Homelessness FAQ for Earthtym.net

Frequently Asked Questions.

Q45: Can I become homeless if I get an education and have ...?
Q46: Someone suggested that I save every penny ... strategy?
Q47: What priorities should I consider to avoid poverty
Q48: Can spiritual strength bring prosperity?
Q49: How safe am I around homeless persons?

Q45: Can I become homeless if I get an education and have a good job?

SUMMARY: Yes.

The following are status quo holdover myths that weaken our coping by our denial of the present.

The belief that:

bad things happen to other people, not me;
I can have complete control of my life apart from the decisions of others;
people who are out of work don't want to work;
people who are poor don't have skills, intelligence, motivation;
if you have good skills, you will always have a job;
social assistance recipients are weak-willed;
homeless people are addicts.

The myth context is that these assumptions can be applied to every member of groups of people loosely defined by personal interpretations of what category names include, stereotyping. At different times, some of the above have applied to a portion of those in the categories. Some of the beliefs have never had truth in reality and have simply been excuses offered by more fortunate persons for their lack of compassion and their self-centeredness.
The reality is that many experienced, productive, skilled, and loyal workers are being laid off daily, worldwide. This phenomenon of "economic rationalization" is also referred to by such terms as downsizing, amalgamation, becoming lean and mean, globalization, outsourcing, intrapreneurialism, homeworking, staff conversion to self-employment, mergers, buyouts, bankruptcies, and others. The net result is that the former employee, usually as the result of decisions made by other persons, or, through the encouragement of others, lose a stable source of income at a dependable level. This phenomenon has been spreading and increasing since the mid-1980s.
The availability of personal credit and the resource of personal assets allows many people to be persuaded by the popular media to feel ashamed and guilty about their new predicament. Believing that they are part of a unique incident, they do their best to cover it up. They maintain their lifestyle and try to build a business image and re-employment through the sacrifice of their assets and credit. The few who do succeed in such a strategy are then publicized as mentoring examples to the many. Often, the success attained has more to do with timing and persistence than any combination of skill or experience.
The destructiveness of this New Age myth is the persistent increase in the number of persons who are under-employed, financially desperate, job obsessed, motivated by addictions, unable to manage their time, declaring bankruptcy, and willing to participate in illegal or immoral practices through the rationalization that better times will afford them the option of better practices. In a community, what you do influences others and what they do influences you. If the influences are positive, there is no concern. If they are destructive in the longer-term, they should become a concern; otherwise, you are buried by avoidable disasters. You can't buy heaven.
Descriptions of common features of homeless persons are largely undependable. This category of persons is continually changing and we tend to content ourselves with authoritarian descriptions that fix everything to a present which is in the past, at the time of the writing.
Those drawing the conclusions have often never been part of the reality. Often, who is homeless today will not be tomorrow, or a week from now, or a month from now. They may become homeless again, or never. You may never have been homeless, nor knew anyone who was, yet, you may become homeless tomorrow.
The information in the Homelessness section of the earthtym.net site is a combination of personal experience and research. One without the other simply encourages self-involvement (subjective reality) or, self-exclusion (objective rationalization). What I have seen and found is that one or more of the following will contribute to your becoming homeless. If you don't want to become homeless, reduce their presence in your life.

Dependency on others for a way of life, income;
Co-dependency on another for a relationship, acceptance;
A concentration on fantasy entertainment, awareness;
Enslavement to drug, alcohol or nicotine, involvement;
An inability to communicate openly and honestly, spirituality;
The presence of Energy Blocks and chronic illness, health.

Q46: Someone suggested I save every penny for retirement.

Is this a good strategy?

SUMMARY: No.

If you save every penny, what are you not spending on?
And, how are you spending your time to get all those pennies?

Depending on our childhood financial restraints and the ways in which our culture has imprinted us with images of what you can get with money or will not get without money, you have placed a value and priority on money. Those values provide you with a perspective by which to manage money, or, they provide sources of money and personal possession of it with a control over you.

How much would you sacrifice for money?
How much would you set aside money for something else? The first question is easy to answer with some reflection. The second we usually answer with some reactive response that bears little relevance to reality.

What many people never come to realize until it is too late, until they have personal experience of the failure, is that once life has gone by, you can't get it back. There are few second chances in life. The real grief comes with the knowledge that had you been better prepared, more aware, more skilled ... much of what you have lost could have been retained. What is retirement?

