Poverty Mindset Quotes

There are no limitations to the mind except those we acknowledge. Both poverty and riches are the offspring of thought.

If we adopt the same collaborative mindset and practices that got to the moon and back, and that built the International Space Station, we can alleviate poverty—and do much more.

Neatness and cleanliness is not a function of how rich or poor you are but that of mentality and principle.

Don't only learn from the rich and successful men, also learn from the poor and those that failed woefully, for in their failures lies the secret of success as well.

Never forget a man who weathered and rescued you from the storm just because you can see the shores.

I love living in the ghetto!" #PoorMindSet

Don't cheat the foundation of a house because you want to save for the roofing for at the end, you will have only roofed rubbles.

If your passion is keeping you in poverty, don’t quit your passionate mindset! Quit your poverty mindset!

Poverty is a mindset: It creates that sense of scarcity. You then become accustomed to it such that your life is hinged on protecting the scarce resources that you have. However, you can only create a mindset of abundance by investing what you have and not savings. Savings only becomes significant if it's done with a motive to invest.

Don't sell the warmer for an air conditioner just because its summer, for in winter, you will have to do the reverse.

Money never stopped me from success, but a poverty mindset might have.

A poverty mindset can kill your potential. It can creep into your finances and relationship.

Free your mind. Disentangle your mindset from what can set your mind from your true purpose. Dare when you have to. Enjoy when it is a must. Relax when there is the need to, but, don’t spend the time. Don’t let wealth be a hindrance to fulfilling your true you. Don’t let poverty captivate your true you. Don’t let the environment engulf your true purpose; if possible flee to be free to dare. We all have excuses. Yourself is the most important factor in fulfilling your true you. Free your mind!!!

to go from saying “I’m not good at math” to saying “I’m not good at math yet.” The “yet” places them on a continuum where mistakes are embraced rather than shunned. Students are taught about the “growth mindset,” using it as a crutch when they stumble.

If you beg for money or resources, more begging will be increasingly required. Begging exacerbates void and lack. Instead of begging, find some people to provide value to and ensure that they pay you according to the value you provide. The creation of value will eliminate poverty and facilitate wealth - always.

There are two types of poverty: Money poverty and character poverty. Both are to be hated with equal passion

We always have a choice of going after positive or negative, prosperity or poverty, health or disease, success or failure.

The difference between poverty and prosperity is the mindset of living out of necessity instead of possibility.

We are strengthening by different experiences in life; Sad times, happy moments. Poverty, riches. Failure, success. Troubles, good times. Losing, winning.

Money is not the root of all evil. Poverty of the mind is.

One of the worst enemies that sets the platform for developing a poverty mindset is your background. Where you come from, the mindset of the people you deal with, what you know, and your experiences can set the tone that can cause you to believe that you are born to be poor. You can only get out of that dungeon of a mindset by revolutionizing the way you think.

For the people of her town—and she would guess the vast majority of humanity—observed the world not with their minds and imagination but solely with their eyes, which was a severe limitation.

Success, just like poverty is a state of mind. You can become successful instantly with a simple decision and commitment. Long lasting and pronounced success comes to those who renew their commitment to a mindset of abundance every minute, hour and day.

We each have the choice in any setting to step back and let go of the mindset of scarcity. Once we let go of scarcity, we discover the surprising truth of sufficiency. By sufficiency, I don’t mean a quantity of anything. Sufficiency isn’t two steps up from poverty or one step short of abundance. It isn’t a measure of barely enough or more than enough. Sufficiency isn’t an amount at all. It is an experience, a context we generate, a declaration, a knowing that there is enough, and that we are enough. Sufficiency resides inside of each of us, and we can call it forward. It is a consciousness, an attention, an intentional choosing of the way we think about our circumstances.3

The confusion of inequality with poverty comes straight out of the lump fallacy—the mindset in which wealth is a finite resource, like an antelope carcass, which has to be divvied up in zero-sum fashion, so that if some people end up with more, others must have less. As we just saw, wealth is not like that: since the Industrial Revolution, it has expanded exponentially.7 That means that when the rich get richer, the poor can get richer, too.

