today I started a list: things I'll do when I'll have a lot of money.
I understood how used I am to being so close to poverty when I wrote stuff like a 20 bucks bluetooth speaker and a set of screwdrivers.
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@arteteco the difference between a rich person and a poor person is that a rich person spends most of their time trying to think of ways they could spend/invest money they don't have yet, a poor person thinks up ways they will spend money they don't yet have :)
Though I think this applies a bit farther above the poverty line than you are dealing with too. Obviously you gotta cover the basic needs first. but someone told me that once and it stuck with me.. how you spend (in your head) the money you dont have yet says everything about your financial future.
Thats just pure hyperbole and not really what was said at all. Obviously simply having a thought will not fix the problem. However patterns of thinking reflect patterns of action. How you plan to spend money you don't yet have is an indication of how you will spend that money when the time comes that you do have it. Thoughts alone may not get you from rags to riches, but when those thoughts represent your financial plans for the future or in general then absolutely and of course it will be an indicator of financial success to some degree.
With that said there needs to be more than just positive thoughts and there are absolutely external factors that may work for or against you as well.
@freemo @arteteco Sorry if I’m salty over it, but people have been repeating the same tired old argument for so long, that it’s not their fault for being super rich, and if I support their exploitive system, then one day I too may be rich beyond compare! It’s both excusing the crimes that the rich can get away with because of the imbalance of power, and blaming the poor for their own oppression.
Yes, almost everyone has some influence over their financial situation, and that influence is tiny, doesn’t matter, and the vast majority of financial ruin is due to the actions of others. What you’ve been led to believe that I have to do to stop being poor is either something that the richest among us have never had to do, or else it’s a rigged game with uncountable millions who’ve spun that same wheel of fortune and got nothing but regrets in return.
There is so much to unload in that statement.
For starters lets be clear I do recognize and agree that there are plenty of examples of governments where the laws are designed in such a way that is unfair for those in poverty and makes it harder to get out of poverty than I'd like.
With that said, I certainly wouldnt adopt the idea from this statement you made:
> Yes, almost everyone has some influence over their financial situation, and that influence is tiny, doesn’t matter.
As someone who grew up in absolute poverty, on welfare, had to grow up in a home with 4 generations under the same small roof and never even had a room of my own until much later in life, someone who later made my own success and am now financially successful, I can say first hand, at least in the USA, that nothing can be farther from the truth.
My success didnt come at the whim of some rich person, no one gave me a chance, I worked my ass off in near-starving conditions to get there on my own. I spent my free time at the library, I studied at a very young age, and by the time I was 15 years old I figured out how to make 6 figures from a house hold that otherwise could barely feed me.
I've been through the process, I've seen it first hand, and I can say without a doubt int he USA we have a great deal of power to define our own financial freedom. While that doesnt mean the system is fair, and it doesnt mean you have the same advantage as someone born rich, it is clear the notion of ones control over their own financial health as being insignificant is simply not the reality.
I should also point out I spend a good deal of my free time tutoring young adults in subjects that they cant afford to go to college to learn, in the hopes they can use that knowledge to get out of poverty on their own. I never give these people dumps of money or give them favors to start them out in life, the only thing I do is spend a year or more helping them study and learn marketable skills. Virtually everyone I ever taught who lasted a year without quiting went on to make very good money and be successful despite having a start in life of poverty...
So I also know im not the exception, I've seen dozens of people go from rags to riches due to their own hard work and study and little more. So even if we agree that the cards may be stacked against them it is also clear that most people have a great deal of influence on their financial standing, the system may not be fair, but you do have a lot of the power to change your situation despite this.
@freemo From the other side of the fence, I agree. I'm not on the low end of the income spectrum because "powers were against me", even though I studied hard at many things I also never managed to market them or to properly sell myself, also out of shyness. I never properly learned how to go for jobs and I spent years travelling and discovering the world without giving a fuck about my income. Choices.
I could have make quite some money in my life if I did things differently. I won't lie, I feel stupid now, and I feel not appreciated and bla bla bla, but most of it is definitely on me.
I'm sure that holds more true for some other countries, but for EU, USA and rich places... man, I don't know, I don't think so
