PAH
‘The only freedom in life is the freedom of choice, but once you make that choice you are a slave to that decision.’ This is the case with all of us. We choose to suceed or to fail. The issue of poverty vs. wealth is the very core of the ‘american dream’. Having lived oversees, American is the place where poverty is a choice. That’s not the case everywhere, but here it certainly is. We all have circumstances that set us back, what sets us apart is how we choose to deal with the circumstance. I came out of high school with no one’s help. I began working minimum wage construction jobs. Now 7 years later I have a net worth in $300K’s and live a comfortable middle class life with no debt. I do not have a college degree, although I do have college classes. College is accessable to all in this country. At $18 a credit hour plus financing and payments available, there is no reason one can’t go to a community college. There are few, few exceptiong to the homeless scenario, and for those exceptions there are so many private and gov’t organizations available to them there is not excuse for them being where they are. I have seen homeless able bodied people asking for money on street corners where each corner of the intersection has a ‘Now Hiring’ sign on it. So many times I’ve heard people say ‘I can’t work for minimum wage.’ That’s the problem. It’s a choice. I made a choice to surround myself with sucessfull people. People I wanted emulate, and now I am well on my way. I have friends who surrounded themselves with people who were not want they want to become. Now I am there and they are still ‘poor’. Both they and I are slaves, or results, of our choices.