The joys of being poor.

Hey Guys,

I've probably told anyone this...but I secretly have a fear of being poor.
That's right, like I say before in my previous post, I really hate the government for making poor people in Singapore forcefully play the hunger games, where it's the survival of the fittest.

Now, I've never really talk about it much to anyone, 'cause I felt it was a silly phobia. I mean, why would anyone be scared of feeling poor?

But, it starts to really bother me when I enter into my teenage hood. Peniaphobia (Fear of poverty) initially started well for me as a motivation for me.
Well, I'm really a soldier material, my best motivation for anything is fear.

Alright, fun fact time!
Different people have different type of drive for work. For example, some people needs people to care, take care of their welfare then, will they be able to be motivated.

For me, fear works best for me. Since I'm really scared of being poor, I'm really concerned of my own future and I'm sure as hell don't want to grow up and live in a trash bin ('Cause Trash Can can't fit me.). Call me materialistic, but I want to live a comfortable life, free from worries with my financial well being.

So I see peniaphobia as my drive for life, I mean a little motivation can't do any harm right?
Who knew it took a turn for the worst, I was so stressed up about doing well that I started doing badly in everything I was doing. So the more I screw things up, the more stressed I got, I ended up in a vicious cycle.

I eventually fell into a state of depression and I just threw everything I care about aside. I didn't cared about what I was doing, I felt that if I carried on, my life would go nowhere, but then again I really didn't care about  anything.

The story of my peniaphobia started from this:

When I was a kid, my family was affected by the economic crisis in 2008.
My Dad lost his job due to the recession and became a taxi driver.
During then, everyone just wanted to save as much as they can, so everyone chose other public transport to taxi rides. To add on, he was irresponsible to the family. Why?
He spent most of the time gambling and sleeping, so the income was never enough to feed the family.

My Mum, on the other hand sold all her jewelries, she had nothing left.
I still can remember this piece of memory vividly, probably the cause of the peniaphobia.
I happened to glance into her purse and saw all she had was 4 dollars.
She spent 2 dollars to buy a cheap burger for me for dinner.
I asked her,'Why aren't you eating?'
She told me that she's not hungry.
I offered her my burger and she smiled at me and rejected my offer.
The next day, she gave the remaining 2 dollars as my allowance.

It didn't bothered me after a few years later. I still remember that time where my family was so poor, there's no way we can get any poorer.(Maybe if we ran into dept)

My family is really poor, not in the sense like third world poor but, still poor.
My house's electricity runs on prepaid, not meter charge like others.
I could continue to complain and whine, but I'm gonna. (You're welcomed.)

So I'm gonna share today, why being poor might not be as bad as it is.
(As of writing all these, I am not saying all poor people are the same, maybe it's more about what I went through.)

When you're poor, you have nothing to lose. It would be an added benefit if you're a boy.
How so? When you're rich, you have a reputation to keep, or it's harder to let go of your money, your house and etc. So when you're poor, you have nothing to lose. Money? Haha, as long as we don't run into dept, all is well!

Poor people don't really care much about mindless things. Like how some people like to pick a senseless fight like others and the reason is because they're having a bad day. Trust me, I hear that from all the time from different people. To us, there's much better thing to attend to like what's for dinner compared to getting into an argument of silly things.

We are easily contented, we don't need much to be happy. A simple gathering of the family to have a crab dinner was all that was needed to have an enjoyable night. Happiness is simplicity right? There's really no need for expensive gifts, meals. What matters is when you have the people you care about around you.

In some ways, the government does help in my family's financial issue. I get financial aid from school, my parents gets some income thingy. So we get money for being poor! (Actually I made that up for collecting money so that I feel better.) D:

We value sharing. As one person had said it before," You'll only gain, when you learn to share."
Since we don't have a lot to begin with, so we try to help others with all with have.

Talking of which, we don't have to be poor to learn how to share. My Mum shows me an easy way to share and I thought it might be good to start.

Most of us take the public transport daily, at the stations itself, there are some street performers. Let it be a dare from me, give as much as you want to the street performers. You can freaking give 10 cents, or 50 dollars, it's not about the amount. But the act of giving. Do this for a week and come back next week and tell me how was it!

Also, to add on, I got out of my peniaphobia without the help of medication or other suggested methods. Instead, I talked it all out to my Church's youth worker. With some time, I got out of it, so if you're suffering from peniaphobia too, I suggest you find someone to talk to.

So till next time, stay awesome and rock on.