What really drives the poor

Most very poor people are not young, athletic, with good physical and mental health, no dependents, and the background security of being able to leave their circumstances immediately any time they want.

The book is "Scratch Beginnings" by Adam Shepard, btw.

I think that's quite funny. If he really was poor, that unexpected family member becoming ill would probably have knocked him back financially / meant he had to take time off work to care for them whatever.

"In other words, he spent his money wisely and was able to vastly improve his lifestyle in less than a year."

He also had the privilege of a good education and good upbringing. You are making way too many assumptions to think that all it takes is wisdom and good decisions. What we can think and do is strongly shaped by our environment, and getting yourself out of poverty is harder than you think.

>It isn't about lack of opportunity. It's about wise choices.

...and knowing wise choices exist. If you're brought up to just get by and the people all around you have the same mentality knowing that there's a superior mentality requires looking outside the box. This is where mentorship and real education (beyond education that conditions you to just show up on time) are valuable.

>>> Are they not trying? Are they trying, but making too many bad decisions? I think that the answer is a combination of bad memes and human nature. I ask almost every auto-rickshaw driver whose vehicle I sit in about their income and how do they live. I then listen to them and offer them suggestions that might help them out. It turns out that things just aren't that simple.

From the article;

>>> Indeed, they may well be more driven by ideas, simply because they have less information about the world outside and, therefore, feel a greater need to use their collective imagination to fill the gaps in their knowledge It's crucial to understand that these people haven't seen any examples to the contrary. They just don't have access to them. They live in societies that are highly stratified and tend to learn, quickly, to obey the hierarchy when it comes to outsiders, because if they "step out of bounds" the consequences can be ugly. So, they simply don't have access to people with good memes, and their minds are shaped by that narrow microcosm. Neither do they have the means to understand how to attain something better, because for them that's the only existence they know and it is what it is.

This might be maddeningly annoying for you and me, but think about how your upbringing and the social circles you run in have shaped you to thrive in your environment. How can someone use those metrics and ideas to eke out success in the hierarchy of a remote african tribe? (I'm talking about concrete, implementable ideas not abstract ones)Well, you say that you'll learn them, but if no one is around and you don't have the means to teach yourself said memes how will you ever learn? Yes, you'll scrape on by, but you just won't thrive.

They just don't know any better. Moreover, they don't even know that can be changed.

Think about it.

Here's what I think is the crucial ingredient;

>>> They don’t just need nutrition that will keep them alive longer—they also need a reason to want to live longer. Being healthier by denying yourself the little pleasures you can afford, a cup of tea or a bowl of steaming rice, makes little sense if you have nothing else to look forward to, That man had something to look forward to. They don't.

For them survival is ugly and fraught with absolutely no meaning and it's been that way their entire lives. Anyone would ponder suicide in their environment at least once. This helps them to keep sane and escape the drudgery, which is a bit like the rich and the middle class taking extravagant holidays, or going out to get drunk etc. It's something to look forward to, but for us we have other options that give us the same satisfaction. They don't. Partly because they can't visualise them, but mostly because of the daily grind to survive.

So, don't judge them. They are real people just like you and me.