A short time ago, I was eligible to receive my Covid vaccine. Take the chance. I never worried about catching Covid or dying from it. I’m old enough to know that death is always around the corner. I am also fortunate to have had so many experiences in life that I have probably exhausted other people’s pleasure quotas as well.

The Covid vaccine works by injecting a small amount of killed Covid-19 virus into your body. Your immune system rushes to repel intruders and, in the course of attacking these invaders, accumulates antibodies. For me, that’s the way life works. You deal with welcome visitors and events every day, but you also deal with unwanted experiences. Those who are unwelcome teach you more and prepare you more thoroughly for life than pleasant events.

If I wanted to approach life pessimistically, I could complain about how unfair life had been to me as a child. Extreme poverty, social isolation, lack of opportunities, prejudices … all the common complaints of those people who consider themselves poor and victims. But none of that is true. I was fortunate to have grown up in a radically impoverished environment. I think I have been more fortunate than most people raised in a middle or upper class community.

My statements will likely arouse the ire of those who believe that all the poor are there due to circumstances beyond their control, that all those living in poverty want to get away from that experience, or that all see poverty as an undesirable condition. Let them get mad! Holiness does not bring a person closer to understanding, and parental attitudes toward others do little to heal the chasms that exist.

In truth, I am one of the lucky hundreds of millions in the Western world who are defined by our income, rather than who we are. If we have a lack of material wealth, in relation to an arbitrary standard of poverty, we are not only branded as “poor”, but we are branded as part of a lower socioeconomic class. In other words, the lack of money has also relegated us to a lower social echelon, by virtue of this economic scarcity. It is a condescending phrase born of a condescending attitude.

Live life before you review!

My parents struggled to earn the money they needed to raise their family, but they never stopped keeping us clothed, living under a roof, eating. That made us richer, in money, than many others in this world. However, we had advantages that many other children desperately need. Our parents instilled in us, no, they instilled in us the belief that a lack of knowledge, a lack of morality, and a lack of curiosity were far more insidious symptoms of true poverty than a lack of cash could represent. That made us richer than the richest children raised without the intellectual and ethical curiosity and the conviction to act in accordance with those values.

Still, I was raised in a two hundred and sixty-foot-square house, built with reclaimed lumber from an old garage, with no heat. Six of us lived in that small space. Our family’s income never exceeded $ 1,500 in a year (just over $ 9,000 in today’s dollars) and averaged less than $ 900. One room in the house had no floor. We had no television for the first eleven years of my life. Most of the time we didn’t have a car, but we lived in the country. None of us ever He had only one new piece of clothing. We had no indoor plumbing or running water source. Whether we get sick, we recover or not: there were absolutely no commercial drugs; only the natural remedies that grew around us. The list of so-called poverty markers was everywhere, but even so, I was not poor in social status or wealth of experience.

My life was a Huck Finn / Tom Sawyer existence. Since we had nothing, we found excitement and joy in the smallest things: spring water, playing cricket with cans and sticks, or building a helicopter out of old pieces of metal, car seats, wood, and branches. Because we had nothing we needed to improvise and create, and from that, I have learned extensive lessons in all trades and crafts.

Having no wealth and living in a community that had a modestly higher standard of living than ours, we learned to depend, not on money, but on knowledge and ability. A humble farmer can fix any piece of equipment or create a tool where it does not exist, yet he is considered of a lower class when his skill is actually superior to the majority.

While the stress of living from day to day can be immense and lead to family conflict, it also strengthens bonds by forcing people to work together to achieve a goal. From that joint effort comes camaraderie, and from that camaraderie comes real friendships and a willingness to overlook differences and find common ground.

How many of the rich could survive a week of sheer income deprivation? Isn’t it a relative, pure goal? Go without even a meal. Dispense with a vehicle or money to pay for gasoline. Do you have to look for wild plants for your vegetable part of the meal? Wearing clothes worn by strangers until they were frayed and then handed over to the unfortunate? Even do without the phone, Internet or television for just a day or two? Walking to work in snow, sleet, and rain because he or she couldn’t afford public transportation?

The peculiar result of living each moment without the supposed security of money accomplishes several things. First, it forces the independence and self-reliance of an individual. Encourage creativity as we fight to survive. And, curiously, it develops wicked pride in many of us as we recognize that it is not we who are poor in many ways: it is the rich who lack the breadth and depth of experience that our lives cultivate. In fact, many of us despise the rich because, in our eyes, they are weakened by their lavish lifestyles.

We can survive in the harshest conditions, but that also means we can embrace the few pleasures that come our way. Yes, most of us would appreciate the money, but we don’t need it. We have intelligence that comes from living life day to day.

Most of us have learned to understand others and view their plight with sympathy. That is true of the way we view the rich. We can see that they too have to fight. But we also see that it is a choice for them and not a choice for us. We have learned the value of the moment. We have learned the value of other people. We have learned to lend a hand, rather than a boot, to the faces of those close to us who are trying to avoid drowning in financial difficulties. We get it, because we’ve been through it.

It is true that poverty is not a disease or a virus, but it is a threat, and my dose of poverty has helped me to immunize myself against the risk it represents. I won. I have learned to respect others and treat them fairly. I have learned that no person is inferior because of income or social status. I have learned generosity of spirit. I have learned to trust myself. I have learned the value of every moment of the world around me. I have learned that if I had been raised in a financially prosperous lifestyle, I probably would not have had the advantage of experiencing these lessons so deeply. So yes, I am one of the lucky people who grew up in poverty, and because of that, I am richer.