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You can be poor and happy. And for those that choose that - more power to you.
We all have opportunities to not be poor if we choose to do so. I get offended by this notion people are poor by circumstance.
Ah, yes, the ever-popular "Myth of the Self-Made Man," delivered with great conviction, to the stirring accompaniment of "My Way," playing in the background.
Explaining your own success that particular way is a choice.
Other successful people, recognizing that almost no one is successful without the contributions and support of others, and acknowledging how critical certain opportunities and resources were that not everyone enjoys, and seeing what a key part chance plays, no matter how hard you work... some of them choose to tell the story of their success in a very different way. One full of gratitude, and humility, and compassion for others who were not as fortunate.
Social scientists who study poverty in depth paint a very different picture than you do, one that is quite short on choice... they don't all agree on the particulars, but this is a pretty good representation of the consensus...
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Studies by the International Center for Eradicating Poverty show that in third world countries the primary cause of poverty stems from the effects of natural disasters, the lack of uniform infrastructure, corruption, centralized government power, lack of knowledge, employment skills, education and resources.
The primary cause of poverty in the United States stems from societal structuring, social or racial grouping and stereotyping, isolation from social interactions and opportunities, lack of knowledge, employment skills, education and resources.*
*To me that sounds an awful lot like the situation that prevails in Hawai'i for Native Hawaiians and other impoverished minorities.
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Suffice it to say I was never poor again.
Yet. There's always time.
If there is anything close to an unbreakable rule that history has to teach us about success it is that no matter how big your success, you can lose it all... sometimes in a heartbeat. So choosing to be arrogant about one's success is little more than self-deception about the nature of life. Expressions of gratitude are far more realistic.
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Being poor is a choice made early on in your life - poor is fine if that is your thing - but don't make poor my problem. If choose a life of poverty - then don't complain about it later.
I have no sympathy for people that are poor and complain about it when they could have chosen a different path in life.
IF they could have chosen a different path. IF there was a real choice to make. IF they could even have seen a choice. IF.
You were fortunate, and you worked very hard, and you got the right breaks and you made the right decisions. I don't begrudge you your material success, not a bit. You have every right to be proud of what you have achieved in that part of your life.
And needless to say, you are still at choice about the other parts.
Every person in the United States can choose their destiny - I wasn't fortunate - I chose my path. So can anyone else. It is insulting to imply I didn't choose the path I took. It was hard work and anyone can take the same path if they choose. If they don't so be it - I get some poor people are happy - that is fine - don't make life choices my problem.
The thing is - it wasn't all that difficult. Even starting from the very bottom - that is the great thing about this country.
Ah, yes, the ever-popular "Myth of the Self-Made Man," delivered with great conviction, to the stirring accompaniment of "My Way," playing in the background.
Explaining your own success that particular way is a choice.
Other successful people, recognizing that almost no one is successful without the contributions and support of others, and acknowledging how critical certain opportunities and resources were that not everyone enjoys, and seeing what a key part chance plays, no matter how hard you work... some of them choose to tell the story of their success in a very different way. One full of gratitude, and humility, and compassion for others who were not as fortunate.
Social scientists who study poverty in depth paint a very different picture than you do, one that is quite short on choice... they don't all agree on the particulars, but this is a pretty good representation of the consensus...
*To me that sounds an awful lot like the situation that prevails in Hawai'i for Native Hawaiians and other impoverished minorities.
Yet. There's always time.
If there is anything close to an unbreakable rule that history has to teach us about success it is that no matter how big your success, you can lose it all... sometimes in a heartbeat. So choosing to be arrogant about one's success is little more than self-deception about the nature of life. Expressions of gratitude are far more realistic.
IF they could have chosen a different path. IF there was a real choice to make. IF they could even have seen a choice. IF.
You were fortunate, and you worked very hard, and you got the right breaks and you made the right decisions. I don't begrudge you your material success, not a bit. You have every right to be proud of what you have achieved in that part of your life.
And needless to say, you are still at choice about the other parts.
Good luck with them!
In other words, you couldn't have done it without the Power and Water Dept.
BTW, the true cause of "poverty" in America, besides sloth, is a constant redefining of the poverty line to encompass the left side of the standard bell curve distribution. True poverty is rare in the USA. Tour the Dark Continent for an eye and belly-full of the real thing.
Every person in the United States can choose their destiny - I wasn't fortunate - I chose my path. So can anyone else.
It is insulting to imply I didn't choose the path I took
There was no insult meant, and that isn't at all what I said. Yes, you chose a path and yes, you worked very hard. And I acknowledge you for that.
You also had certain advantages and opportunities and good luck that not everyone has, and you did not have the crippling obstacles some others have. But you don't acknowledge that.
I could spell out a number of obvious points where your plan might have gone off the rails, but I think it would be more valuable for you to consider for yourself... what if THIS had happened instead of THAT?
