Lady Luck is a Fickle Foe

 

Affluence creates poverty. ~Marshall McLuhan

People may rise from the ashes, but if they don’t remember the ashes they came from there is no point to all the suffering that occurred along the way. How many prominent people as we watch the news claim they suffered to get ahead, yet when they are pushed to the point of standing up for and giving the poor a voice they back down and away from the claims of poverty they once totted? It is easy to claim hardship it is another thing altogether to live through the hardship of poverty.

When a person is poor they are not free; the ability to have freedom of choice is removed from their lives. When a person’s belly is growling what is the priority food or voting in an upcoming election? When a person hasn’t had a hot shower in days or weeks does he care if he smells on the subway platform? At what stage of being homeless does humiliation disappear and humility become a way of life? When does it become too painful to remember your family and friends who have forgotten you when life threw you a curve and you struck out? Is it months, weeks or days?

It isn’t easy to see the people we love struggle with things that come so easily for us like holding a job, paying our rent or mortgage, getting married, raising a family or even overcoming our addictions. Since watching the people we care about struggle hurts our hearts why is it we can’t put ourselves in the shoes of those struggling? Why do we shun the ones we proclaim to love?

I ask all who read this blog today to search out your family tree and circle of friends past and present. Find that person you lost contact with because their life didn’t keep up with your successes. Reach out to them; find out where they are. Rediscover who they are. We are never the same after a hardship as we are going into one. Lady Luck’s nature is a fickle one. We never know who she will turn her back on next. Isn’t it better to have our heart hurt a little trying to help someone less fortunate because we feel some empathy then to have Lady Luck turn her back on us and we find out just how lonely it is to be poor and alone?