Poverty

Hello, Internet! My name is John Wessel. Thank you for listening. Today is Sunday, March 17, 2013. Let's do some good!

A couple of years ago, I was having a conversation with my roommate and the topic of poverty came up. I drew a distinction between being poor and being impoverished. Being poor is a lack of money. Being impoverished is a lack of spirit.

When I think of the difference between being poor and being impoverished, I think back to the civil rights era. The black community was desperately poor during, say, the late 1950's, 1960's. Obviously, the cause of that was a history of slavery. But, when they were out there, asserting their rights - when you see the Million Man March - these people had some pride. They were wearing their best clothes and carrying themselves with some dignity. The black community was no longer impoverished. They were still poor but that was going to be a temporary condition. It's been tragic to see a backslide since that time back into poverty. But, that's a conversation for another podcast.

Here's another little example. When my mom was young her family did not have very much money. Now, her dad did have a job - he was a butcher for Farmer John - so they were not destitute but there wasn't a lot of money to go around. One of the things that they did not have money to buy was napkins. So, at dinner time, they would just take the dish rag and pass it around in a circle and wipe their mouths and hands. They were poor but they found a way to stay clean so I would not say they were impoverished.

In the conversation with my roommate, I said, "Let's do a little thought experiment. What if I woke up with nothing? I just woke up on the street with no money in my bank account and no credit. I just had the clothes on my back. You can bet that in one year, I would be back. I would have somewhere to live. I would be employed. I'd be doing OK."

He interrupted me and said, "Dude," and paused for a second. He said, "Dude, you don't even get it. It's impossible to take everything away from you. You would still know how to speak English. You would still have your education. You would still know how to program. You would still have an idea of how the world worked, how business worked, how you could offer something and negotiate and make yourself a little room and get set back up again. You would have the ability emotionally to deal with that situation because you came from a good family. You would be able to regulate those emotions and get yourself under control and get yourself on a good footing again. Even if you were to take everything away that you could see, the information in your head would still be worth more than many people even with their material wealth."

After my roommate finished schooling me, it was my turn to take a pause and let that sink in. He was absolutely right. I think that that idea has been germinating inside my head for quite some time. I want to do good. Heretofore, I've been trying to accomplish that by studying economics and studying politics. While that's good information - there are some really good ideas that humanity ought to adopt - it's a very big topic and it's hard to get anything real done. The temptation of politics, of course, is to think that you have a really good idea and then, when you realize that it's really hard to get 300 million of your fellow Americans to go along with that idea, you try to force them to do it.

This quickly turns into what I call the "politics of eating your vegetables." It's like when you're a kid and your parents are trying to get you to eat your vegetables because they're good for you and in order to get you to do what's good for you, they're willing to do a lot of things that are bad for you. They're going to threaten to withhold dessert. They might threaten to keep you at the table for as long as it takes until you eat your vegetables. What lessons does this really teach? Well, it teaches that dessert is good and vegetables are unpleasant, which means that as soon as you get a chance, you're going to skip right to dessert and not eat those vegetables. It also sends a lot of mixed signals about whether your parents love you or not. On the on hand, they're trying to get you to do something good but on the other hand they're willing to hurt you.

The goal may be good. In this case, the goal is to eat your vegetables. But, the method used to achieve that goal is actually counterproductive. The correct way to send the right message about vegetables is to eat them yourself and to enjoy eating them. The best thing you could possibly do to convince your kids to eat their vegetables is to pick out your favorite vegetable, cook it your favorite way, sit down, put it on your plate and put a bowl of it on the table. Don't even bother putting it on their plate. You just enjoy eating them. That example sends a stronger message than any lecture or any argument or any threat possibly could. Kids are going to want to try that vegetable and really try to like it. Now, maybe they won't. Maybe their favorite vegetable is going to differ from yours. But, the core idea is going to transfer. All of this just goes back to the old maxim that, "Actions speak louder than words."

Let's bring this back to all of those goals we want to accomplish as a society. We want to heal the sick. We want to care for the elderly. We want to educate the children. The way to convince people of these things is to set the example. So, if you want heal the sick then you should heal yourself. Get some exercise. Eat proper foods. Share ideas on how to do that. Make a lifestyle. That's going to send a far greater message than trying to pass some particular brand of health insurance. If you want to care for the elderly then the first thing to do is to care for your parents or your grandparents. That's going to send a message. Then, there's the one that I really care about: education. If you want people to share that really great feeling of that light bulb going off, some of that feeling of enlightenment, then the best thing to do is to study yourself and share those ideas. So, that's what I'm doing.

It goes back to my roommate's point that there are a lot of very important, invisible skills: things that you carry around with you inside your head that someone who does not also have those skills would never notice. There's a lot of knowledge that you learn from, say, growing up in a healthy household that somebody who did not have that luck, who did not have the luck of picking the right parents, would find it hard to recognize. I would like to do my best to make some of those invisible skills, visible.

The first lesson is that attributes like your temperament or your intelligence are not just traits that are lucked into or lucked out of. They are things that you can get better at with practice. When you're a kid, you learn from your parents or in an unfortunate situation your parents aren't there to learn from. Schools play a part; schools could do better; but fundamentally the responsibility rests upon oneself and, to a certain extent, upon one's parents.

Mental traits work like physical traits. When you go to the gym, it's no great mystery why some people look better than others. They put in more time at the gym. They focus better and have better technique while doing the exercise. They live a lifestyle where they eat better food. They get better rest. These habits over time lead them to have a better physique. On top of this, they may have won a genetic lottery. They may not just look good. They may look like gods and goddesses walking the earth. However, everybody can get to a point where they look pretty attractive with the things under their control. It's the same way mentally. Some people may have won a genetic lottery that will allow them to be some great virtuoso but everybody can be bright and thoughtful by practicing what's under their control.

One of the challenges of mental practice is that it's hard to measure if you're doing it right. If you're lifting weights in the gym then you can tell if you're doing it right because your body will give you feedback. The number of reps you can do or the amount of weight you can lift, the smoothness that you can do these with will go up. But, there's not so many hard statistics when it comes to measuring your mental ability. You can feel like you're groping around in the dark.

That's why when I'm struggling, when I'm a little bit lost, I actually like to start with the body. Your brain and your body are really the same bucket of molecules. The distinction is something that we make but in nature, in reality, your brain is physical. I like to think that my heart is pumping very physical blood up to my brain and my brain is sending electrical impulses down to my heart to beat. They're all very much operating in the system. You can do a lot of good for your body by improving your mind and you can do the opposite. You can improve your mind by improving your body because they're both operating in the same system.

So, today's mental health skill is very simple: just go for a walk. Just get out of your house. Spend 30 minutes or 45 minutes and walk at a pace that is good for you. It doesn't need to be a workout, just enough to get a little blood moving, maybe get a little bit of sweat going. It's going to help put you in a good place. It's going to put you in a good physical place and a good mental place. It's not going to solve your problems but it's going to give you a 5 percent or 10 percent boost that's going to make solving your problems that much easier.

I made an appointment with my girlfriend last night. As soon as she wakes up, we're going to head out for a walk. We'll enjoy. We'll probably have a nice little conversation. We'll get to see some plants that are coming into bloom now that winter has dissipated. Give it a try. Thank you for listening. I'll see you next time.