The Big Question

So now what, you are poor, stuck in a shitty little apartment, or worse, homeless?  Your days go by dealing with one frustration after another.  You feel sorry for yourself and you are jealous of all those vain bastards driving brand new SUV's, sporting some fancy threads and a Gucci handbag.  Is that you?


You walk by all those expensive restaurants, take a look inside at the aliens sipping champagne and eating gourmet meals and you feel?  What do you feel?  What are all those emotions rising up in you?


Now you turn away, pretend you don't give a damn, turn yourself off like they turned your electricity off last month.  You are in the dark with only a candle, a small flame that you can't even read by, a light so small you can only see a foot or two in front of you.


Your mind goes into over-drive and starts to explore the what-ifs?  What if I'd done that or what if I hadn't done this?  Where would I be now if I'd just been stronger, smarter, or more persistent?


Yes, here in lies the BIG QUESTION every poor person wants to know and it goes like this.


IS THIS MY FAULT?


Every poor person out there wants to know the answer to that question and here is what I have to say about it.


 It really doesn't matter.


"What do you mean it doesn't matter?" you might ask now and I'll say it again "It doesn't matter."


You are where you are.  Have you made mistakes?  Of course, you have, you are human.  No human can go through life without them, not you, not me, not anybody.  This, however, doesn't make your poverty "your own damn fault."  And nothing, absolutely nothing, you did or didn't do to wind up eating beans is a  reflection on who you are.


You can not go back.  You can not change the past.  It is gone forever.  You have no access to it.  "Back to the Future" was just a movie.


Neither can you go forward.  You can not jump into next week or next year.  Your future is an illusion.  You don't have one.


All you have is what you see in front of you right now.  There is nothing else.  So you can stop asking the question because it makes absolutely no difference to anyone if you had a fortune and pissed it away, or you had a job and got laid off, or fired, or quit because you couldn't stand it anymore.  Nobody cares, why do you?


Thinking about all that crap is like pissing on yourself and why piss on yourself when the world is willing to do that for you?


Yes, the world hates and blames poor people.


Don't add to it.


You're better than that.