Impoverished Mentality

Recently discussions within our house have revealed a rather touchy question, "Is poverty a mindset or an uncontrolable injustice?"

Half the world — nearly three billion people — live on less than two dollars a day.

Trapped in a perpetuating cycle of poverty, how can one escape? My long standing view of poverty was that of an undesired situation that generally one is born or forced into due to circumstances beyond their control. Seeking to serve and help impoverished peoples around the world I have always viewed poverty as an oppressive injustice.

Now I find my paradigm being challenged, with the introduction of a thought that poverty is more than ones present physical condition, but a victim mentality that serves to entrap them internally. This belief then flows outward, never allowing them to progress beyond their current situation.

As I survey the world around me, it is hard for me to fathom how anyone could continue to keep themselves in a state of poverty when there is so much more to life.  Is the line purely as black and white as a mindset vs. a condition?  Life is never that simple.  

I do see how the case could be argued though, especially in light of the reality that when a person hears something for long enough it can be challenging to distinguish reality from fiction. Thus breeding a sense of hopeless and despair, which continues until One has the strength to fight against all the odds, refusing to settle for what has been and pressing on to what they know could be.

Definitely something to consider and a question that is void of a simple answer