A Child's Broken Dreams
Work has had be in a pensive mood lately. I haven't been able to grasp exactly what I feel because I don't truly understand it. A child with no dreams. A child with no aspirations. It is something that you can't blame on poverty yet it makes me wonder what role a parent plays in all this. I've been doing the rounds in gritty neighborhoods and I posed one question to the 2nd graders that I currently see. A simple question, that should be full of possibilities: What do you want to be when you grow up?...and the answers I get somewhat sadden me. A gardener. Selling clothes at a swap meet. These are answers I never expected. They leave me literally speechless. In a sense it is a product of their environment yet you would expect a parent to want more for their child. Yo no se. You can't blame the environment alone or else no one would rise above the obstacles they're dealt in life. You have to engage them. I have to engage them
There has to be a middle ground. Next to these mediocre answers, the follow up sentence is always: I want to be rich. I understand why they say it, but it makes me uncomfortable. I understand that for a child sharing a one bedroom apartment with five other siblings, money might have a special ring to it, but I hate it how at a very young age we put this value on money that it really shouldn't have. Money isn't going to make you happy. That's a fact. You can have all the money in the world and be the most miserable. In essence, once your basic needs are met, money does little to improve your mood.
40,000.
The magic number seems to be 40,000 dollars. Once you reach it, anything beyond it isn't going to matter much. Try telling that to America.
There has to be a middle ground. Next to these mediocre answers, the follow up sentence is always: I want to be rich. I understand why they say it, but it makes me uncomfortable. I understand that for a child sharing a one bedroom apartment with five other siblings, money might have a special ring to it, but I hate it how at a very young age we put this value on money that it really shouldn't have. Money isn't going to make you happy. That's a fact. You can have all the money in the world and be the most miserable. In essence, once your basic needs are met, money does little to improve your mood.
40,000.
The magic number seems to be 40,000 dollars. Once you reach it, anything beyond it isn't going to matter much. Try telling that to America.