The Corner®

View Original

HOW POVERTY RESTRICTS AND ENFORCE A CAGED MINDSET

HOW POVERTY RESTRICTS AND ENFORCE A CAGED MINDSET


The other day I was covering a lot of ground in Michigan and it just open my eyelids on how much I couldn’t see in my own state because of restrictions. 

Financial restrictions close a person off to so much, including traveling.

When people aren’t given the resources to explore complacency can set in. 

When people become complacent, excuses comes in like a tidal wave, giving people the most absurd reasons to why they CAN’T do something.

People start to act like they don’t want something because they don’t have access to it.

Which was the case w/ Gucci Mane, an American rapper, who’s been known to have extensive run-ins with the law.

However after his most recent bid, life changed for him completely, transforming Gucci into a whole new man, so much so people started a running joke saying he was a clone.

Gucci Mane, spoke with his interviewer, Charlamagne Tha God (Popular Radio Host), that he would come up with half-ass excuses to why he would not want to visit a foreign country. At the time, he couldn’t visit foreign land because of his criminal record.

Knowing the criminal record was the true reason, Gucci’s mindset instead deferred to rejecting places he couldn’t visit in the first place because he couldn’t face the truth about his restrictions.

At that time Gucci Mane wasn’t financially impoverished but his mindset was.

Poverty can be literal and figurative.

In either case it restricts a person in everything they do. 

Poverty restricts a person dating life because poverty can create negative thinking that convinces oneself he or she is not enough.

Poverty can restrict academic performance, sport performance, anything that require human effort, poverty can negatively impact it.

To lose and shred the caged mindset, one must start to think free. This thought typically occurs when a person acquires more money but it must start before then.

People can start by choosing what they allow their minds to see everyday.

Growing up in my neighborhood I saw pitiful things, things that were detestable to me and below my standard of living. If I would’ve abided by only what I saw in my communities, I wouldn’t have amounted to much. I decided to place my eyes on different sources.

That first step for me was GQ MAGAZINE. The lifestyle depicted in that magazine was one I knew I wanted the moment I laid my eyes on it.

Seeing that helped shift my mindset from impoverished limited thinking to unlimited potential.

Whether its a magazine, movie, or even a family member. Seeing something opposite of the reinforced poverty lifestyle can spark the changed needed for the individual to escape a caged mindset. Once the mind is set free, their is no bounds to what one can see.


Follow Me on Twitter @onlyonejaevonn

Visit gettothecorner.com