Since the 1960's global poverty has been massively in decline and this is continuing and I hope, continuing until it is eliminated completely, and the definition of 'poverty' is updated to a much more comfortable number. Poverty is defined as living on less than $1.90 a day (about £1.30).

Imagine living on £1.30 a day

This isn't the reason to be cheerful, I am coming to that in a moment on a macro level. But just imagine... terrible isn't it? You can't even get out of your front door for that. In fact, your front door at £800 would be nearly 2 years of living costs.

Just writing this down is making me feel incredibly grateful and lucky. That I live on a lot more than this is nothing to do with me, it is due to circumstance and happenstance, certainly not the power stance I have been working on. Pure luck.

Poverty is not an accident. Like slavery and apartheid, it is man-made and can be removed by the action of human beings - Nelson Mandela

News is Negative

This is another example of the negativity of the news. It seems that things are getting worse all the time and sometimes, there will be dips in this. But in reality, people are escaping poverty every day. There is a fantastic website where you can watch this, call the World Poverty Clock. It's not on target at the moment, but still 1 person a second is escaping poverty and the 677 million in the world that are forced to live like this is going down. It has declined 80% since the 1960's

https://worldpoverty.io/headline

The rate of decline is too slow, but it is still in decline!

Why is this important to you?

Mainly, because you are a nice person, and you want people to have the same opportunities and lifestyle as you. You don't see that for you to do well others have to do badly. You recognise that the world has enough for everyone and not just you. Your 'abundance' mindset means that you seek to assist those that others would try to hinder, as they see them as competition. You know there is enough to go around and what goes around comes around!

Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed - Mahatma Gandhi

However, poverty also affects you because people living in poverty are not able to reach their potential, and that is the potential to change the world. Anything that holds back one person from achieving their best can subdue or eliminate their impact. They could be the next scientific great, a political leader for change for the good or a musical genius. Who knows? But 677 million people could have a massive impact, which they can't if they are trying to get by on £1.30 a day.

Also, poverty has a negative impact on the world by:

• Increasing levels of crime and terrorism.

• Negative impacts on the environment. You don't care about CO2 levels if you are starving.

Economies and money are not a zero sum game. Yes, you CAN make money that way, but it is also possible that everyone is better off and that should be our aim. This is possible and it IS happening. Slowly, yes, but it is happening.

The bi-product is that the more people you help, the richer you become mentally, emotionally, spiritually and definitely financially. - T Harv Eker