Call me a glutton for punishment.

No, I'm not referring to the song, "Both Sides Now".   Sister Ruth had the 8th grade class learn and sing it.   It's not a bad memory.    What I am referring to my desire to learn more about my economic class through reading.  The library contained a book by David K. Shipley called The Working Poor: Invisible in America. Once spotted, I had to check it out and bring it home.  It's not the cheeriest of reads.  It is, however, strikingly informative.  I've been wallowing in some pretty grim statistics. 

As fate would have it, as I've been reading Shipley's book, I also read a New York Times article about a new book by Martin Seligman called Flourish.  Seligman is considered a founder of the positive psychology movement.  He came up with the term s"learned helplessness" to describe the conditioned response to arbitrary or inconsistent punishment and reward.  Shipley has noted this phenomenon among the poor.  I've had personal experience with it. 

 So how can a person, living below the federal poverty level, looking forward to learning how to live within a small trailer upon losing their home, without a lot of job prospects due to age, training and economy, how can that "person" flourish?  Flourishing seems a pretty ambitious goal.  At the very least, how do I look at the bright side in a situation that doesn't offer up a light side very readily?

Seligman, has formulated a set of five crucial elements of well being.

1.) positive emotion
2.) engagement (the feeling of being lost in a task)
3.) positive relationships
4.) purpose and meaning
5.) accomplishment

Seligman says, "Well-being is a combination of feeling good, as well as actually having meaning, good relationships and accomplishments."
Now, if I identify money as THE accomplishment, I'm in a heap of trouble.  If, instead, I use a positive viewpoint to define accomplishment more broadly, then I've got something to work with.

Seligman's ideas slap up against Shipley's book once again.  Flourishing for the poor would not seem an easy task.  It might even seem an impossible one.  Human beings rarely fit neatly into any theory or definition.  Working class individuals living below the federal poverty level aren't easily sorted into myths or anti-myths regarding how they got there.  The reasons are often varied and can't be attributed to just bad choices or outside circumstances.  In most cases, it's an elaborate interplay between self-inflicted and unjust systems and biases that continue to perpetuate "the of cycle poverty". (I'm sure I've read or heard of this some where but I've been referring to the set of circumstances and psychological profiles that combine to keep the poor "spinning their wheels" in the muck and mire of inadequate income as the cycle of poverty long before I rejoined the ranks of the poor.)

Seligman surprises me when he notes that people for whom good fortune comes too easily also experience "learned helplessness".  So both the poor and those with "too much good luck" experience the same feeling.  Apparently, it's not about the achievement.  It's about the path one takes to get there.

It is safe to assume that people hovering near or below the poverty level aren't racing out to pick up a copy of Seligman's Flourish.  Probably even fewer are reading Shipley's The Working Poor.  Who wants to rub their nose in their own misery?    Are the ideas and information provided by these two different books without merit?  What can be learned here?

Just suppose that as a society, we shift our focus.  We alter our definition of success.  We learn to value the things that are non-material, not financial.  Instead of the big house, new cars in the driveway and great vacations away from high powered jobs, we define accomplishment by the amount of personal satisfaction the things we do give us.  We value the quality of our relationships and not the quantity.  What if we define our worth, not by what jobs we have or what measurable achievements we've made but by who we are and how much enjoyment we find in life through the expression of our unique strengths and spirit?

If both rich and poor alike can experience "learned helplessness" the financial piece seems irrelevant.  As much as I'd like this "revelation" to take me to the bank with a huge deposit, I can't kid myself.  Being poor in America isn't the same as being poor in a third world country.  In some ways, it's worse.  Our dominant culture is awash with advertisements preaching to us about what we must have or buy in order to make our lives better.  We labor under the American Dream trying to achieve it when in reality few ever do.  It's very existence can make us feel like failures and hopelessly inadequate.  It's time to try another way.  It's time to redefine success and what it means to be satisfied in life.  Once the poor and the wealthy work together to dissolve the arbitrary and imaginary walls that separate us, we can devote ourselves to the advancement of all people and walk confidently into a brighter future.  One can dream can't they?