Poorness ... is a state of mind

Written for a 12 step group


Poor? Poor is a state of mind and all such problems are created in the mind. From 'As A Man Thniketh'..."Wretchedness, not lack of material possessions, is the measure of wrong thought. A man may be cursed and rich; he may be blessed and poor...the poor man only descends into wretchedness when he regards his lot as a burden unjustly imposed." How can a person like Thoreau feel rich with $10 in his pocket, yet many a modern day millionaire feels poor? In two words - Self Worth. Self worth cannot be bought and resides within a person whereas money is external and sits in a bank vault. The acid test for such things is to take away a person possessions and strip a person naked and see how much self worth is left? Was all their self worth wrapped up in their house? Their car? Their trophy wife? Their bank account? If you ever wonder why rich people sometimes commit suicide after they have lost their wealth, this is the reason. All their self worth was locked up in a bank vault - there was nothing left within them to live for.

If you equate living within a budget as being poor, then you are not looking at the big picture. To be practical, everyone has a budget to live within, if they want to manage their money successfully and stay solvent. Even Bill Gates with his billions has a budget. Depending on which projects he would take on, his billions wouldn't go far enough. Or lets go to the ultimate source, the US Government. Even though they can print money at will (more or less) they have a budget to follow. So why should we be any different and not accept our limits? Defiance and abhorring limits or boundaries are two outstanding characteristics of the addict. Accepting my comfortable means and developing a real gratitude for those means has led to great inner peace, Whereas in my prior life nothing was ever enough and there was no peace. I look at the clarity a budget provides as freedom, not limitations. For without that clarity, I'd be in debt and suffering and far from feeling free.

We can develop much happiness in life once we start practicing gratitude as Thoreau wrote: "I am grateful for what I am & have. My thanksgiving is perpetual. It is surprising how contended one can be with nothing definite - only a sense of existence." I discussed this subject in an earlier post "Grateful Just To Be." Would not every great man or woman that took a spiritual path be considered a failure if viewed in monetary terms alone without gratitude for the rest of their life? Was the Buddha, Jesus, Thoreau or Mother Teresa vastly rich? The Buddha a homeless beggar having to be fed by others with charity? A well loved Greco-Roman philosopher Epictitus was said to have 4 possessions when he died - a cloak, a bowl, a candle and sandals. Socrates even surpassed Epictitus in his simplicity. All Socrates owned was a cloak and walked around Athens barefoot. I am not writing this to persuade you to go around barefoot and not own anything. I am just conveying the knowledge that the great spiritual and philosophical practitioners of history would not be considered successes when viewed in monetary terms alone. But, they were great success when it came to inner peace.

In the real world, we all need some money to live. Some people get the wrong idea that I am against money when I write you suggesting you put peace first and money last. No, I value money greatly, get all of it you can by legal, honorable and legitimate means. But also realize that money is only one part of the equation for living a good life. What I do guard against is turning money into a god and destroying one's life and the lives of others to get money by artificial means. Thoreau tells us that we need food, shelter, fuel and clothes as necessities. In modern times, I will add transportation to the list depending on your local. Everything else is pretty much optional. If we have these needs met and are still not happy, then their is no end to our supposed needs for that elusive state of happiness that we seek. We all seem to have no shortage of supposed needs or wants. The problem arises when we have to scale back and force ourselves as AA's 12 and 12 tells us to live "right size" and our self worth is attached to the idea of looking for inner fulfillment through outer possessions. Money is a useful tool, but as one writer reminds us - money only goes so far.

Money can buy a house, but not a home.
Money can buy a bed, but not sleep.
Money can buy a clock, but not time.
Money can buy a book, but not knowledge.
Money can buy food, but not an appetite.
Money can buy position, but not respect.
Money can buy blood, but not life.
Money can buy medicine, but not health.
Money can buy sex, but not love.
Money can buy insurance, but not safety.
You see, money is not everything

There is much more to living a serene, happy and balanced life than mere money. Money is nothing more than stored energy. Money is neither good or bad - it is people that do good or bad things with money. People also do good or bad things to 'get' money. This is where the addicts makes a major mistake with their recovery work - they refuse to balance their recovery needs with their own personal wants. A want and a need are quite different. Addicts many a time refuse to live within their comfortable means and try to attain money artificially by 'selling their soul' to get it. To most people 'means' refers to money, but when I refer to means, I am speaking about all of them; whether they be financial means, spiritual means, capability means, energy means, mental or stress means, caloric means, health means, comfortable space means, time means and most important my recovery program means. We each have different means or capabilities in each area, so don't be concerned with what 'he, she or they' can do, just be mindful of what YOU can abstinently, soberly, solvently and comfortably do.

