Is that life real? Who needs all that poverty?

An old worn up bag lady stumbles on the invisible crack in the payment. Like an ancient gray bird hardly moving on her old ugly swollen legs, she mumbles something known and heard only by herself.

 She crawls into a dingy hole that is her room in a run down apartment as old and shabby as herself. Nothing but old and rusty things in her room. Nothing valuable, nothing nice, dust and cockroaches everywhere. Pile of  dim plastic dishes in the sink, old wooden box with a stained cloth on it for a table, two old mattresses on top of each other is her bed in the corner, no sheets, old torn blanket.

Was she always like that? Where are her children if any? Or some relatives to lend her a helping hand, to provide a better place to live and some healthy food? Why does she have to live like that? Alone in this dirty room. A small pension can be enough if you have a decent place to live. I cannot help but wondering, did she work when she was young? Has she lost everything that she had, got robbed, got sick? I don't know. Her face keeps its secrets, all it says,"I am sick and poor, I do not have anything."

Yes, but poverty does not have to be like that - ugly, dirty, hopeless. I look at her, wondering if my fate is going to be like that. If  I live to an old age, am I going to be that ugly, lonely and poor? Can I prevent it? Not the age but poverty bothers me, that hopeless poverty, "no way out" kind of poverty. Or is it just her choice? To be independent from anybody and everybody, to have minimum and do not care? Just to move along until the last leaf of her life falls down. Why? Do we need all that? Is there any sense in that life? I pity and I resent her.

 I cannot help thinking about my own age. What am I  going to do when I am going to be old and helpless and cannot work any more? It is already $5 for a loath of bread.   Am I going to starve? Are my children going to care? Can I do something now? Or is it too late? I do not want to be like that. I do not want to be like her. I do care.

"I started out with nothing and still have most of that left"

I like that quotation. It's about me. It looks like I'll come to the retirement years without a lot. Well, actually with nothing. It scares me a bit. Not that much though. Eventually I have to leave the Earth and it does not matter if I have millions or nothing. You cannot take it with you on your last journey, I wish I could have something. Well, I wish I had something that I could leave to my children, in that case they do not have to be like me - poor. I do not like poverty. The hopelessness and helplessness of it. And everyday worry about money and things. I like nice things - furniture, jewelry, books with nice covers and golden letters on front cover. I would love to have a good library of my own with all best classics that I love but I know it's impossible unless I win a lottery. But for that you have at least to play it and I don't. I do not want to spend money I don't have on things that's impossible to attain. Or should I? Should I dream about impossible and try and against all odds go ahead and do crazy things? No, it is not me. I basically do not need a lot for myself, I just see that my kids are not trying to accomplish something, they are not that driven. And that scares me because I am not getting any younger. I've missed something important in my life. It was long ago and I do not remember what it was. I just know  that I would've done that when it was the right time, not now. Now it is too late, not for them (my kids) but for me. Now I have to live the way I can, not the way I want and that bugs me. May be I am wrong though. May be I still can try and live my life the way I want to. May be if I do, I am not going to feel sick and worried, and depressed. May be I'll be able to soar above mundane troubles and misgivings of my soul, and just feel alive - not like a dead tree in winter. I do not want to be that dead wood, seriously, I don't. I just don't know how to do that.
Recently I found out that my credit report is not as good as I expected and I owe somebody money, some rental place from like 5 years ago. We just could not sit there till the end of our lease and moved out early, month or two not much, but they put it to small claims court. Now I cannot expect any favours from any bank, I have to save my own money, I guess, because I cannot pay that debt and really don't want to kill myself over it. It's not worth it. I was wondering, is it possible to live in Canada and not to owe  somebody something? I thought I can, but looks like I cannot. I need a lot of stuff, I am postponing everything, all buying but for how long? Everything I earn goes for rent and food, and I do not want credit card debts, that's a murder for sure. Sometimes I think,"If I stayed in my old country, where would I be now?" Life consists of series of occasions, accidents, last minute decisions we knew nothing about an hour ago, so it's hard to predict, what's going to happen. Well, I still feel like I am on a platform waiting for my train to come, so I can go home. Where is that train?

