I appreciate your comment and the spirit it was presented in. You should dig back through my comment history to find out more about my background.
The TL;DR, grew up pretty poor, came out of that environment with lots of burdens, did exactly what I said above and now am not poor anymore. It sucked, hard, but it's possible. And it's more possible to do it before you make lots of bad decisions that make it even harder to crawl out of. But it's not very complex to do.
Yeah it gives me sympathy, but it gives me a realistic pragmatism too and practical experience simply doing it.
But regardless, I've seen and helped many people who came from much worse backgrounds than I did to do the same and live comfortable productive lives.
I've traveled quite a bit, to some pretty hellish areas, and I know what you are talking about.
I think you put down "Africa" China and Brazil too much. China and Brazil are paradises compared to some of the places I've been. And much of Africa is pretty decent these days comparatively. If you work hard and have good money discipline in any of those places you can probably eek out an okay living. I've seen people eek out passable livings in active war zones. I'd leave, but you know, staying on ancestral lands or whatever is their choice. Their neighbors who did leave lead much better lives. There's always a way.
It's not complex, but it's not always easy.
> life can throw unavoidable things at people, like maybe they had to take care of a sick relative
If you read what I've written here, you'll see that I've already acknowledged that sometimes shit happens and there's no way to readily solve it. But these are outlier atypical scenarios. We can come up with these all day: gas main exploded destroying my house, meteor falls from space and destroys their car, hurricane and tsunami levels the local economy, got cancer, etc.
Yeah that stuff is hard and can be complex. But for most people, most places and most of the time, their problems are not complex and aren't difficult to surmount.
Other people could give you the same advice in regards to your weight problems. It sucks, its hard, but its possible. Its not complex, but its not always easy. Still you struggle and its complex for you.
So why are you so judgemental about other peoples seemingly simple problems ?
It's not complex for me. It's simple. I'm just not doing it. That's it. There's no complexity at all. It's not a "struggle".
If I were to wake up tomorrow and decide "I want to solve this weight problem" I know exactly what to do and how to do it. There's a clear path from problem to solution and there's nothing complicated about it. It might not be fun, and it might take a while, solutions aren't guaranteed to offer immediate gratification, but it's absolutely trivially solvable.
And that's the point. The kinds of normal problems people struggle with are usually pretty easy to solve, but they just don't for <reasons>. And they'll have those problems until they simple decide to stop having that problem and solve it. There's nothing complicated about their issues, and often the solution is trivially simple, but they don't because they haven't decided to.
They add all kinds of conditions and oddball requirements (e.g. "I need to make more money, but I need to stay here, doing this exact job that's not paying me enough because I have lots of friends here."). That's not deciding to solve their problem.
Simple, easy, and fun are very different concepts and it's best not to mix them up.
Physical, emotional, and mental energy are required to pull through these "simple" habits and behaviors, which makes these neither easy nor fun. We seek out advice and shortcuts so that we don't require as much energy to make these transformations. It's a sustained kind of energy to move away from ingrained habits or lifestyles.
Pressures around you tend to keep you where you are (mentally, physically, and emotionally). I would say that even making a decision to change your life is out of the norm and requires a rare kind of commitment and energy.
I think it all comes down to the fact that people don't like change. People associate comfort with consistency and conformity. Network effects compound this effect.
The TL;DR, grew up pretty poor, came out of that environment with lots of burdens, did exactly what I said above and now am not poor anymore. It sucked, hard, but it's possible. And it's more possible to do it before you make lots of bad decisions that make it even harder to crawl out of. But it's not very complex to do.
Yeah it gives me sympathy, but it gives me a realistic pragmatism too and practical experience simply doing it.
But regardless, I've seen and helped many people who came from much worse backgrounds than I did to do the same and live comfortable productive lives.
I've traveled quite a bit, to some pretty hellish areas, and I know what you are talking about.
I think you put down "Africa" China and Brazil too much. China and Brazil are paradises compared to some of the places I've been. And much of Africa is pretty decent these days comparatively. If you work hard and have good money discipline in any of those places you can probably eek out an okay living. I've seen people eek out passable livings in active war zones. I'd leave, but you know, staying on ancestral lands or whatever is their choice. Their neighbors who did leave lead much better lives. There's always a way.
It's not complex, but it's not always easy.
> life can throw unavoidable things at people, like maybe they had to take care of a sick relative
If you read what I've written here, you'll see that I've already acknowledged that sometimes shit happens and there's no way to readily solve it. But these are outlier atypical scenarios. We can come up with these all day: gas main exploded destroying my house, meteor falls from space and destroys their car, hurricane and tsunami levels the local economy, got cancer, etc.
Yeah that stuff is hard and can be complex. But for most people, most places and most of the time, their problems are not complex and aren't difficult to surmount.