When We Tolerate Poverty

Issue 34

journal-neo.org

When, as a society, we tolerate poverty, we deprive ourselves of everything we need. Or perhaps everything we need to make it work for everyone (my admitted obsession). Let’s step away then, for a spell today, from the mind-numbing morass of all that has ever been said about poverty in America, through our feckless war on it, to a view of it all through a slightly different lens.

Minister, educator, and civil rights leader Rev. Howard Thurman famously said, “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” I couldn’t agree more. In fact, I firmly believe that if every one of us woke up tomorrow and did what makes us come alive — whatever it is — then all of our societal needs would be met.

Remember our we belong to the planet, not the planet to us concept? It means that Nature’s nature is our nature, too, and that we do best, as humans, when we align with it. In Nature, there is a purpose for everything, everything is interconnected, everything is in balance and harmony, nothing is wasted. So, yes, what makes us come alive as individual humans is connected to — if not the totality of — our life purpose. You doing what makes you come alive and me harping incessantly about human consciousness because it’s what makes me come alive is no different than the trees, oceans, and koala bears doing what makes them come alive. For them, it’s organic, intrinsic to their nature, instinctual. No thinking necessary — or desired.

For some of us American humans, connection to what makes us come alive is also organic, intrinsic to our nature, and integrated into our daily existences. It’s reflected in how happy we are, how readily we live our lives: the mom who comes alive having a family and being a mom; the congregant who comes alive serving his church as a volunteer; the kid who comes alive diving into sports or science; the school bus driver who comes alive greeting every one of her passengers with love and joy every time, every day. For others of us — artists and social entrepreneurs (like me) come to mind — what makes us come alive is also our vocation. We put effort into cultivating it within ourselves. It’s personal and it’s in service of helping people and society, specifically, on purpose. ( Lots of thinking required.)

It’s not that Americans living in poverty are not connected to what makes them come alive. Maybe they are, maybe they aren’t. The point is even if they are, they are not available to do very much about it.

Sometimes people know what makes them come alive but they don’t do it like the guy who only ever wanted to be a park ranger, his parents “wouldn’t let him,” he became a doctor, and now he’s too far into it, or so he believes, to make a change. Could it be that where he lives needs one more park ranger and one less doctor? Yes, it could. Not to mention that his depression and unhappiness is slowly killing him and not doing society any favors either, but I digress.

Plenty of us are not particularly connected to what makes us come alive, per sé, but function just fine as members of society. Nothing earth-shatteringly spectacular, certainly nothing awful, a job and good-enough income to live comfortably enough. If “ask what makes you come alive and go do it” was presented to them as something to pursue, each and every one of them could do it. They’re available.

But people in poverty are, for all intents and purposes, not available — and that’s a problem for all of us. It’s not that Americans living in poverty are not connected to what makes them come alive. Maybe they are, maybe they aren’t. The point is even if they are, they are not available to do very much about it. Struggling, plotting, and managing to cover basic needs of housing, food, general health, and a semblance of safety and security on a daily, weekly, monthly, annual basis drains most or all of the physical and mental energy required to connect to what makes us come alive, much less doing that thing. Add to that layers of the all-too-common emotional pain in the form of fear, dread, guilt, shame, depression, anxiety and the rest and what is left? Almost always, nil. When poverty reigns what makes one come alive is largely irrelevant. The ones who live in poverty yet transcend it all by managing a happy demeanor and being of service to others, the ones whose “human interest” stories are on the news and go viral, I would argue, are already doing what makes them come alive — living a purposeful life as the light in an otherwise too-dark place.

So whether what we need is more farmers here or fewer farmers there or bigger or smaller cities or more connected, more supported rural communities or more artists, entertainers and arts education or more math or gym teachers or bilingual anything or peacekeepers or beekeepers or engineers or civil service or foreign service professionals or social workers or nurses or nursery school teachers or financial advisors or maybe just a whole lot fewer people who will countenance working shitty jobs for starvation wages and compassionless employers to usher in conscious business at scale, chances are pretty good that what we need most is trapped inside our fellow Americans. It’s smothered, overlooked, and wasted. This doesn’t happen in Nature and we tolerate it in America to our collective detriment.

So let’s finally realize balance and harmony in our American ecosystem. Let’s simply decide that it is in our collective best interest to cultivate that thing that makes every one of our fellow Americans who lives in poverty come alive. It’s what’s best for them and it’s what’s best for all of us.