Have you ever experienced any of these?
– You find yourself not eating on time, or at all, because you don’t have enough money to buy food.
– People you owe money to are running after you. It’s been years, yet you haven’t managed to pay your debt.
– You want to study but you can’t because you don’t have money for tuition.
– There are times when you don’t have a place to stay. You keep asking friends if you can stay with them because you don’t have enough money to pay for rent.
What is common among these? Simple. These are experiences that every person living in poverty has gone through.
Like I always say, there is nothing wrong with being born into poverty. This is something beyond our control and choice. But what’s wrong is for you to stay in poverty for the rest of your life because you never did anything to improve your life situation.
It’s hard to be in poverty. It’s as if you can’t seem to move freely. There’s always something bothering you and causing you to worry. Even when it comes to our basic needs, we’re having a hard time meeting them.
And this is why this is my mission. I want to educate and motivate people to be the best that they can be when it comes to finances and help them realize why you need to get out of poverty.
Now, why is it so hard to be in poverty?
ALWAYS IN LACK
The bills for the electricity, water, and rent were due last month, but you are only able to pay now because it’s only now that you were able to get some extra money. What’s even painful is that you need to pay for your bills and other payables in installment.
You are always worried that these basic services will be cut off because you are unable to pay for them. You are stressed about the interests that compound because of your inability to pay off your debts. All your life, all you ever want is to have even just enough money.
NO CERTAINTY
If you are in poverty, you are living your life one day at a time. You don’t know what will happen tomorrow. You don’t know if you will still have a job to go to, if you will have food on the table, if you will be able to keep your place of shelter, and many other things. There are a lot of uncertainties in this life, and it is causing you to be incapable of planning well for your future.
When you are in poverty, you are only living in the moment, and therefore, it doesn’t give you the luxury to think about the future anymore. And because of this, it doesn’t occur to you to make investments. And if you encounter emergencies, such as losing the job that you have, it’s twice as hard because you are definitely not prepared for such a thing.
WRONG STRATEGY
Living in poverty causes daily stress, anxiety, and fear because you don’t know how you will survive your everyday. Once your emotions get the better of you, it may lead to even more bad decisions as you try to solve your problems.
You will try to borrow money, spread yourself too thin by forcing yourself to get other jobs, enter into gambling and “easy money” games, falling into the false illusion that these things have the power to double or increase to whatever extent the money that you currently have.
ALWAYS GETTING SICK
You don’t notice it, but your health is also deteriorating. Because you’re very low on cash, you tendency is to always go for the cheaper foods like canned goods, instant noodles, or even fast food. Doing this everyday will cause your body to be deprived of important nutrients to keep it healthy.
Sometimes, what happens is that to relieve any discomfort or pain from hunger, you just force yourself to sleep it off because you don’t have enough funds to buy medicine or bring yourself to a hospital or a clinic.
LOSING HOPE
Because you are living in poverty, probably one of the things that you were by able to achieve was a proper education. Or even, one of the things that you refuse to continue with your education. Remember that it’s everyone’s right to study and get an education, but you are not able to do this at this time because the reality is, the money that you have isn’t even enough to pay for your basic needs.
How would you be able to pay for your tuition, transportation, everyday allowance, and other schooling expenses if this is the case? It feels overwhelming, daunting. You can’t help but feel hopeless. You know that education is your ticket to succeed in life, but your drive to pursue success in life is being overridden by your poverty.
Is it possible to get out of a life of poverty, Chinkee? THE ANSWER IS A DEFINITE YES! If I was able to do it, you will be able to do it as well.
THINK. REFLECT. APPLY.
The question is, do you believe that this can happen to you? If not, I challenge you to make me believe you.
(Chinkee Tan)