The aftermath of my life after 9/11, when half my family died. How I am struggling to come back to the self my mother used to love and be proud of while still letting myself grow.
I don't think it is really as cut and dry as that. I know that kind of money would make someone in my city homeless, literally. But in other cities people can get along okay. It's all about the cost of living.
The other side of the coin is that money doesn't make happy. It's a person's life view that makes them happy.
Sam, I know. These guidelines are ridiculous. They shouldnt be poverty guidelines..instead, survival guidelines. Below the "survival" point, please take peril. And all of this money wasted on Iraq.
As far as the commenter above saying money doesn't buy happiness, I have to answer with MY 2 cents. At least, I can afford THAT.
When you can't buy enough food to feed your family and your three year old won't sleep because his stomach is empty and growling, people are unhappy.
When people go untreated for medical conditions because people cant afford care, or the medications they need - and as a result die of a heart condition or something entirely treatable like Malaria - people tend to get unhappy.
When someone's child comes home from school crying because they are made fun of for their hand me down clothes, or being on the lunch program, people are unhappy.
When people sleep on the streets with their families, and can't catch a break, people get pretty freaking unhappy.
Watching your child DIE because you live in a poor part of town that the police or ambulance takes 3 times as long to get to because they see these people as "expendable" - those people are indeed unhappy.
The people in New Orleans who are STILL living in tents, campers with no plumbing, or on the streets because shelters are too full and there are no jobs and no money to help these people...people get realllly unhappy.
When a man and woman, or a single parent, bust their butt on minimum wage with no benefits and still get evicted or foreclosed on...they get pretty unhappy as they leave their home with nothing but the clothes on their backs and NO place to go.
I am a woman with a Harvard Master's degree who has parents/family with no money. I worked my butt off for my education, earned scholarships and grants, and worked full time the entire time I was in school and then spent the next several years teaching in low income communities because I wanted to give back to those kids. I became disabled in 2000 to no fault of my own, and ended up homeless...eating in soup kitchens..without the medical care someone with money could have bought that would have saved my reproductive system (which is now ruined) or the nerves in my spine which are so damaged I am housebound and bedbound with a morphine pump in my gut at the age of 36...on some days, I get pretty unhappy.
And I imagine Sam, with what she and her family have been through...basically hell and back...and that she is worried she can't get a college education due to money (most scholarships funds have been depleted in this country or been stopped due to the war and the economy) or buy clothes or essentials for her growing sisters...would be a bit happier with a few nickels in her pocket.
Some people just need to pull their heads from their asses, or walk in someone else's shoes for a while.
Rant almost over.
I am usually a very even keeled person, but even the calmest of us get ticked off by short-sightedness.
2 comments:
I don't think it is really as cut and dry as that. I know that kind of money would make someone in my city homeless, literally. But in other cities people can get along okay. It's all about the cost of living.
The other side of the coin is that money doesn't make happy. It's a person's life view that makes them happy.
Just my $0.02 :-)
Sam, I know. These guidelines are ridiculous. They shouldnt be poverty guidelines..instead, survival guidelines. Below the "survival" point, please take peril. And all of this money wasted on Iraq.
As far as the commenter above saying money doesn't buy happiness, I have to answer with MY 2 cents. At least, I can afford THAT.
When you can't buy enough food to feed your family and your three year old won't sleep because his stomach is empty and growling, people are unhappy.
When people go untreated for medical conditions because people cant afford care, or the medications they need - and as a result die of a heart condition or something entirely treatable like Malaria - people tend to get unhappy.
When someone's child comes home from school crying because they are made fun of for their hand me down clothes, or being on the lunch program, people are unhappy.
When people sleep on the streets with their families, and can't catch a break, people get pretty freaking unhappy.
Watching your child DIE because you live in a poor part of town that the police or ambulance takes 3 times as long to get to because they see these people as "expendable" - those people are indeed unhappy.
The people in New Orleans who are STILL living in tents, campers with no plumbing, or on the streets because shelters are too full and there are no jobs and no money to help these people...people get realllly unhappy.
When a man and woman, or a single parent, bust their butt on minimum wage with no benefits and still get evicted or foreclosed on...they get pretty unhappy as they leave their home with nothing but the clothes on their backs and NO place to go.
I am a woman with a Harvard Master's degree who has parents/family with no money. I worked my butt off for my education, earned scholarships and grants, and worked full time the entire time I was in school and then spent the next several years teaching in low income communities because I wanted to give back to those kids. I became disabled in 2000 to no fault of my own, and ended up homeless...eating in soup kitchens..without the medical care someone with money could have bought that would have saved my reproductive system (which is now ruined) or the nerves in my spine which are so damaged I am housebound and bedbound with a morphine pump in my gut at the age of 36...on some days, I get pretty unhappy.
And I imagine Sam, with what she and her family have been through...basically hell and back...and that she is worried she can't get a college education due to money (most scholarships funds have been depleted in this country or been stopped due to the war and the economy) or buy clothes or essentials for her growing sisters...would be a bit happier with a few nickels in her pocket.
Some people just need to pull their heads from their asses, or walk in someone else's shoes for a while.
Rant almost over.
I am usually a very even keeled person, but even the calmest of us get ticked off by short-sightedness.
HF
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