<story><title>Being Poor by John Scalzi</title><url>http://whatever.scalzi.com/2005/09/03/being-poor/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>DanielBMarkham</author><text>&lt;i&gt;People wondering why you didn&apos;t leave&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;You can always leave. They&apos;re called feet: use them.&lt;p&gt;I have been very, very poor. And I&apos;ve made a million bucks in a short amount of time. In fact, I&apos;ve flopped back and forth about as many times as anybody I know, so I know both sides of this.&lt;p&gt;I would not idolize poverty as some kind of state of nobility, and I would&apos;t spend a lot of time agonizing over it either. It is a thing that happens to you, like cancer. You get to make choices in life, no matter where you are or what your situation. The last day of your life, if you were lying in a ditch somewhere, you can still choose how to confront the end of your existence. These choices are all we own. The only person that can stop you making choices is yourself. It is extremely possible to dwell on all the bad things in life and despair.&lt;p&gt;If you are poor and reading this, whatever you do, please don&apos;t despair. Make some different choices. The only way you&apos;re not making a difference in the world is if you&apos;ve decided that you&apos;re not. Don&apos;t let others -- no matter how well meaning -- give that to you.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>retube</author><text>&amp;#62; You can always leave. They&apos;re called feet: use them.&lt;p&gt;I&apos;m not sure. I&apos;ve never been poor, so I can&apos;t speak from personal experience, but being poor is not necessarily about choice. Certainly I can start off rich, and make bad decisions. Perhaps that&apos;s my fault, perhaps I got unlucky. But if you start off in poverty, it&apos;s not easy, as I understand, to get yourself out of poverty. If you had a crap education, and a rough home life, you probably didn&apos;t leave school with good grades, so you can&apos;t get a decent job etc etc. There&apos;s a whole life-defining set of knock-on effects. And if you&apos;re trapped in debt, struggling to pay the rent and keep yourself warm, how easy is it to get out of that? If an opportunity does come along, will you have the cash to leverage it (think train ride to job interview).&lt;p&gt;I don&apos;t know how you got out of your fix, I&apos;d be really interested to know.</text></comment>
<story><title>Being Poor by John Scalzi</title><url>http://whatever.scalzi.com/2005/09/03/being-poor/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>DanielBMarkham</author><text>&lt;i&gt;People wondering why you didn&apos;t leave&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;You can always leave. They&apos;re called feet: use them.&lt;p&gt;I have been very, very poor. And I&apos;ve made a million bucks in a short amount of time. In fact, I&apos;ve flopped back and forth about as many times as anybody I know, so I know both sides of this.&lt;p&gt;I would not idolize poverty as some kind of state of nobility, and I would&apos;t spend a lot of time agonizing over it either. It is a thing that happens to you, like cancer. You get to make choices in life, no matter where you are or what your situation. The last day of your life, if you were lying in a ditch somewhere, you can still choose how to confront the end of your existence. These choices are all we own. The only person that can stop you making choices is yourself. It is extremely possible to dwell on all the bad things in life and despair.&lt;p&gt;If you are poor and reading this, whatever you do, please don&apos;t despair. Make some different choices. The only way you&apos;re not making a difference in the world is if you&apos;ve decided that you&apos;re not. Don&apos;t let others -- no matter how well meaning -- give that to you.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>lionhearted</author><text>&amp;#62; I have been very, very poor.&lt;p&gt;Me too, man. That&apos;s a very compassionate and honest comment you just wrote. I tend to be shorter and less patient with people who self-pity, and especially people who come from more who treat poor people like helpless children. But I should be friendlier, more compassionate, less short tempered, more steadfastly guiding. Very nice comment by you - you managed to be patient and kind while still being strong and emphasizing responsibility and choice. I should emulate this, this was a great comment.</text></comment>