Trust me, if you're like most Americans, even our "poor"...hell, even our HOMELESS Americans have it better than truly poor people in other countries. Many of them don't have the systems in place to turn to that we do. You're never as poor as you think you are. If you have it in you mentally and truly have the desire to change your life you usually can. Very few Americans anyway, are truly born into completely hopeless situations. I remember getting into a quasi argument on one of these forums a few years back with some guy. He was "broke", but he just refused to believe he could improve his life. He also had the time to sit on his ass a few hours a day on a PE forum...talk about being productive. I gave him suggestions and ideas on what he could do...a different easy to get into job, for example. Everything I suggested was supposedly too hard, below him in some way, or he'd supposedly already tried it.
Me personally, I'm a damn survivor and I will do whatever I have to do to get to where I want/need to. I've been over my head in debt, about to lose the roof over my head. I hurried up and got a damn job waiting tables. Once I got into my grove at that job I went and got a second job. I would literally get up at 3 in the morning, go work the first job for 8-10 hours, go home and shower, go work the other job...get home around 12-1 in the morning sleep for 3-4 hours and repeat it all over the next day. Did that for over a year, but I got myself out of $40,000 in debt really damn fast. Thing is, I know there are likely some brothers here who have had it even worse than me. Too many people are just lazy and too willing to give up on themselves, or expect a handout, or an "easy" fix.