The country is full of people who worked as hard or harder than you but who didn't have your financial success, or who had it but then lost it all. Look at the enormous number of people, good hard-working people in America's middle class and working class who lost their homes, lost their pensions, lost their savings, even lost their jobs over the last decade through absolutely no fault of their own. There's a good chance that at least one of those rich kids who used to beat up on you, blinded by their father's money to the need to work hard, never saw the possibilities you saw, so they screwed around and wound up becoming the guy who loses the family fortune. It's a familiar All-American scenario. And there are a million other scenarios, other ways your life could have played out, because there are that many and more ways life does go. Projects fail, companies crash, people get sick, partners steal, spouses cheat, and that's just the everyday stuff. In the freak category are things like the "guy most likely" from my high school class who was already our first millionaire before he turned 21, but who also became our first murder victim a short time later.
The point is, if you don't see that you've been fortunate in many, many ways, including the various kinds of bullets you've dodged in life, one way or another, I don't think you're really paying attention. You've worked hard AND you've been quite fortunate. One without the other would not have gotten you to where you are now.
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It was hard work and anyone can take the same path if they choose.
And that's where social scientists who study poverty differ with your view. They will tell you, and I back them on this, based on my work with street gangs, that most kids in chronic poverty situations not only don't have the same choices available, but even worse, they can't even see the same choices.
It's hard for many people to understand this, but kids who are at the bottom in American life... because of some combination of the aforementioned "societal structuring, social or racial grouping and stereotyping, isolation from social interactions and opportunities, lack of knowledge, employment skills, education and resources."... do not have anything close to the same perspective that those who are more fortunate have. To look at an extreme example, a kid who grows up in a dysfunctional home in a gang neighborhood, may not even be able to relate at all to studying hard and going to college and working their way up a corporate ladder as anything that is available to them. That's a future for some other folks, but not for them. So they make the best choice they can between what does seem available and real to their young minds... like maybe getting a job at the Walmart and living with mom in her Section 8 housing vs. joining the gang and doing what they do and making some drug money and having a nice car...
As horrible as that choice may sound from outside their world, it actually may be the only choice that is visible as being available to them, unless a teacher or a mentor or minister or some other role model can intercede in some way, and inspire them with some other vision of what's possible.
When you get down to cases in Hawai'i, you've got a lot of poor kids who cannot see themselves in any kind of life other than what they know firsthand, from what is immediately around them. And as many experts will attest, by the time kids are 12 or 13 the die is already cast. So they don't study and they don't plan for a career because that simply isn't a reality they see as available for them.
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If they don't so be it - I get some poor people are happy - that is fine - don't make life choices my problem.
The thing is - it wasn't all that difficult. Even starting from the very bottom - that is the great thing about this country.
It is one of the great things about this country, that there are so many great opportunities available, and so much freedom to pursue them. But most poor people wouldn't choose to be poor if they could see a way out. And it is one of the great and obvious disappointments of this country that we don't do a better job of fostering more connection with the people around us, and in extending an effective helping hand to more of those who need it. Not a hand out, but a hand up. You don't really have to be connected to someone to toss them a handout, but you have to get personally involved to give them a hand up.
I can tell you from experience that it's can be hard, frustrating work to mentor disadvantaged kids, and to get them pointed in a healthy, productive direction, but it can be immensely rewarding as well, when somebody you've taken under your wing turns a corner in life, and finally sees a new possibility for themself. I strongly recommend volunteering time and energy toward making a difference with kids who do not have your perspective on how to be successful. Since you say you've got it all figured out, and you say it's easy, please, share that viewpoint where it will do the most good. I guarantee it will feel a whole lot better than complaining about all the people who don't "get it."
BTW, the true cause of "poverty" in America, besides sloth, is a constant redefining of the poverty line to encompass the left side of the standard bell curve distribution.
The social scientists who study this issue professionally have a viewpoint that I find more credible.
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True poverty is rare in the USA. Tour the Dark Continent for an eye and belly-full of the real thing.
Of course that is the case, relatively speaking, which is why the International Center for Eradicating Poverty I previously quoted made separate statements about the different causes of poverty in third world countries vs the causes of poverty in the US.
It's just sloppy thinking to say that people are poor because they are lazy. Sure, a small portion of the population is, and always has been, pretty much at all times and in all places, as far as I can see. But there is a larger portion that works hard, and keeps trying their best, but just can't get out of the bucket, no matter what they do. We may not be able to do much for the first group, but we can do a lot for the second, starting with not lumping them in with the first, as if laziness was all there is to the problem of persistent poverty in one of the most abundant countries in the world.
And though it's late, before I turn in, let me circle back to something you said earlier...
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Originally Posted by Rounds Complete
Your only way of generating wealth is tourism.
