Email | Print

A long time ago, when I decided to be a writer and political activist, I knew that I might spend some, if not the rest of my life in a low economic bracket.

What I didn’t realize is that my “vow of poverty” would not be completely voluntary. I was, in a sense, destined because of my standards, politics, personality, interests and abilities to be at the lowest end of the totem pole.

In the years since my “vow of poverty,” my biggest struggle has been with coming to terms with living in a “low” economic position where I have little money, little status and little power.

Of course, when I was younger, I came to sincerely believe that being able to live amongst the poor and oppressed was a sign of spiritual strength and intellectual integrity.

What I didn’t realize is that it was also going to be essential to my mental health to adjust to being poor.

I am not saying that I am resigned to living off government assistance for the rest of my life—although that might be an eventuality. But I am saying that I am going to have to get used to not dreaming of incredible wealth and power. I’m not going to be a famous writer or radical. I am not going to win a Nobel Prize or be elected president. I’m not going to make a lot of money off of my writing or activism.

So what, indeed, am I going to do?

I’ve decided to work as hard as I can and see what happens.

I want to write and organize as much as possible, of course, because that’s what fulfills me. I also plan to re-enter the workforce because that’s where I am going to earn the money to socialize, to travel, to invest in my literary and political ambitions. I’m probably going to be just a lowly office worker because that’s how my business career has evolved.

I’ll have to work hard for my money, save hard for my travels, and budget more self-consciously because I’m probably never going to hit the literary or political lottery (and I refuse to play the economic one).

But all the sweat and stress I have to endure living life like this, beats the stress and sweat and toll it takes on my mental health when I am busy raging at myself or the world over my lack of political, economic and social status.