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Why I Am Fortunate to Have Been Raised in Poverty

A short time ago, I became eligible for my Covid vaccine. I embraced the chance. I was never worried about catching Covid, or dying from it. I am old enough to know death is always around the corner. I am also fortunate to have had such a wealth of experiences in life that I probably have used up other people’s quotas of pleasure, as well. The Covid vaccine works by injecting a small quantity of dead Covid-19 virus into your body. Your immune system rushes to repel the intruders and, over the course of attacking these invaders, builds up antibodies. For me, that is the way life works. You deal with welcome visitors and events every day, but you also deal with unwelcome experiences. Those unwelcome ones teach you more and prepare you more thoroughly for life than the pleasurable events. If I wanted to approach life pessimistically, I could complain about how inequitable life had been to me as a child. Extreme poverty, social isolation, lack of opportunity, prejudice … all the common
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The Not-So_Subtle Connection Between Stress and Poverty

  People are poor because they are less intelligent that others, right? People who are poor are less educated than the wealthy because they are less intelligent, right? People are poor because they lack confidence and drive, right? Poor people perform more poorly at most tasks because they are unwilling to devote their energy to the task, right? WRONG, on all counts! Stress obviously goes hand in hand with poverty, but rich people also worry about money. The difference is that the poor don't worry simply about money. Ongoing, continual poverty creates an environment of stress in which conflict, food insecurity, violence and housing worries, among many others arises because of the stress, but also feeds the stress even more. Thus, the entire milieu of poverty perpetuates the stress, which gives rise to other issues, which makes climbing out of poverty more difficult. This study, out of UNICEF Research Office, June, 2016, when on to report that providing short-term relief in the form
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"These are a few of my favorite things ..."

  While a life well-lived is full of favorite memories, the most valued memories may not be included in that list of favourites. It is only through reflection and appreciation for life’s wonderful lessons that those memories become both treasured and valuable. They often include incidents that were learned at the feet of one’s parents. The singularly most valuable lesson that I passed on to my children consisted of only one word: respect. Respect everyone and everything around you and you will be a good steward of compassion, social justice, equality and even of the environment. That one word was an encapsulation of a lesson I learned, early, from my own parents. Regardless of how tough your own situation may be, there are others around us who are far less fortunate. If we have more of anything – material to intellectual – than others, it is our duty to share and consider their needs, even above our own. In other words, we must respect the world around us and pay the duty of care t
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