One of the biggest breakthroughs in my recovery was to learn to accept Gods / Higher Powers will and to live within my means. If my comfortable earning potential is low, I live within it. If it was high, I'd do the same. I was always wanting to live the bigshots life, but only had below average capabilities in that department. Once I accepted my natural and authentic life, I could be at peace with who I was instead of basing my peace on trying to be someone I'm not able to be. All it took was my acceptance of my comfortable capabilities and acceptance to live at peace and with gratitude for my current surroundings. Sure, I can stress myself out, push things to make more bucks, but my recovery programs will suffer. I've found that an addict doesn't dictate to their addiction how much money they wants to make. The addiction does the dictating to the addict with how much, money he can comfortably earn and still maintain abstinence and sobriety. A lot of so called 'unederearners' in Debtors Anonymous have no concept of this. They say they want to make 'X' amount of money to pacify their ego, but do not take their comfortable 'un-drugged' earning capabilities into account. This concept of 'program comfort' not only goes with jobs, it goes with every other aspect of my life. I discussed this in an earlier post "Concept of Forcing Things."

The bible tells us in Phillipians 4:11 "For I have learned in whatever situation I find myself to be content. I am experienced in living low and I know what it is to have abundance. I have learned how to cope with every circumstance - how to eat well or go hungry, to be well provided for or to do without." Good advice whether religious minded or atheist. Peace and contentment is not limited to any one religion and is open to all. The problem for some of us with absorbing such wisdom is that of our own prejudices. I discussed this in my earlier post "Our guiding Light - Prejudice or Truth"

I was talking with a lawyer the other day. He was a millionaire and had a nice penthouse office with big leather tufted upholstered chair and a secretary to fetch his coffee and donuts all day. He was grossly fat and had hard time breathing as he wheezed and coughed. He also had a badly swollen leg that might need amputation from diabetes and poor circulation. As he recalled all his projects to me I could see why he was in so poor physical shape. He had no shortage of business ventures, he was in automobile dealerships, real estate develop, metallurgy and reclamation, venture capital loans as well as his law practice. He was all about making money, but was bankrupt when it came to healthy living practices. It did not sink in to him that sitting on your butt all day, smoking, drinking coffee, getting stressed out and eating junk foods is not healthy living no matter how much money you make.

No matter how 'rich' a person is they cannot pay their butler to eat healthy foods for them nor have ones butler or maid do ones exercises and sweat for them. We are all on equal ground in this area. I discussed this in detail in my earlier post "The King and Queen of Good Health" When I write about BALANCED LIVING, this lawyer is a textbook example of UNBALANCED living. I tried to plant some seeds in him through living a life of voluntary simplicity, healthy eating and exercise. You know what he told me? He said he had too many bills to slow down and had no time for exercise. Oh well, all I can do is plant seeds in others...I can't force them to sprout. Being a millionaire wasn't enough for the lawyer, he still had 'poorness' consciousness.Thoreau once said: "a man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to leave alone." This millionaire was much too busy to live right. He reminded me of a quote from Ruskin.

"In a shipwreck, one of the passengers fastened a belt about him with one hundred pounds of gold in it, with which he was afterwards found at the bottom. Now, as he was sinking--had he the gold? Or had the gold him?"

I took some time off when I left the meeting with the lawyer to go trail running. I am most grateful and rich for having such wilderness just 15 minutes away. While running, I recalled how I used to visit these same woods for nearly a decade, yet never heard a woodpecker until a few years ago. My mind was too concentrated with worries and my own obsessions of money and material things. I heard my first woodpecker in the summer of 2001. The woodpeckers were always in the woods, but my mind was not. I was present with body only. My mindless state was not limited to the woods - I was mindless in my daily life as well. My Buddhist practice reminded me that mindfulness of the present moment is the foundation for living a life at peace. Peace is not in the past, nor is it in the future. Peace is always in the present moment. Once I let go of past and future obsessions and became present, all of a sudden I was able to see and hear many new things in my life. And just like the woodpeckers, these gifts were always in my life - I just could not see or hear them. As I relaxed after my run near a small waterfall and listened to the birds sing and the woodpeckers rat-a-tat-tat, I gave thanks for my two good legs, my health and for the clean air and luscious green nature that surrounded me.


Take Care,




V (Male)

A Christian-Buddhist practitioner living a life of Voluntary Simplicity and grateful recovering Debtor, Drug, Alcohol and Substance Abuser, Compulsive Overeater, Clutterer, Hoarder, Rageaholic, Speculative Gambler, Compulsive Spender, Sex and Sensation Addict.