Poverty refers to a state of perpetual stress, a feeling of being powerless, a kind of hopelessness causing deprivation of basic needs and shortened life expectancy.
Welcome to the real world!
Since young, my blue-collared parents toiled hard to afford us an education and we believe that it would deliver us from poverty.
They were heavily brought by the paradigm that if you worked hard enough with a graduate education, you would be released by the servitude and pain that is brought by poverty and low status.
My parents were the ones who were kind and honest, never cheated, and accepted what was given by the fate and state.
Thank God for the grace and mercy, their children managed to barely conform to the system and scraped through the mindless local university education which rewarded nothing but good grades.
A local university education is a ploy, a ploy to seduce people from the middle and lower income family into surrendering their money for better career prospects and locked their children away from early working exposure as the economy is tight and unable to produce many good jobs for the local population.
After graduation, I barely survived a patchy career as I became inflicted with schizophrenia (genetic disadvantage).
It took me some time off to get rid of the voices inside my head.
After that, I encountered a corporate psychopath who happened to be my boss.
I was heavily tormented with heavy verbal abuse, mind games, object throwing, heavy work load, late night meetings and harassing remarks for one year.
During this period, I was downtrodden with a bruised self-esteem, yet I can’t leave as there are bills and loans to pay.
I was constantly pondering whether I was such a lousy commodity or slave, condemned to a lifetime of poverty. I told myself since I was that bad, it’s imperative that I would never reproduce or have kids, because bad genes and environment would never have good outcomes
Soon, the bastard bounced me out of the company.
Thereafter, three successors to my position arrived and failed to outlive me.
As I have extricated myself from this company, I began to embark on a 6-month tortuous job seeking assignment.
I have to struggle between the shadow that casted upon me during my last job and the bleak future waiting for me as I have noticed that our economy would not be growing until 2014.
At the same time, there are spinned illusions spewed out from my parents saying “If you don’t work, there’s no money and we would be sent to hell”.
Out of desperation, in order to get the horse, I ride the cow (Chinese idiom).
This means that after getting shortlisted for so many positions when there’s no or slow response, I decided to end it off by omitting my degree qualification in the form.
Come on, some of my friends did that because the process of waiting kills. The real teaser only comes in when I received the phone call next day, affirming my appointment.
After waiting for months, my job search process was amazingly expedited through under declaring my qualifications. And yes, I was disgusted because I was committing a legal crime (not moral crime) and underpaid certainly. Pardon me for not disclosing the nature of my job because I want to protect my identity and family. But my organization is statutory in nature.
I may conclude my story off by the realization that if one is in a “survival mode”, his or her anxieties may tie his/her to the indoctrinations that have being reinforced by her culture.
This will cause her to devalue her/himself, which is the current notion of today. I, as the commodity of the system, have failed to utilize myself to the potential, due to inherent fears and securities that I may not be able to get a job.
To worsen the situation, I have also failed to oblige my social and genetic duty as I have only earned a pittance and felt trapped by our meritocratic system here. This is the bitter reality I face.
This is the ugly truth.
I would implode people to question about the myth of poverty again. Is poverty caused by :
- refusal to work
- welfare dependency
- poor people don’t plan ahead, i.e. idea of instant gratification
- there are enough jobs around, anyone can get a job if they want one
My article is only meant to invoke people to have compassion and not to blame the graduate poor for not working hard enough as opportunities are few out there.
Mabel
*Article first appeared on http://www.transitioning.org/2013/06/19/female-jobless-graduate-managed-...