How to Lessen Poverty
I am no economist nor am I an expert when it comes to financial matters. But as I observe my life and the lives of many others around me, I believe I know some of the solutions of the ever increasing problem of poverty. And I for myself can say that I no longer live in poverty. Like my previous post, poverty starts in the mind.
But why lessen instead of ending poverty? Am I too negative about it?
To begin this may I share a thought about a story in the Scripture when Mary washed the Savior’s feet with ointment of spikenard, which is very costly, and Judas reacted with indignation saying that the ointment should have just been sold and the money to be given to the poor. The Savior told Judas and His disciples that they should let Mary alone “For the poor always ye have with you; but me ye have not always.” John 12:8
From these words of the Savior he mentioned that the poor will always be amongst His disciples, us. In my point of view, poverty will exist even until the end of time. You and I cannot end it. But I believe that we can do much to lessen it. We can lessen it from 1% to 99% for sure. This will depend on how much we want to lessen it. But how do we do that?
Here are the fist keys (in my POV) that will help us achieve this goal, lessen poverty.
- Education – As we look closer to poverty, it s very evident that most of our fellow men and women who are struggling in this situation are uneducated. Because of it they could not find jobs that will sustain their necessities. Educating ourselves and our children is the first and foremost key to lessen if not end poverty within us.
- Right Education – I am a college graduate and could say that am skilled yet I could not find a job. There are many others like me, it could be you too. Now why is this? It may be because the education they planted into our brains is not the answer to poverty. We are taught to become employees and workers. And you will surely agree with me that job opportunities in the Philippines are very limited. This is the same reason why many of our friends and families need to go abroad and work which if we look closely, brings much poverty as well, because their loved ones are left alone or with someone else without proper guidance.
- Read Books – Reading books will sure give us knowledge we have not known before. Things that will help us lift our thoughts and elevate our desires. What ever circumstances you and I may have, there had been gazzillion of people who have lived before us that experienced the same circumstances we have, someone somewhere have written the answer(s) to our specific problem. Someone somewhere made it out of poverty and he must have written the blueprint of the way out. We Filipinos know how to read yet we do not read. Maybe it’s because our attention span is very short. We like things fast, like making money fast that we love watching noontime (now evening) shows and wishing we are one of the contestants.Why don’t we read instead of wasting our time watching overrated yet demeaning shows.When I say read books I mean GOOD BOOKS. Invest to learn, check the books posted in the right side of this post or click here. If you are a believer, I rest assured you that the Scriptures or the words of God have all the answers you need, start reading and understanding it now.
- Be with Big Minded People – When I say big minded people I mean those that will help you become better by inspiring and teaching you HELP YOURSELF get out of poverty. There is a saying that goes like this; Small minded people talk about other people, average minded people talk about happenings and events while big minded people talk about ideas Lessening poverty is an idea, finding your self reading this post is a sign that you are becoming a big minded person. For more ideas on how to better your life, click here.
- Learn from other people – They say that experience is the best teacher, well I will have to disagree with that. We do not have to experience all things to learn, we can learn a lot from the experiences of others. Oh please don’t do what Manong Buboy did that made him and his family miserable. We all know a lot of Mang Buboys around the community, let’s learn from them. On the other side there are also many successful people who were once poor, learn from them as well. I for sure know one, read the story of Peter Caro.
These plus many others will help us achieve the right education we need. Again, we can lessen poverty till 99% and I’ll put my life to it. These keys plus application and determination we can sure achieve this BIG goal.
Let me know what you think by leaving your comments below.
