Saturday 6 September 2008

Define 'Poor' for me please!

I am having a really hard time processing the things I am reading around the traps. I need to know how poor you feel you are. Come on, please share with me just how hard your life is.

Do you have car/plasma/house/things envy? At what point in your life will you start saying

"Wow, we really are blessed and have enough things to last us a lifetime"

Please, go to your fridge/cupboards and wardrobes. Do you have all that you need and the ability to buy more?

Please take a moment to view here and then come back and tell me how much more you need in your life.

Tomorrow is Father's Day in Australia. Instead of spending money on your Father, give him the gift of your time and your love.

It is no longer ok for me to be a part of the middle class simple life wannabees. I need to do some long and hard thinking about what's really important in my life and how I want to raise my kids.

19 comments:

marmee said...

yes we are all blessed beyond what we should be. it is time to share our wealth of time and love.

karen said...

I have everything I need, and I struggle to find things I *want* these days (at least things that can be bought with money). That's become really obvious to me in the last week - I have a birthday coming up soon, and I've been asked several times what I want - and there's nothing. The husband finds this hard to believe, but it's true.

naturewitch said...

Very sobering, indeed! By the standards of these photos, no-one in Australia is poor. We could all learn from the "poorer nations" - those thongs are a real piece of ingenuity. Imagine if we valued all our "rubbish" that much.

Personally, I consider myself to be very fortunate. Yes, there are times when I might envy or want something, but really all I need and more is right here. How lucky am I and how lucky are we all in Oz! xx

Belinda said...

Hi Crone,

I am blessed and have never really felt poor.

On occasions I "want" things I don't choose to save to afford, but that isn't deprivation its priorities.

Until I can't afford appropriate medical care, heat, a roof over my head and water to drink I could never consider my luxurious life poor.

Kind Regards
Belinda

Leah said...

I looked at that link earlier, and yes, we have far more than we need, and possibly more than we want too.

Cathode said...

Hey, what happened to you today? Nat and I were thinking you got lost?
For not showing, Im forfeiting the Holy Mole Chilli I had for you
so ~nyah~ : p

The Crone at Wits End said...

ARGGGHHHHHHH!

Forgot all about this! I have been sick yesterday and today :( One of my tots is hellishly sick as well. Tonsils like golfballs and broken out in a rash :'(

So sorry!

dixiebelle said...

Hope you are feeling better soon.

Thanks for sharing that link. I can't think of what to write to express how I feel about the inequity in the world...

Anonymous said...

Missed catching up with everyone too but loved spending time at the folks.

We are abundantly blessed in this country. What I find so sad is we really don't share much of it generally as a culture

Hope you and the wee one are feeling better soon

Blessings:)

Chiot's Run said...

So true. I grew up in Colombia and when I was young, I visited families of 8 living in a fridge box covered with tar paper on the edge of a river of sewage. I've never felt poor in my life because my parents exposed me to real economic poverty. The interesting thing is that these poeple didn't feel poor. They didn't complain about what they didn't have (electric, water, food, a house, clothes). They felt fortunate that they had each other and their friends.

Funny how prosperity often breeds an impoverished mentality.

Cathode said...

thats okay. Hope you guys all get better soon!

Cheryl said...

Hi Crone......I am and know that I am extremely fortunate.......I have also been blessed to have travelled to countries where extreme poverty exists and to mix with those that have nothing, .....India and Africa......I have seen things that I will never forget and believe me when you come home you realise just how fortunate we are.......

When we were in Goa there were hundreds sleeping outside a church......we had been in the heat for most of the day......we were tired and hungry........a family welcomed us into their little kitchen.....they cleaned for us to sit and gave us food....they had very little and treated us with respect and kindness.....my eyes are filling as I remember this day......we offered them money for the food...they refused....eventually they took it and fell to their knees blessing us.......I found it humbling........

The Tin House said...

I am a middle class simple life wannabe. But I think in confessing that, it makes me want to try harder to be true to the notion of living not only with mindfulness to the earths resources, but honouring the idea of sharing the wealth too.

I feel a truckload of middle class wannabe guilt looking at those cleverly juxtaposed photos of excess and poverty.

Lisa x

The Crone at Wits End said...

Ahhh Lisa I so know what you mean. It's all well and good me hearing "start small, do your bit, simple steps" etc, then I see pics like that and I think to myself

"how many more thousands of kids are going to die while I am messing around with simple steps?"

I want to change the world right now, you know!

The Husband took me out to Ikea yesterday to prove a point; he as an Economist believes that the way forward for any country is through productivity and economic strategies.

He asked me to really watch the shoppers at Ikea. Look at their expressions and actions. And you know what, he was right about me swimming against the tide. The feelings of 'want' were palpable. There were hundreds of people in that superstore all headed in the same direction; to the checkouts, like spawning salmon on a mission. That mission was to 'buy'.

naturewitch said...

But you can't eat furniture and where's their old stuff? what is it doing? do they really need it? somehow i doubt it . . .

Cwm Goch Chronicles said...

We drove to my Dad's early today. He woke up to his grandkids kids jumping on him and coffee and pancakes ready in the kitchen for him (which we'd prepped at home and delivered).
And not even he could pretend to do the 'grumpy morning grandad' thing with that greeting!:D!

Minni Mum said...

The Ikea shoppers 'want' alright - they just don't know what it is that they actually want so they are filling the void with marketing-machine-induced consumerism.

We are *so* blessed, and I don't ever take our good health and good fortune for granted. You can't replace any of that with "stuff".

Unknown said...

Thankyou for the link.

I do tend to whinge when I am overwhelmed. I let my son (11) have a look too.

My husband on the otherhand says he is rich but he doesn't mean financially but his life. I wish I could be like him.

About consumerism. Yes I have had that bug big time in certain areas. I am challenging myself not to consume.

Anonymous said...

You know it has occurred to me recently that what all of us really want - quality time with our families, a friendly and safe community, healthy air, soil, water, safe food, a sense of purpose etc - is actually unattainable because most of us are too rich here in the developed world. We live as isolated nuclear families working too hard to enjoy our families, and we substitute TV for community. Because we want stuff to fill our empty lives, people in 3rd world countries are dying from pollution-causing factories. I also discovered recently that the Amish haven't forsworn technology for religious reasons per se, but that they weigh up new technologies and make decisions based on whether a new technology will have a negative impact on their life values - or the welfare of those who create the technologies. For me, this is an entirely new way of viewing my responsibilities as a consumer.
Am enjoying your blog as a new reader.