God has plans for our welfare and blessing. He has no plans for calamity in our lives. This core value trains us to see difficulties as opportunities for God to bless us and bring us more fully into His purposes for our lives. It also creates an expectation that God will bless us richly so we can be a blessing to others. It prevents us from coming under a poverty mindset. “‘For I know the plans that I have for you,’ declares the LORD, ‘plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope’” (Jeremiah 29:11). We are a special, holy and royal people. This core value trains us to value others and ourselves as the precious possessions of God, for whom He sacrificed His only Son. It fosters a culture of honor in which we treat others as royalty because we are royalty. “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9, emphasis added).

When facing a problem The First Step is stopping Stop letting where you are at Be the mindset that determines how far you can get Yeah, you’ve been cut plus stabbed in the back But use a suture Fix your eyes on a time in the future Wrap your hands round the straps of your boots Or your bow aimed by you A well-trained archer after success a target much larger You are not a problem You are THEE Problem Solver The Second Step Remember where you were Experience has knit the sack, your quiver So set a goal, get your arrow, let it go And when you grow Tell them, Oh . . . I understand Your story Might be the sword in her hand Tell him, You are me. Tell of how you used to be the epitome of POV-erty But now you know the best way out undoubtedly is PO-etry

If we are intent upon answering our most serious questions, from climate change to poverty, and curing diseases to designing new products, we need to work with people who think differently, not just accurately. And this requires us to take a step back and view performance from a fundamentally different vantage point. Consider an irony in the way we traditionally think about success. If you look at science or, indeed, popular literature, the focus is on individuals. How can we improve the knowledge or perceptiveness of ourselves or our colleagues? Fine books such as Peak by Anders Ericsson and Robert Pool, Sources of Power by Gary Klein and Mindset by Carol Dweck have become bestsellers. All examine, in their different ways, how we can improve individual abilities through time.

Poverty should first be addressed in the mind because even if you give millions to a poor person, until there's a change of mindset, they will still remain the same.

Poverty is aggravated when money is given to a poor mind

The fastest way to kill creativity and human potential in any community is to keep feeding them freebies. Charity cannot cure poverty

Human beings’ use their minds to interpret reality and sort the true from the false. A physical compromised, inherent bias, and lack of awareness can lead a person into misconstruing reality, and confusing what is true and false. A person living a deluded life of sins and poverty must reexamine their life and develop a proper and sustainable life plan.

A wounded person must examine the poverty of his or her untidy emotions in order to ascertain the archeological roots of their festering misery.

I was convinced that the culture of the school system and the quality of instruction in the schools had combined to frustrate superintendents and fail students. The national studies proved my case: it was not just the poverty or drugs or broken families or violence that made it hard to teach kids. To paraphrase Clinton adviser James Carville: It was the schools, stupid. And the mind-set. Tim pointed out a sign he’d found in Slowe Elementary, one of the stops on the tour of schools that first day: “Teachers cannot make up for what parents and students will not do.” Wonder why I was enraged?

When prayer replace work then poverty takes over

Poverty is a mental virus, even if one could get a million, the mindset will always kick in.

The addict is re-traumatized over and over again by ostracism, harassment, dire poverty, the spread of disease, the frantic hunt for a source of the substance of dependence, the violence of the underground drug world and harsh chastisement at the hands of the law — all inevitable consequences of the War on Drugs. Studies on primates and other animals have also shown that low social status and being dominated enhance the risk of drug use, with negative effects on dopamine receptors. By contrast, after being housed with more subordinate animals, dominant monkeys had an increase of over 20 per cent of their dopamine receptors and less tendency to use cocaine. The findings of stress research suggest that the issue is not control over others, but whether one is free to exercise control in one’s own life. Yet the practices of the social welfare, legal and medical systems subject the addict to domination in many ways and deprive her of control, even if unwittingly. In relegating the addict to the bottom of the social and moral scales and in our contemptuous rejection of her as a person, we have created the exact circumstances that are most likely to keep her trapped in pathological dependence on drugs. There is no island of relief, only oceanic despair. “The War on Drugs is cultural schizophrenia,” says Jaak Panksepp. I agree. The War on Drugs expresses a split mindset in two ways: we want to eradicate or limit addiction, yet our social policies are best suited to promote it, and we condemn the addict for qualities we dare not acknowledge in ourselves. Rather than exhort the addict to be other than the way she is, we need to find the strength to admit that we have greatly exacerbated her distress and perhaps our own. If we want to help people seek the possibility of transformation within themselves, we first have to transform our own view of our relationship to them.