That's inaccurate.
Although tourism is the prime economic driver for Hawai'i, there clearly are other resources, other industries, other avenues to pursue. Providing goods and services to the military sector is an obvious one. Agriculture is another. Real estate is very obviously another one. There are people making fortunes in all these areas today.
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No oil, no coal, no iron ore, no bauxite, no yellowcake, no waving fields of grain, no moly.
No, but tons of sunshine and deep ocean water and volcanic soil and biodiversity and world class astronomy and vulcanology observatories. Waving fields of orchids, and of seed corn. 365 day growing seasons. Geothermal and solar energy and permaculture and green living expertise. Hawai'i kine style and fashion design and clothing manufacture. It's not a wasteland by any measure. The biggest shortage I see affecting the state is a shortage of entrepreneurial leadership that can create the job opportunities which will capitalize on the resources we do have.
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Your only hope is to go where the next gold rush is.
If history is any lesson, the vast majority of people who go where the "next gold rush" is lose their shirts. The people who consistently make a fortune from gold rushes are the ones who can sell those losers a new shirt, and a ticket home, on credit, with compounded interest.
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Life isn't fair, it isn't equal, it isn't all same-same. Nature isn't like that, and we all rely on our human nature to suceed to whatever degree (Oprah-level or shack-level) we can.
That's easy to say, and to recap what I pointed out earlier, it's practically the theme song of the "self-made man" to say "if I could do it, anyone could do it, except that in most cases it is really just unsubstantiated hogwash. Almost nobody makes it completely on their own. Opportunity and support and a certain level of luck have a lot to do with success, probably a lot more than many successful people are willing to admit to. For sure a good education and working hard and keeping your nose clean and wearing fresh underwear all give people a better chance of being successful than doing the opposite would, but so do meeting the right person at the right time or having a great opportunity presented to you or just having family you can borrow the money from when you need it.
But since you mentioned Oprah, one of the richest women in the country, I'll wrap this up with two of her quotes which speak to the same point I've been trying to make...
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What material success does is provide you with the ability to concentrate on other things that really matter. And that is being able to make a difference, not only your own life, but in other people's lives.
-----
For everyone of us that succeeds, it's because there's somebody there to show you the way out. The light doesn't always necessarily have to be in your family; for me it was teachers and school. ~ Oprah Winfrey
That's the bottom line for me. If you are successful, and don't use your success as a way to be of service, to be that light for others, you've really missed the point.
A plethora of miracles is what it would take for us to return to Hilo, actually. Racism against mainlanders would have to end, prejudice in hiring would have to end (ever looked at the ethnicity of the workers over at the State Building?), housing prices would have to come down to a rational level, there would have to be some new construction so the same old rental/for sale units don't just keep being resold and re rented for maximum money, some degree of competency and professionalism would have to appear in the school system and w/ the state workers (ever tried to get a building permit? Grrrr), having the vog go away would be right up there, an economy not almost solely based on tourism would have to appear, food prices would need to come down, the health care industry would have to be overhauled from top to bottom because having a whole island where doctors do not see new patients is insane, the old boy politics would have to be reformed, and about a dozen more things.
But, get those little issues solved, and we're there!
Location: not sure, but there's a hell of a lot of water around here!
2,682 posts, read 7,574,070 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by smarino
A plethora of miracles is what it would take for us to return to Hilo, actually. Racism against mainlanders would have to end, prejudice in hiring would have to end (ever looked at the ethnicity of the workers over at the State Building?), housing prices would have to come down to a rational level, there would have to be some new construction so the same old rental/for sale units don't just keep being resold and re rented for maximum money, some degree of competency and professionalism would have to appear in the school system and w/ the state workers (ever tried to get a building permit? Grrrr), having the vog go away would be right up there, an economy not almost solely based on tourism would have to appear, food prices would need to come down, the health care industry would have to be overhauled from top to bottom because having a whole island where doctors do not see new patients is insane, the old boy politics would have to be reformed, and about a dozen more things.
But, get those little issues solved, and we're there!
I suspect, no, I'm fairly positive, strike that, I'M ABSOLUTELY SURE,, that the volcano will stop erupting before any of your other criteria are met. Having said that, I don't see myself living any where else.
The social scientists who study this issue professionally have a viewpoint that I find more credible.
Of course that is the case, relatively speaking, which is why the International Center for Eradicating Poverty I previously quoted made separate statements about the different causes of poverty in third world countries vs the causes of poverty in the US.
It's just sloppy thinking to say that people are poor because they are lazy. Sure, a small portion of the population is, and always has been, pretty much at all times and in all places, as far as I can see. But there is a larger portion that works hard, and keeps trying their best, but just can't get out of the bucket, no matter what they do. We may not be able to do much for the first group, but we can do a lot for the second, starting with not lumping them in with the first, as if laziness was all there is to the problem of persistent poverty in one of the most abundant countries in the world.
