Thread by @theBuoyantMan

Poverty is a curse.

If you're a man, and you're poor, there's no telling how much you'll be pushed around by the society around you.

Time for a thread. 👇👇👇

1/ Your self-respect and integrity goes for a toss.

Men in the society are EXPECTED to be the breadwinners.

Once you're 20 and above, your MANHOOD is defined by your ability to earn money.

And it's not just "enough to scrape by" money. No. You won't get respect for that.

2/ The men who are respected, envied, and looked up to in the society are those with the most money.

There are EXCEPTIONS to this. But, exceptions don't become examples.

3/ If you are poor, after a point, even your parents don't respect you.

An average parent considers their son as an insurance policy.

I take care of you until you're 25. You take care of me until you're 50.

That's the way they see you.

4/ Girlfriend/Fiance/Wife - for 99% of you, your better half will stop respecting you if you are down on luck, or almost close to having your bank account wiped.

Women consider poverty as a man's weakness.

If you're poor, you'll be treated as if you're reeking of weakness.

5/ If you have children, your children won't respect you.

You may be trying your best. You may be trying so hard.

But at a particular point (around their teenage), your children will hate you for being poor and keeping them poor.

6/ Your relatives of course, will NEVER visit you if you're poor.

Also, they will NEVER help you monetarily, or even consider meeting you for helping otherwise.

For them, you're a waste of time.

7/ Despite that, if you visit a relative, you will be an unwelcome person.

Very rarely will someone even offer you something to eat.

Most people will say some excuse to have you leave.

8/ Your in-laws treat you like shit.

If you're married and you don't have enough money, you're scraping by, and working hard to do something to get up from the pit you're in,

your in-laws won't recognize that.

9/ If you're being a miser for time being, taking physical and mental toll to save 10 rupees here, 20 rupees there, by avoiding auto and going in bus, by avoiding bus and going somewhere by walk,

you'll be considered the most unfit man to even have a spouse.

10/ Your in-laws, and even your wife will question you,

"Why does a man like you even need a wife?
You deserve to be wife-less".

11/ You will get your balls busted everywhere you go.

It starts at home.

Your wife will call you a good-for-nothing.

Your children will look at you with a combination of anger and pity.

Your parents will look at you as if you're hopeless.

12/ If you have a sibling, or a friend who is doing better than you are, you are always going to hear their name in your home.

As long as you're poor, as long as you can't afford basic luxuries, your family will continue to insult you directly & indirectly.

13/ Friends that stay by you during these times, are very very rare.

You're most likely unwelcome to their homes.

They will not attend your calls or reply to your messages.

They aren't friends really. They just don't want your life's poverty/negativity sticking to them.

14/ Nobody will lend you money. Not even banks.

Banks also will lend money only for the rich, for those who are able to pay it back.

You must prove you don't need the money. Otherwise, you won't get the money.

That's life's irony.

15/ The government won't lend you money to get back up on your feet, even if it got thousands in taxes from you in previous years.

The government will take even the money you paid in taxes and give it to billionaires who default on such loans and chill comfortably in Bahamas.

16/ If you're poor, even goddess Saraswathi abandons you.

As they say, Lakshmi and Saraswathi go together.

If there's no Lakshmi, usually Saraswathi isn't there either.

Very rarely does someone overcome that kind of a cripple.

17/ When you're poor, you have so much self-doubt and depression.

The anxiety that you have, that's your expectation of yourself due to the pressure of society's expectations on you.

You can't sleep. You want to resort to sleep, coz that's the only thing that's peaceful.

18/ You'll spontaneously cry at times, if you can't afford something so basic - such as 3 times food per day.

You then have to MAN UP and reduce the number of times you eat, and learn to survive with fewer meals per day.

19/ If you cry in front of others, you'll lose even more respect in front of others' eyes.

They will call you a "ne'er-do-well" (in tamil 'Kaiyaalaagadha Kabodhi').

They will ask you to suck it up and find a way.

20/ And throughout all this, you become hardened.

After facing all the insults, you realise that's how people are.

You understand that these are all facts of life that you can't control.

But you know the pain of being in your place.

21/ Somehow, you hustle here and there, pinch pennies, and be a budget Padmanabhan (a famous tamil movie of a penny pincher whose dream is to save money and buy a home).

You see a thin slim chance of surviving.

22/ You have no other go but to take that chance.

You have got nothing to lose.

You have got no respect to lose.

No dignity to lose.

Your wife and children don't care about you.

Your parents don't care about you.

You're better off dead.

But you don't wanna die.

23/ So, you take that chance.

You don't hedge your bets. You're like "fuck-all if I care".

You just dive right in, take that risk.

There's a tamil sentence, "masura katti malaiya izhupom vandha mala, pona masuru".

You go in with that attitude.

You are no longer afraid.

24/ If this works, you see a ray of hope.

If it doesn't, you don't fear going back to insults, disrespect, sleepless nights, anxiety attacks, and you yourself considering your life unworthy of living.

You're past all that.

25/ A month goes by without much change. Nobody notices anything.