the signposts for the [pellagra] disease...resulted from a vitamin B3 (niacin) deficiency...linked to poverty and a corn-based diet. That indisputable truth was disputed for decades by many Southern citizens and politicians, who insisted that it was a story contrived by Northerners to denigrate Southern culture. The end result was many lost lives, much like the lost lives from COVID-19, that have resulted from inaction in many countries, coupled with an anti-science, anti-expertise mindset.

Recognizing where you're at before you claim poverty, because that mindset keeps this system churning, and it involves recognizing your privilege and whether you are 'poor' instead of 'broke

White supremacy weaponizes toxic positivity against racially marginalized people by convincing us that we are somehow to blame for the constellation of harms emanating from present and historical wrongdoing. This racist toxic positivity culture goads us into believing that there is a prize for never saying a mumblin’ word while bearing our burdens. It reinforces survivor’s bias by convincing people who have managed to overcome obstacles that shouldn’t exist in the first place that they possess the heroic traits of “pluckiness” and “grit” that allowed them to “beat the odds.” These survivors often become some of the most ardent proponents of toxic positivity culture as they admonish others not to have a “poverty mindset” and unwittingly accept assimilation and cultural erasure. They see themselves as giving back or sharing wisdom with their communities, but they end up inadvertently reinforcing white supremacist narratives about Black folks.

No one knows tomorrow — you exhaust your savings. No one knows tomorrow — you didn’t plan for it. Don’t live carelessly under the notion that 'no one knows tomorrow,' because you may see tomorrow and face hardship from poverty. No one knows tomorrow, but don’t be reckless with your life.

People with a poverty mindset remain poor and usually it is because of the fears in their mind. They tie up their energy in with the lack of money.

The Canadian government’s point of view was set in the imperial/colonial era. Our dominant mythologies were shaped in the same era. All our governments – federal and provincial – must simply let go of their paternalistic mindset. Aboriginals are not wards of the state. They don’t need charity. They want the power that our own history says is theirs by right. And that power contains economic solutions. What this means is that our governments should stop wasting our money fighting to maintain systems of injustice. What they need to do is digest reality and embrace reconciliation, which, as Taiaiake Alfred says, begins with restitution. This is more than good intentions. It involves a shift in power and in economic wealth. That shift in economic wealth is the solution to Aboriginal poverty.

A mind-set of prosperity debt is really a poverty mentality in disguise.

poverty in a family of twelve children.

We each have the choice in any setting to step back and let go of the mindset of scarcity. Once we let go of scarcity, we discover the surprising truth of sufficiency. By sufficiency, I don’t mean a quantity of anything. Sufficiency isn’t two steps up from poverty or one step short of abundance. It isn’t a measure of barely enough or more than enough. Sufficiency isn’t an amount at all. It is an experience, a context we generate, a declaration, a knowing that there is enough, and that we are enough. Sufficiency resides inside of each of us, and we can call it forward. It is a consciousness, an attention, an intentional choosing of the way we think about our circumstances.3 Scarcity

Poverty is a culture cultivated by a poor mindset which can not evolve or accept possibilities of rising higher .

Poverty cannot be defeated unless you first defeat it in the mind.

