Poverty

Where there is no wealth there is no poverty.
- African Proverb

Our minds seem to be built for comparing. We learn very early to categorize things in order to make sense of our world, and in order to do that we must compare them. The trouble with comparing things is that soon we are judging them. We identify the ways that two things are different from each other so that we know what category to put them into. Then we decide which things we prefer. And soon we are deciding that we want this kind of object and we don’t want that kind.

Whenever we judge two things and decide what we want, we are rejecting the one that we don’t want. We are rejecting a creation of God, and that is not a good thing. God doesn’t reject anything, and to be like God is what our soul yearns for. Since we judge everything, often unconsciously, the only way we can avoid rejecting something is when its opposite becomes unavailable. In other words we need to stop trying to put everything into categories, and just appreciate its qualities all on their own. We must learn not to desire one thing and reject the other.

Where there is no wealth, there is no poverty. Imagine a world where we just focused on the amount of money we had without constantly comparing it to the amount of money that other, usually wealthier, people had. What if we had no concept of what wealthy was? If you don’t think that wealthy is, for example, having a million dollars, then you won’t see yourself as not wealthy if you have less than a million dollars. You simply have the amount that you have and you don’t put a label, or a judgment, on it. You may want more money but you won’t see that as essential in order to be wealthy, or successful. Because you won’t see yourself as poor without it.