But you notice the change - the change INSIDE you.

You're no longer a prisoner to poverty.

You decide you will get rich anyhow.

And that's the reality you live in.

26/ There's this concept called "Vairaagyam" in sanskrit/tamil.

It's what you have, when you have nothing.

It's a form of stubbornness and strength that you draw from somewhere you know didn't even existed within you, when you're down and out of luck.

27/ That "vairaagyam" comes into play.

You become a hardened man.

You're devoid of all emotions.

You don't care about happiness or sadness anymore.

You care about inner peace.

And your inner self won't achieve that peace before regaining the respect you lost.

28/ You still continue to face rejection in the society.

But you push hard.

You get rejected 100 times.

They don't know you've stopped caring about rejection.

Even when you're bludgeoned and buried, you will burrow your way up.

29/ The 101st time you try the same thing, you get things turning a little.

You continue pounding 1000 times.

You get rejected 990 times.

You make some moves 10 times.

You see that it's working.

30/ Right now you don't care if you die trying.

You're pushing with all your might.

You're grinding with all your effort.

You rarely go home.

And when you do go home, you don't talk to anyone.

You eat one meal a day, and you grind in your head.

31/ You can't stop thinking of how you can improve the grinding, pounding, and pushing.

You can't stop thinking of what kind of ways are there to make your pounding and pushing more effective.

You are slowly going all in.

32/ Earlier, you used to react to the insults that others threw at you - by crying, feeling sad, or with anger.

Now you're stoic.

You sometimes laugh at them.

They think you're mad.

But they don't know what you're upto.

You don't want to count the chicken before they hatch.

33/ As you keep grinding, pounding, and pushing, you start to create something of/for yourself.

Results happen. Your grinding gets easier, pounding gets easier, pushing gets easier.

You build tools that provide leverage from scratch. You now push, pound, grind more easily.

34/ And then, after years of hard work, angst, pain, and every single night of sleeplessness, but due to that "vairaagyam", you find the light, you succeed.

Money starts flowing in.

You have broken the barrier.

You start to get rich.

35/ You build even more tools.

You build even more leverage.

You find even more ways to make money.

You find ways to make your money make money.

36/ Slowly, your children start to notice the change.

Then, your spouse does. She stops bullying you.

She stops insulting you.

There's a shift in the way she talks to you.

37/ Then, your parents notice the change.

They stop shaming you in front of everyone.

They stop talking to you disrespectfully.

38/ Then, your friends notice the change.

They still don't care. They think it's a phase. They think you'll go back to being poor. So, they keep their distance.

39/ As you make even more money, as it becomes even more visible, word starts to go out, your name does the round, and people start recognizing your effort.

Your children now want to talk to you.

Your wife is showing signs of affection.

40/ Then, the tools you built, and the leverage you created, create further leverage for you.

The society starts to recognize you.

You become known to people outside the circle of friends, family, relatives, in-laws.

41/ Now, your wife speaks to you respectfully.

Earlier, when you were poor and were romantic, she dismissed you, and asked you what deservingness you have to be romantic at such a pathetic state.

Now, she yearns for you to be. She asks you where have all the feelings gone?

42/ Earlier, your children used to be ashamed of having such a father.

They were ashamed of replying to people who asked what their father is.

Now, they can't stop talking about you.

They actively seek your attention and time.

43/ Earlier, your in-laws looked at you like you were a worm.

Now, they treat you respectfully.

They provide you top of the line respect and service whenever you go to their place.

They consider your opinion and ask for it too from trivial matters to important decisions.

44/ A few months go by, and your friends start to see the change.

They start inviting you to their children's birthdays, their family occasions.

They start dropping by to your home, and inviting you to theirs.

45/ When you go to banks now, you have a dedicated relationship manager who takes care of things for you.

They extend you loans without you even asking.

They ask you that a loan is ready in 5 mins if you'd just sign a paper.

46/ Through this all, what was already hardened, has become stone.

You have seen the worst lows of being a human - Poverty and how people treat you when you're poor.

You didn't go after money for revenge.

You went after it to prove to yourself you still got it.

47/ You no longer feel anything.

You lost your emotions somewhere down there in the pit you were in, where others pushed you even further down and poured some sand too.

You are neither happy nor sad.

You are peaceful.

48/ After having seen the best and worst of human beings and how they behave when you have money and when you don't,

you know that money can do many things.

But you don't actively court it.

You don't even want it.

It's no longer a necessity for you.

49/ You know if push comes to stove, you can live on one meal a day, you can walk anywhere, you can run under hot sun, you can sleep under a tree.

So, you no longer care for any necessity or even luxury.

Your needs have shrunk.

50/ You no longer need money.

But money just keeps coming to you.

Even if you say you don't want it, people bring you money and wealth.

Educated people court you, and goddess Saraswathi follows Lakshmi - to you.

But, you don't care.

You leverage their knowledge to do good.

51/ You no longer believe in God.

You believe in kindness.

You help those you can, when you can.

You don't treat others the way they treated you when you were down.

You optimize for peace in life.

But, you are well aware you died long back in the pit.