Why not simply embrace the reality of the Aboriginal comeback? Why not accept that these court victories contain the elements for resolving the problem of Aboriginal poverty by creating the basis for Aboriginal power, which is in part economic power? We are dealing with a point-of-view problem. The Canadian government’s point of view was set in the imperial/colonial era. Our dominant mythologies were shaped in the same era. All our governments – federal and provincial – must simply let go of their paternalistic mindset. Aboriginals are not wards of the state. They don’t need charity. They want the power that our own history says is theirs by right. And

Poverty hides itself in thought before it surrenders to purses.” – Khalil Gibran

The feeling of plenty comes from a source beyond the material world. Believing in or working toward something outside ourselves, and fostering a life rich in human connectedness and meaning, can function as social glue by giving us a plenty mindset even in the midst of abject poverty. Finding connectedness and meaning requires radical honesty.

The vote only empowers you to represent abilities, whereas the beauty of work and actuality of capability qualify you as a true leader; otherwise, the majority vote is just a power game, not insight.” Ziauddin Khawaja, known as Ziauddin Butt, in the military coup against the elected Prime Minister of Pakistan, Nawaz Sharif, on October 12, 1999, under secret and mutual interests, assured the four corps commanders of that time of their loyalty to the army and in favor of General Musharraf. Military treachery was preferred over democratic values and the constitutional protection of the elected Prime Minister. If General Butt was a patriot, the worst general in history, Musharraf, would never have dared to hand over our beloved country to foreign forces. Every general tries to be a patriot and a hero after retirement. As many generals as there were in Pakistan and they broke, abrogated, or suspended the constitution from any angle, they were and are complete traitors to the Pakistani state, nation, and constitution, but also to the morale of the great forces, along with the traitorous judges of the judiciary, who participated equally. Not repeating such factors is a nation’s survival; otherwise, there will be no uniforms and no freedom. Staying within every institution’s limits is patriotism; give exemplary proof of your patriotism, and you are all subservient to the Constitution and those elected under the Constitution. Your oath is your declaration of respect and protection of democratic values; its violation is treason against the country and nation. On the other hand, Pakistani political parties and their leadership do not qualify in the context of politics since, if they are in power or opposition, they seek favor from the Armed Forces for their democratic dictatorship. The honest fact is that Pakistanis neither wanted nor wished to establish real democratic values and their enforcement. Lawmakers are unqualified and incapable of fulfilling the context of the Constitution, which is the essence of a pure and honest democracy with fair and transparent elections as per the will of voters, which never happened in Pakistan. Examples are visible and open to the world, even though no one feels sorry or ashamed for such an immoral, illegitimate, and unconstitutional mindset and trend of the Pakistani leadership of all political parties. Huge and widespread corruption is a threat to the Pakistani economy and people’s prosperity. IMF support and other benefits go into the hands of corrupt officials instead of prioritizing the well-being of society or individuals. Imposing taxes without prosperity in society and for people who already live below the poverty line is economic violence, not a beneficial impact. The fact is bare that the establishment misuses leaders and leaders misuse the establishment, which has become a national trend; consequently, state, nation, and constitution remain football for them, and they have been playing it for more than seven decades, losing the resources of land and people for their conflicts of interest. I can only suggest that you stop such a game before you defeat yourself.

The antithesis of a wealth mindset is a poor mindset. Most who have this "poor mindset" or “poverty mentality” don’t even realize they have it. A poor mindset generates the thinking that attaining wealth is impossible, that it can be done without effort, or that one just does not have the special sauce it takes to become wealthy. This mindset undermines our goals and will actively drive wealth away from us unless we work to counteract it.

Contrary to what personal finance charlatans would have us believe, poverty is not a mindset—it is the inevitable and necessary by-product of a system wherein life is only guaranteed to those who have wealth and wealth is distributed via ownership and not labor. Poverty is a capitalist’s main resource, as it ensures there will always be a class of people to exploit.

