Poor in Kenya Is a Lot Different Than

 

Poor in America, Isn’t It?’

 Perspective is everything.

 By Rhonda Robinson IN pj mEDIA

This week was rough.

I had to remind myself of a conversation I had a couple years ago with a young man from Kenya.

He had a basketball scholarship at Vanderbilt University. His girlfriend was a good friend of my daughter. The couple came to our home to visit for the first time. He was extremely tall, a mild mannered guy with a huge smile. Teasingly I asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up.

He explained he was getting his degree in social work. “Not a lot of money in that,” I chuckled.

He just flashed a blindingly bright smile and looked down shaking his head. “That’s ok,” he said. “I’m not really in it for the money. I just really want to help people.”

At that moment I realized something and asked, “Poor in Kenya is a lot different than poor in America, isn’t it?”

He laughed, then said with a more somber tone, “Poor in Kenya means you have a dirt floor if you’re lucky enough to have a house.” He described the conditions that people in his home town live in.

It was then I realized that my idea of poor meant I don’t get to have what I want when I want it. I have to wait, maybe even save for it. That’s not really poor. I have a lot to be thankful for.

Even when we were our “poorest,” we still owned a home. I’ve never looked into my children’s eyes and saw hunger that I couldn’t feed. During that time, we also owned and maintained a vehicle. My family had everything we needed, but not everything we wanted.

By most standards around the world, I’m rich. In fact, I’m so rich that I can drive my car into a separate room of my house. Clean water is at my fingertips, and fresh food grows in my yard.

For most of us, being poor in America is more a frame of mind than real poverty.

My frame of mind is in need of some major repair.

Last week, I searched for the best budgeting software and decided on YNAB. I have everything set up, the budget categories are filled. Everything that is except the numbers that represent actual money. I backed out. Just couldn’t face doing it and looking at the numbers.

I know, that’s foolish. But not only is it stupid and foolish — it’s painful. However, it couldn’t have been near as painful as the consequences of not getting my budget set and consequently overspending.

The reality is that we are not poor — not by a long shot. You’re not poor just because you’re deprived of the luxuries you once had or someone else enjoys. Someone once told me that money problems are the best kind of problems to have, because they can be fixed. I didn’t appreciate the wisdom of those words at the time. I do now.

This week’s goals:

1.Stop whining.

2.Face the numbers. Because ignorance is not bliss, it’s financial suicide.

3.Find something to be thankful for every time I begin to feel “deprived.”

4.Take a close and honest look at my spending habits.

Have you ever had one of those moments when you realized that the first thing you need to do to change your circumstance is to change your perspective? 

 

Poster's comments:

         My priorities these days are to grow some food, and make some electricity, at least these days and right now. Heck I used my wood stove to heat an old cast iron griddle to make bread yesterday. And the bread was OK. A hundred years ago in the USA, this was normal.

         Thank goodness between the Marine Corps and being overseas, I am thankful of much of what I, and really we, have in the new world USA. It's something worth defending. There are worse ways to try exist, like live and be happy and proud.

         And yes, I have a wood floor, and am proud of it in 2013.

         Now I have lived with a dirt floor under a canvas tent during a winter in Korea, too. I scrounged like everyone else, and finally got a piece of quarter inch broken plywood to provide somewhat of a semblance of a wood floor.

         Yet, at the same time, I had clean drinking water, enough food to eat, and was warm enough as long as I wore extra clothes and slept warmly at night. Heck, I even had some electricity as long as I was willing to screw a light bulb into a "pig tail" while the generator was running. As for bathing, we went into the local "ville", though never forgot we can use baby wipes, too. Later in Saudi Arabia I did just that.