What? I can hear you say it. I can't pay my bills. I can't buy food. I'm being evicted. I'm up to my ears in debt. My kids don't have shoes. Life is hard. And you think I'm comfortable???
Yes, all that you are suffering might be true, but there are comforts in poverty and if you enjoy them you'll never get out. There are 3 clear comforts in poverty:
1. The idea that the poor are somehow more noble, holy, righteous then the filthy nasty rich are. This idea makes you feel better (comfortable) but it is a lie from the pit. Even pointing to people who were intentionally poor (Mother Theresa) is a flaw. If she had needed a 747 to do a mission of mercy, 50 would have been at her disposal without a second thought. She commanded great wealth in her "poverty". IF you think all rich people are rotten, then why would you want to be our of poverty? HUH? See the trap? Now get away from the cheese.
2. Those comforting voices all around you. People with lots of advise. With lots of schemes and scams about how to find the scraps people put out for you. These bad advisers will drag you to the pit. Your mindset is created and maintained by the people you spend your time with, the people you respect, the people you take advise from. IF they are telling you no one is making it, there is no hope, only government or someone else can help then you will stay right where they are....poor. It's more comfortable to hear how you can't make it then the discomforting voice of correction.
These kinds of comforters (like Job's) will keep you down. They are trying to govern you when they can't even govern themselves. It's about pride. They never learned to follow but they want you to follow them. So they have "wise" words (sometimes couched as prophetic) that send your right into the death spiral of poverty. Learn from those who have earned the right to teach you something. Probably not clergy.
3. Resting comfortably in the problems and not the solutions. It's easy to think about, talk about, meditate on, consider and commiserate with others over the problems in our lives. It's comfortable. Sitting on the porch, ice tea in hand, talking about back in the day. We had it rough. Sounds nice doesn't it. So nice that it would be uncomfortable to break out of that mentality. To say, things are not as they should be. If you want more problems, keep talking about the ones your already have. Like attracts like. Fear attracts fears. Even conferences on poverty (government) focus so much on the problems the solutions become gigantic and expensive. Look at the war on poverty. We are poorer today because of it. FOCUS ON THE SOLUTIONS. Fix you mind on things better. Much better. Hope. Joy. All efforts to FIX poverty has done is to cause people to be comfortable.
DISCOMFORT IS YOUR FRIEND. Like the doctor who's patient said that it hurt when he did that, the doc said, "well then stop doing that".
Time to turn this thing around and get out of that comfort zone. I won't give you the elephant's tether example, I'm sure you know it. BUT your comfort zone if it is poverty is your limiting factor. You don't have to live like this.
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