.. they assume that intelligence is a pre-ordained trait, [...], their perceived destiny, which flows from another belief, that the poor are to blame for their condition. Poverty is the proof of deficiencies, including an intellect that is "fixed". Dweck's research challenges this belief. She shows that when children think that their intellectual abilities can improve, they are more likely to work hard. And working hard allows the brain to "grow" by strengthening its neural connections. [...] This makes struggle a good thing. Not a sign of stupidity, but a path to intellect. At Hershey, the growth mindset can be reduced to one word. Yet. The school wants its children to go from saying, 'I'm not good at math." to saying, 'I'm not good at math yet." The 'Yet' puts them on a continuum where mistakes are embraced rather than shunned. Students are taught about the growth mindset, using it as a crutch when they stumble. In math class, they can be heard telling one another, 'Wait, don't get frustrated, we can feel our brains growing.

The philosophers of the past and in our generation, have long argued that the only way to eliminate poverty is by wanting less.

Intelligent vs. unintelligent High strung vs. placid & laid back Extraverted vs. introverted Low psychic metabolism (low energy) vs. high psychic metabolism (high energy) Extraordinary talent (or accomplishment) vs. ordinary abilities & accomplishments Ambitious vs. content with status quo Attractive vs. unattractive Cultured vs. barbarian Spiritual vs. unspiritual (or different styles of spirituality) Philosophical vs. frivolous Risk taker vs. obsessed with safety Commitment to vigorous personal growth vs. content with the status quo Visionary vs. lives in the moment Scrupulously honest vs. morally flexible Wealth-acquisition mindset vs. poverty mindset Neat and organized vs. slovenly and disorganized Logical thinker vs. emotional, reactive thinker Couch potato vs. physically active Regular exercise regimen vs. none Involved in service outreaches vs. pursues only personal pleasuring Argumentative Andy vs. non-confrontational Carla Back packer Bert vs. five-star-hotel-connoisseur Connie Frugal Freddy vs. shop-‘til-you-drop Shelley

To rise out of poverty you must change your way of thinking. You can’t live in abundance with impoverished thoughts.

Significantly expanding our collective investment in fighting poverty will cost something. How much it will cost is not a trivial affair. But I would have more patience for concerns about the cost of ending family homelessness if we weren’t spending billions of dollars each year on homeowner tax subsidies, just as I could better stomach concerns over the purported financial burden of establishing a living wage if our largest corporations weren’t pocketing billions each year through tax avoidance. The scarcity mindset shrinks and contorts poverty abolitionism, forcing it to operate within fictitious fiscal constraints.

Start praying! Because of the poverty mindset, we don't want to pay for anything. Don't you notice? Filipinos are obsessed with getting things for free. We say often, "Wala bang libre?" (Is it for free?") or "Libre ka naman... Ang yaman-yaman mo!" (Please give me a treat... You're so rich!) Hey, I would like to receive things for free, too. But don't make it a habit. Because it reinforces your psychological label that you can't afford to buy stuff—and entrenches your identity as a beggar.

That's for Rich People' I remember a scene in my childhood. I love my mom, and she's a great mom, but one of her weaknesses was a pernicious poverty mindset. When I was a small boy, I remember Mom brought me to a shoe store. I pointed to a nice pair of black leather shoes behind the glass cover, and my mother made the sign of the cross, like I pointed to something I should not point to, and said, "Shhhh! Not that! We can't afford that! Those shoes are for rich people." In my little mind, I figured, if we can't buy the shoes for rich people, it meant that we were poor people. Today, I've learned my lesson. Even as God has prospered my little businesses, I don't buy everything my kids want to buy. When my boys and I are walking in a mall, and they point to something they like, and it isn't in the budget, I don't say, "That's too expensive." I say, "Boys, we can afford to buy it. But because we're wise, we choose not to buy it.

2. Theology Do you believe that God wants you to be poor? Do you believe that to be close to God, it's better to be poor that to be rich? Then your theology is written from the poverty mindset. Some people think that all money is demonic. That business is evil. Profit is bad. And all rich people are crooks. Let me ask you three questions: How Do You See Money? How Do You See Rich People? How Do You See God?

