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Street Tales: Exploring the meaning behind poverty and empathy

What exactly is poverty? According to Miriam-Webster: the state of one who lacks a usual or socially acceptable amount of money or material possessions.
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What exactly is poverty? According to Miriam-Webster: the state of one who lacks a usual or socially acceptable amount of money or material possessions.

So then it stands to reason that if you have a dollar more than me or a newer car, and I find it socially unacceptable, then I’m in the poverty group. Sorry, I didn’t mean to be so trite, but if poverty actually is just about money, then we should change or re-examine the meaning.

Being of an older generation, I actually own an older dictionary that expands the meaning. It’s the 1973 New Edition Webster Dictionary. It weighs about a hundred pounds and a lot of the definitions are much more expanded. Who knew words could weigh so much! Along with the above definition, it goes on to add: a deficiency of necessary or desirable elements; poorness; bareness; want of ideas or information.

Making a dollar stretch to the end of a month is a hard task at times, but that is not poverty in my mind. Not having that dollar is. I don’t want to diminish the importance of financial wellbeing but it is still only one form of poverty.

We once took a vacation to the Dominican Republic where we witnessed financial poverty. What surprised me though was that every person we stopped to chat with was friendly and happy. Not two cents to rub together, but they went about joyfully and hopeful of a better tomorrow.

Permit me to explain poverty as I see it. Let me tell you about a young girl who has been constantly abused by one or the other parent. Her future looks bleak; she’s never good enough, smart enough or pretty enough to be successful. She grows up never knowing a life of success or of peace and enjoyment.

Let me tell you about a young man who was constantly belittled and put down as he grew. His reactions gave him nothing but trouble, and it followed him wherever he went. As he grew older, every time he got close to someone, his anger would mar the relationship.

What about the senior citizen, bent over with constant pain wracking her body. Getting up each morning takes longer and longer as time goes by. There is not a chance that she will get better. Or the person who after many years of abuse at the hands of their spouse is finally left alone without the will to carry on.

How about the young man or woman who through a slight mental challenge will never be hired except for menial work, earning just the bare minimum with no prospect of improvement. They experience the shunning of a society that often professes to care, but the challenged person may have a twitch which draws attention, and so very few want to be seen with them.

This to me represents the true face of poverty. You see, even if you earn minimum wage, you can hold up your head with pride in the fact that you have something which you earned by giving it your best effort.

Poverty is when you have nothing to look forward to; no prospect of feeling better or even being better in your own mind. Poverty is being rejected by the very society that says that they care. Poverty is never feeling good enough or clean enough to be able to hold up your head in public. Poverty is when as a senior citizen you are stuck in an institution rejected by the family you raised.

True poverty then is living a life with burdens so great that for whatever reason the person lives a life totally without hope, or help from his fellow man.

Is this really the type of society we want?