BTW Oprah hasn't seem to done much for the man in the shack across the street.
And though it's late, before I turn in, let me circle back to something you said earlier...
That's inaccurate.
Although tourism is the prime economic driver for Hawai'i, there clearly are other resources, other industries, other avenues to pursue. Providing goods and services to the military sector is an obvious one. Agriculture is another. Real estate is very obviously another one. There are people making fortunes in all these areas today.
No, but tons of sunshine and deep ocean water and volcanic soil and biodiversity and world class astronomy and vulcanology observatories. Waving fields of orchids, and of seed corn. 365 day growing seasons. Geothermal and solar energy and permaculture and green living expertise. Hawai'i kine style and fashion design and clothing manufacture. It's not a wasteland by any measure. The biggest shortage I see affecting the state is a shortage of entrepreneurial leadership that can create the job opportunities which will capitalize on the resources we do have.
If history is any lesson, the vast majority of people who go where the "next gold rush" is lose their shirts. The people who consistently make a fortune from gold rushes are the ones who can sell those losers a new shirt, and a ticket home, on credit, with compounded interest.
That's easy to say, and to recap what I pointed out earlier, it's practically the theme song of the "self-made man" to say "if I could do it, anyone could do it, except that in most cases it is really just unsubstantiated hogwash. Almost nobody makes it completely on their own. Opportunity and support and a certain level of luck have a lot to do with success, probably a lot more than many successful people are willing to admit to. For sure a good education and working hard and keeping your nose clean and wearing fresh underwear all give people a better chance of being successful than doing the opposite would, but so do meeting the right person at the right time or having a great opportunity presented to you or just having family you can borrow the money from when you need it.
But since you mentioned Oprah, one of the richest women in the country, I'll wrap this up with two of her quotes which speak to the same point I've been trying to make...
That's the bottom line for me. If you are successful, and don't use your success as a way to be of service, to be that light for others, you've really missed the point.
Aloha
I tend to ignore all agenda-driven studies such as the ones you cite, which set out to confirm a pre determined "fact".
The fact is that the poverty line in the USA keeps moving upwards in real terms. If you are interested in facts, find the poverty line from say 60 years ago, determine such absolutes as quality of nutrition, access to clean water, housing level, degree of heat/AC, ownership of housing, transportation etc., and establish an absolute baseline for what "poverty" was defined as then, and move that absolute baseline to now. You'll find almost nobody is poor under the definition, in real terms, from 60 years ago. A large part of what we call poor have heat and AC, hot and cold running water, own their own homes, cars etc. It was nearly middle class back 100 years ago.
The goalposts, my friend, keep moving.
As far as my statement, it was regarding "wealth", as I recall, not income. What agriculture is left in Hawaii? Sugar is all but dead, pineapple, ditto. Coffee in Kona is under attack, currently, by a bean-borer. Mac nuts, perhaps, flowers and Monsanto. Most of those other crops have moved on and found cheaper "homes" elsewhere.
Perhaps they could grow more flowers for the fragrance industry.
There are, to my knowledge, no iron-ore, Moly, coal, gold or silver mines etc., from which to extract wealth from the earth, no petroleum either.
While it is true that one of the best ways to make money in a gold rush is to sell "shovels", Massive amounts of wealth have been extracted from the earth in those rushes, and lots of stuff from shovels to D9 dozers, manufactured shipped and delivered in the process.
However, I wasn't speaking of "gold rush" in the literal sense but as a euphemism for where the opportunities currently are.
As it turns out, he had already followed my advice, left Hawaii and says he started his own business.
In closing, you seem to greatly overestimate luck in gaining success. More likely, what you call "luck" is the recognition of opportunity.
Last edited by Rounds Complete; 08-25-2013 at 01:05 PM..
You also had certain advantages and opportunities and good luck that not everyone has, and you did not have the crippling obstacles some others have. But you don't acknowledge that.
I woke up this morning - ran a few errands - and I said to myself - I bet the luck card is going to get played.
There was no luck and there were many adjustments along the way. I had no advantages when I realized early in life I wanted to escape the life my parents had. I suppose the only advantage would be my parents weren't crack heads and we weren't living in the Robert Taylor homes in Chicago. Some start that way - and you know, many got out of that life also. There isn't much to my life that is unique to others. Growing up - I see kids who wanted to mimic the poor circumstances of their parents - and others who wanted to escape it. The hard part is the plan to escape a poor life growing up is harder - too hard for many people. But it is achievable.
Had I not gotten scholarships to school there was a backup - I would have joined the military. Or, I could have gone to community college.
Luck has nothing to do it for people who succeed who started with nothing - but it always seems like luck to those from the outside.
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