How Do You See Rich People? One day, I was eating in a swanky restaurant with a friend—a friend who, ever since I could remember, was permanently in financial lack. Financial problems stuck to him like glue. And his friends avoided him like the plague because he kept borrowing money and never pay them back. While munching, he looked around the nicely decorated room and said, "The owner of this restaurant is probably cheating. He's probably not paying his taxes. He's also probably not paying the right salaries to his waiters. And he's also probably..." I cut him mid-sentence and asked, "How do you know?" I figured he probably had inside information. But he said, "Isn't it obvious? He's so rich. He must be cheating." That day, I realized why my friend was poor and always buried in debt. Although on the outside he wants to get out of poverty, on the inside he wants to remain poor. Subconsciously, he was resisting wealth. His subconscious found a way to avoid becoming rich. Because according to his belief system, all rich people are bad people—and he didn't want to be bad. Do you want to gain a prosperity mindset? Stop judging all rich people as crooks. Some rich people are very good people. When you see a friend becoming rich, share in her joy. Be happy for her. When you do that, you're telling yourself that it's also OK for you to become rich.

How Do You See God? How do you picture God? I know some people who think of God as a God who wants us to suffer and remain poor. This is the theology of the poverty mindset. That God is a stingy God. But the prosperity mindset sees God as a generous God. Generosity is His nature. Generosity is His character. And God is a God who wants to bless us with abundance. The Bible says, "And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of His glory in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 4:19, NIV).

Do you see yourself poor? Has poverty become your identity? You know you have a poverty mindset if you feel poor; you talk poor, you walk poor, and you act poor. Subconsciously, you plan on being poor for the rest of your life. And when you fail in anything that you do, your favorite excuse is, "Mahirap lang ako." (I'm just a poor person.)

3. Economy Poverty mindset believes that there's very little money out there. And thus, it's very difficult to earn money.

Poverty. But not just a lack of resources. No, it’s the dangerous kind of poverty. The ‘I don’t have any food and I’ll kill for a mouthful of bread’ sort of poverty. But the problem is that it’s not just poor people. Everyone has been infected with the mindset. You know, it’s more than that though. Sure, there’s not enough to go around, but people are resourceful and can survive on very little. The real problem is when everyone feels like they don’t have enough and that stabbing their neighbor to get his share is an acceptable option. Sure, sometimes people need a good stabbing, but never because they have something we don’t.

Every moment spent in the wrong life is a moment not spent in the right one. Money never stopped me from success, but a poverty mindset might have. The Universe sends blows, but it also sends grace in abundance. The unspoken truth about misery is that it will eventually end. Only we can decide how and at what moment.

Greed comes from the same lack mindset as poverty.

The stunning problem with mindset is sometimes the rich are cheap while the poor are expensive.

This is a poverty mindset. Such people find it difficult to believe that others can attain a level of wealth by simply adding value to others. In their minds, there has to be a secret to their wealth other than what they are claiming it to be. 

Wealth is a mindset; so is poverty, what you know or don't know, your perspective of life and beliefs have a direct connection to your net worth.

We must transform our institutions so that the entire enterprise operates from a growth mind-set (Dweck, 2006), where mistakes and missteps are seen as excellent opportunities to develop our individual and collective brain

Do not be reluctant to generate wealth through entrepreneurship, informal initiative and not just professional practice. Poverty must remain a mindset that allows the soul to accomplish. A strong economy must rely on each of its stakeholders including the informal sector whose dynamism and potential are to be seized and exploited.

When facing a problem The First Step is stopping Stop letting where you are at Be the mindset that determines how far you can get Yeah, you’ve been cut plus stabbed in the back But use a suture Fix your eyes on a time in the future Wrap your hands round the straps of your boots Or your bow aimed by you A well-trained archer after success a target much larger You are not a problem You are THEE Problem Solver The Second Step Remember where you were Experience has knit the sack, your quiver So set a goal, get your arrow, let it go And when you grow Tell them, Oh . . . I understand Your story Might be the sword in her hand Tell him, You are me. Tell of how you used to be the epitome of POV-erty But now you know the best way out undoubtedly is PO-etry