Is it involuntary conspiracy or what? - Our teachers.

I am thinking, why don't our wonderful teachers teach us at school main basic skills of survival in this modern and complicated and stressful world?

This civilised world (and I will be talking just about the civilised part of it) full of things to do and to consume, to buy and to sell; things to make us happy, things to make us sick and kill us. Should we know how to navigate in this world successfully, without being lost in these urban jungles? We have to know mathematics and how to read and write, chemistry and geography, it goes without saying. But how about life skills? How about the ability to earn money? To have some classic education is not enough for that.

Should we know how to stay healthy, how to avoid poisoning our bodies and eco-system, how to be happy and prosper, and not to worry too much about unimportant things. We need to know in our stressful world how to survive without stress and depression, how to stay away from needless suffering and financial ruin, from failed relationship, from poverty .

Why some people can make it and prosper in this world and why others live in tears and misery? I am sure we all can do it successfully, we just need the right skills, life skills. We need just basic elementary lessons at school. Some basic life education is definitely missing from our curriculum.

"If I knew this 10 years ago..." If only I knew better..." But we did not. And sometimes it's too late. And sometimes we never know.

And sometimes society we live in just does not let us know or does not allow us to do this and that. And sometimes we are just not cut for it.

The world around us is changing rapidly. Jobs are more demanding and less in quantity.

Harder to find. Prices, inflation are out of this world. We still need to eat and live somewhere, to get somewhere we need transportation. We need to go faster and more skillfully. We need new ability to handle things. The East creates a new leader in economy - we have to adjust to that too.

We have to start teaching our children a few skills of survival in this world, not just pet and pamper them till they are 16 years old and full of drugs, infantile ambitions, inflated self esteems, computer games and absolute inability to survive, when desperate parents kick them out of the house into this vast and unfriendly world. They live on the streets with no place to go, no skills to use, other than stealing and prostitution. To spend 10 -11 years at school and be unable to make a living. Any kind of living! Isn't it pathetic? I think so.
12 years at school and all you know about life is how to use drugs? Or beg on the corner? You do not need any education for that!That means, we, parents and teachers, failed at one point. We do not deliver necessary skills, really necessary, that can protect our children and help them to survive. They really need that.

Is poverty a bad word?

Yes, I think it is. It feels like a weak, helpless sort of a word.
There is so much desperation and helplessness in it.
Poverty.When you are poor there is no way out, you are at the bottom of social ladder, at the bottom of everything. You are a looser. You feel like one, an you expect people to feel the same. People are polite in this country, they are not going to laugh in your face, to call you names or anything.
They politely turn away and pretend that they don't see you, that they are not embarrassed by your poverty.
Poverty is especially badly felt when you see so many people around, who look prosperous and happy, with nice new cars and rich looking houses. They have businesses and money, they are not poor. You subconsciously or consciously feel envy.
You think: why me? Why am I poor,without money and hope, without future?
It's easier I think when you grow in poverty, you don't know anything better.
I wonder sometimes: how does it feel when you've lost millions suddenly and you don't have anything?
Do you feel like a poor person, or not? Is it a matter of tolerance, tolerance to stress and disaster?
Can you handle a big loss if you are accustomed to move around, to manipulate big money? Well, I never had a lot of money, but I know how poverty feels and I don't like it a bit. I prefer comfort and money. At least some comfort and some money, if you please.
I don't imagine living in a shelter or without running water or shower is all about poverty, though I lived like that in my old country for many years, but never considered it a norm. There is no norm in indignity. I never could get used to it, or accept it.
I will probably will be struggling to maintain that level dignity as long as I live and hopefully I will never see my extreme poverty in this rich country, it would be extremely unfair.
Though who knows? They say in my old country:"you can't claim your stake against prison or poverty."
I guess when you came to a new country with nothing but holes in your pockets, you have to run pretty fast to outrun the ugly toothless face of poverty, smirking at you from all corners of your life. But so be it. I am not going to complain.
I am still running.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_threshold