counter to that, is someone who has been physically, verbally, and spiritually abused to the point where any sense of hope is lost. Where they cower when their attacker enters the room. The attacker they are married too. This scene is played out in affluent neighborhoods and the children of such an environment are belittled and live on junk food. Wouldn’t this more so be considered poverty?
Poverty is a theft of potential in any form. In war torn areas it becomes the theft of safety and hope. In a deescalate terrain it is a theft of nutrition. Within a morally bankrupt household it is a theft of compassion.
Without nutrition and safety the mind has a hard time growing and flourishing. A healthy mind that is secure can overcome any challenge. One threatened and malnourished cannot focus. A diseased mind gets consumed by rage and seeks destruction.
Poverty is a horrendous theft of time. All the energy is thwarted to acquire safety. Instead of being channeled into productive community development. Cries of hunger overshadow the joy of children playfully mastering non-violent gamesmanship. A household scavenging for food is challenged to find compassion for those more comfortable.
Poverty is the thief that steals from us all. The mere fact of its existence reinforces our separateness from the source of the galaxy. As sentient beings, humankind is aware deep inside that poverty not only has a solution, but it is the deliverance of our higher self to implement the action to solve it.
Michael
Your definition on POVERTY might easily be added to any dictionary!
“Poverty is a theft of potential in any form. In war torn areas it becomes the theft of safety and hope. In a deescalate terrain it is a theft of nutrition. Within a morally bankrupt household it is a theft of compassion.”
So aptly put.
I also made a blog post about Blog Action Day 2008 – POVERTY and then re-posted to include your post among a few others that I feel are significant.
Check it out at http://www.imovator.com/blog-action-day/repost-of-blog-action-day-2008-poverty/
I’m Lovin’ It!
John Cussons
“Mr Emotions”
[…] Micheal Spindelman, “Mr Applicititus” and “TheFlowDoctor” of http://eventronics.com/blog/ wrote, What Is Poverty? (Blog Action Day Post) http://eventronics.com/blog/life-career/what-is-poverty-blog-action-day-post/ […]
Touche. Solid arguments. Keep up the good work.