If I am not hungry I do not need to eat, if I am invaluable I do not need to be valued, if I am not seeking, I do not need to find. Therefore, if I do not need wealth, I am prosperous, if I do not need to be seen, I am sought after, if I do not need to be loved, I am love, if I do not need admiration, I am able to admire, if I do not need success, I am successful, if I do not need time, I am timeless, if I do not need to know, then I know everything. So it is, if I know death, poverty, hate, failure and time as words, I then know their opposites, and if I know their opposites I know that both sides hold only the weight that I give them, and in turn both are weightless; they hold no weight to me, or in other words, they are unimportant and illusory. So then if I do not need an illusion, I am free, and if I do not need freedom, I exist, and if I exist, I am, and if I am, I am. That is the truth. That is the word. That is nonduality.

The invocation of motivation, of mindsets, of agency—they are powerful distractions from looking at poverty as linked to inequality.

People who lack of motivations always blame others, especially the capitalist for their poverty!

Success is simply the art of reaching the "promised land" of your mindset.

For me, and for many of us, our first waking thought of the day is “I didn’t get enough sleep.” The next one is “I don’t have enough time.” Whether true or not, that thought of not enough occurs to us automatically before we even think to question or examine it. We spend most of the hours and the days of our lives hearing, explaining, complaining, or worrying about what we don’t have enough of. We don’t have enough exercise. We don’t have enough work. We don’t have enough profits. We don’t have enough power. We don’t have enough wilderness. We don’t have enough weekends. Of course, we don’t have enough money—ever. We’re not thin enough, we’re not smart enough, we’re not pretty enough or fit enough or educated or successful enough, or rich enough —ever. Before we even sit up in bed, before our feet touch the floor, we’re already inadequate, already behind, already losing, already lacking something. And by the time we go to bed at night, our minds are racing with a litany of what we didn’t get, or didn’t get done, that day. We go to sleep burdened by those thoughts and wake up to that reverie of lack. ... What begins as a simple expression of the hurried life, or even the challenged life, grows into the great justification for an unfulfilled l i f e. We each have the choice in any setting to step back and let go of the mindset of scarcity. Once we let go of scarcity, we discover the surprising truth of sufficiency. By sufficiency, I don’t mean a quantity of anything. Sufficiency isn’t two steps up from poverty or one step short of abundance. It isn’t a measure of barely enough or more than enough. Sufficiency isn’t an amount at all. It is an experience, a context we generate, a declaration, a knowing that there is enough, and that we are enough. Sufficiency resides inside of each of us, and we can call it forward. It is a consciousness, an attention, an intentional choosing of the way we think about our circumstances.

Your life is meant to be “poor in fact and spent in hardworking moderation” – as your solemnly professed vow of evangelical poverty requires. For this reason, your work should be done carefully and faithfully, without yielding to the present-day culture and its mindset of efficiency and constant activity. The “ora et labora” of the Benedictine tradition should always be your inspiration and help you to find the right balance between seeking the Absolute and commitment to your daily chores, between the peace of contemplation and the effort expended in work.

Heavenly Father we cry unto you as the nation of South Africa with a humble and repented heart. We repent for everything that is not representing you. We admit that we have failed you along the way. Please forgive us. We are also repenting on behalf of those who caused all the barbaric actions and ruined our beautiful country. We repent on behalf of those caused bloodshed in this beautiful land of South Africa. Uproot the spirit of corruption and the spirit of poverty in our beloved country. We ask you Lord Jesus to forgive us, cleanse our land with your gracious blood and protect us from every harm. Help us to stand in one mindset, one voice and one heart. And give us the strength and courage to rebuild our nation in peace. We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ our saviour. Amen. SOUTH AFRICA BELONGS TO GOD

A “poor = lazy” mindset blinds us to the needs of vulnerable children. These kids did not choose poverty, but they live in it every day, and many have no hope of getting out of it. If we claim to care about orphaned and vulnerable children, we can’t dismiss the poverty that is rampant both on the other side of the world and at our doorstep.