A state of mind... which needs change

Poverty is nothing more than a state of lack in relation to your frame of reference. Defining oneself in relation to the possessions one doesn’t have is a self-perpetuating cycle through which one can never be whole.

The problem is that most people don’t have any idea of what they actually want. This lack of wholeness leads to much frustration, which is then fed back into the cycle, continuing forever in this futility.

Most of the time, what a particular person is looking for is something much subtler and harder to define than money. Money only serves as a bad substitute, something which socially conditioned values put front and center for no other reason than the utter inability of coming up with a more creative alternative.

I for one am not at all surprised or displeased at the recent turn the economy has taken. This “crisis” just exposes the fact that a large percentage of people are still stuck going round and round, trying to apply the same solutions to their intangible problems over and over again.

An evidently unsustainable model which was bound to come crashing down eventually.

Only through awareness can this larger problem of humanity be overcome.

This century puts the tools of communication at our disposal in a way which greatly helps this process. As more and more people start finding alternate ways of living, the entire social model of what wealth means is starting to change.

The solution doesn’t lie in donating to poor kids in Africa once in a while and then looking the other way; it lies in fundamentally changing the way society as a whole perceives money.

As soon as the people who are not in direct need start to care more about sharing than having, about giving than receiving, the rest will take care of itself. And in the process, it’s getting easier for those who wish to lend a helping hand to people who are really in need, right now, to do so.

So, even if things are looking bad on the surface, now is a better time than ever for us as a whole to overcome poverty once and for all.

I won’t ask you to run off and donate some cash; just take some time tonight and think deeply about the role money plays in your life, and how your attitude is affecting the collective consciousness of humanity.

That is what will ultimately bring about change for all of us.