I keep having this and similar conversations with my wife and my friends and family …
The majority of the world has always been in a bad mood because 90% of planet has always been poor, struggling, doesn’t have enough, live in poverty, are hungry and are generally not happy.
The only difference is that us in the rich west have been recently affected and are facing a near future where our comfort and freedoms are going to be affected. We are starting to feel what the rest of the world has been feeling for a long, long time.
I say all this from the perspective of an Indigenous Canadian because I grew up poor and in a circumstance where me and my family were always made to feel less than the rest of the Canada.
The majority of the world has always been in a bad mood because 90% of planet has always been poor, struggling, doesn’t have enough, live in poverty, are hungry and are generally not happy.
On one hand, there is absolutely harsh struggle around the world for the vast majority of the world.
On the other hand, it’s not as if most people are never in a good mood. Australia’s state broadcaster (ABC) had a show where people in small or disadvantaged groups answer anonymous questions, and when it came to Sudanese Australian refugees, a few were saying that life in Sudan was often happier despite their material struggles. IIRC a main part was that they had a collective culture, in some places outside of the cities even a communal village culture, and where good fortune was cause for celebration. Some contrasted that with our largely individualist, money-centric culture here.
All that to say, money doesn’t buy happiness, poverty doesn’t guarantee sadness. Money and other resources really really help, but it’s far from the whole picture.
True there are different types of poor and different types of people that see life as completely normal in any circumstances. We are all very adaptable creatures in whatever situation you place us in.
I grew up poor and I didn’t know it for about the first 10/15 years of my life. We had enough food but it was just that … enough … we never had extras, no snacks, no guilty pleasures. I have good teeth because I didn’t have the opportunity to eat a lot of junk food when I was younger which then led me to not really want it when I got older.
A lot of people around me were the same or similar … it was just the way things were and we were more or less just happy and content with it all. It was normal so there was nothing too upsetting about it. Unfortunately, not all families were as capable as ours. In a community full of people in the same boat, about half couldn’t do it and they fell into extreme poverty, addictions, bad health and just generally miserable lives. Then in my life, I started venturing out into the world and saw how wealthy everyone else was and I wanted to do the same but as a brown skinned Native person, the entire game was rigged against me … I couldn’t get schooling, I couldn’t find work, I wasn’t wanted, I wasn’t needed and I was just different. I had to work really hard to get anything. People also claim that my school could have been paid for but it only works when you work the system and are connected to everyone and everything in that system … I wasn’t and I had to fight my own leadership, my own community and the non-Native government about everything in order to get anything done. I barely scraped by and found work on my own, made a bit of money and barely made it to become an adult. Of all the family and friends I grew up that were like me … I think only about a quarter of us made it to something, a handful got post secondary and became lawyers and doctors or something important and the majority of the rest just ended up at home in varying levels of poverty from just getting by to literally living on the streets with small children. All in a situation where it is believed that we Native people get free money and have the world handed to us.
Money may not buy happiness but it sure helps and no matter how you frame it, poverty makes everything harder to do.
I keep having this and similar conversations with my wife and my friends and family …
The majority of the world has always been in a bad mood because 90% of planet has always been poor, struggling, doesn’t have enough, live in poverty, are hungry and are generally not happy.
The only difference is that us in the rich west have been recently affected and are facing a near future where our comfort and freedoms are going to be affected. We are starting to feel what the rest of the world has been feeling for a long, long time.
I say all this from the perspective of an Indigenous Canadian because I grew up poor and in a circumstance where me and my family were always made to feel less than the rest of the Canada.
On one hand, there is absolutely harsh struggle around the world for the vast majority of the world.
On the other hand, it’s not as if most people are never in a good mood. Australia’s state broadcaster (ABC) had a show where people in small or disadvantaged groups answer anonymous questions, and when it came to Sudanese Australian refugees, a few were saying that life in Sudan was often happier despite their material struggles. IIRC a main part was that they had a collective culture, in some places outside of the cities even a communal village culture, and where good fortune was cause for celebration. Some contrasted that with our largely individualist, money-centric culture here.
All that to say, money doesn’t buy happiness, poverty doesn’t guarantee sadness. Money and other resources really really help, but it’s far from the whole picture.
True there are different types of poor and different types of people that see life as completely normal in any circumstances. We are all very adaptable creatures in whatever situation you place us in.
I grew up poor and I didn’t know it for about the first 10/15 years of my life. We had enough food but it was just that … enough … we never had extras, no snacks, no guilty pleasures. I have good teeth because I didn’t have the opportunity to eat a lot of junk food when I was younger which then led me to not really want it when I got older.
A lot of people around me were the same or similar … it was just the way things were and we were more or less just happy and content with it all. It was normal so there was nothing too upsetting about it. Unfortunately, not all families were as capable as ours. In a community full of people in the same boat, about half couldn’t do it and they fell into extreme poverty, addictions, bad health and just generally miserable lives. Then in my life, I started venturing out into the world and saw how wealthy everyone else was and I wanted to do the same but as a brown skinned Native person, the entire game was rigged against me … I couldn’t get schooling, I couldn’t find work, I wasn’t wanted, I wasn’t needed and I was just different. I had to work really hard to get anything. People also claim that my school could have been paid for but it only works when you work the system and are connected to everyone and everything in that system … I wasn’t and I had to fight my own leadership, my own community and the non-Native government about everything in order to get anything done. I barely scraped by and found work on my own, made a bit of money and barely made it to become an adult. Of all the family and friends I grew up that were like me … I think only about a quarter of us made it to something, a handful got post secondary and became lawyers and doctors or something important and the majority of the rest just ended up at home in varying levels of poverty from just getting by to literally living on the streets with small children. All in a situation where it is believed that we Native people get free money and have the world handed to us.
Money may not buy happiness but it sure helps and no matter how you frame it, poverty makes everything harder to do.