When we are young, our inexperience does not allow us to find the relevancy presented to us in the form of social standards and social values: what others think and believe. Typically, most North Americans believe all the promotion and confidently go into the workforce and family with the enthusiastic expectation that they will succeed.

A few react against those standards and often become social outcasts, or, return to the fold later, as reborn entrepreneurs. One works for tomorrow. The other lives for today. Sooner or later, most of each fail. Only about 3% of North Americans live to retire and retire without becoming poor, miserable, or both, before death.

When I was a young adult, several social realities decided much of my life for me. I mention my personal process because it has been repeated by many of my own and other generations. No one learns that anything better can be done, or, even come to recognize what their own situation is --- if everyone is too afraid or ashamed to talk about it. You can learn from others, or, you can be stubborn and endure the pain personally.

It had to be assumed, in my culture, because those were the only options presented, that to work and be respected you had to make money. The more money you made, the easier it was to get another job, or, retain one's own job while exerting power. And for social respect, the more money you made, the more you were respected. Over the decades, this has grown to mean that the more possessions you had, the more you looked like you made a lot of money ... so, the more respect you received. An extension of this philosophy has become the myth of the idyllic retirement.

The whole concept of retirement rests on the assumption that at some pre-determined point in life you become economically useless to your employer and the culture, or, you are rewarded with a contented life after years of hardship and sacrifice. What is the crime you have committed? The same definition applies to a person's release from prison. Do the time, then relax and dine. What are you leaving for later that you could do today? What are you doing now, that you would rather not do, so you can relax later? What if there is no later? For 60% of North Americans, there is no later. They die first.

As a young aspiring adult, I quickly learned that I could not just do my job and have a family and social life. If I wanted career advancement, it had to come first. Everything else came second or third, or later. I progressed rapidly in promotions and in my technical skill development. I saved every penny. I did my work very well but I came to dislike the way it dominated my life to the exclusion of the other things I valued: wife, family, social participation, spiritual development, personal awareness, hobbies, relaxation. These were all for when I retired. And since I increasingly disliked the dynamic of working to subtle rules of selection over which I had no control and was discouraged from providing input, I decided to retire as soon as possible. That cut my quality time to nil, but, at age 30, I very on target to retire at age 40. Then I would have quality time all the time. But, it didn't work that way.

At the top of my career, my job was eliminated.
My employer nearly went bankrupt and laid off over 80% of the staff to survive. None of the people whose jobs were terminated contributed in any way to the problems of the company. At the same time, a driver on drugs, wrote off my car, leaving me in a coma ... only to recover with chronic health problems. An unjust legal system and an inept health care system almost drove my wife to a nervous breakdown.

My own personal development of self-awareness and maturity had been stifled from age 15 to 35, so that did not help my coping. While re-training, at my own expense, my personal growth began and led to a divorce. We split the assets and after re-training for 4 years and learning how to recover my health through my own research --- my retirement fund was nil. Spend the time, or decline.

Retirement would never be necessary if we paced ourselves.
You have to develop personal awareness, health enhancing skills, and a spiritual perception in order to pace yourself effectively and efficiently. These benefits take time and effort, and practice. In North American and most other commercialized cultures, time is money. Time spent is either translated into money earned, or money lost. So, you have to choose to spend some time to build the benefits which make retirement less necessary. You may not earn as much, rise as fast, or be as socially accepted by following this strategy as in just saving every penny, yet you will more likely reach an older age in health, happier, and with less debt than the others.

Q47: What priorities should I consider to avoid poverty?

SUMMARY: Self-sufficiency, self-awareness, balanced health, spiritual perception --- all equally important.

What do we mean by poverty?
Usually we mean not having enough money to cover the expenses necessary to maintain us day-by-day. So, the key is expenses. If the expenses are low enough, the income requirement need not be high, or, as constant.

Much of the living expense of North Americans goes to pay for dependency. We translate this into housing costs and travel expenses associated with our earning an income. The political standard for an acceptable ratio of income to housing expense for North Americans is 30%. The reality for many families is 50%. For some the ratio is 75%. It doesn't matter if you rent or own, unless, you own outright and have relatively low property taxes and charges. Paying for services and mortgage interest, and repairs is little different than rent. And often, it is higher than rent. And often, the amount of the mortgage payment paying down the principal, your true investment, is less than 5%. Decrease your cost of living and you decrease the income you must make in order not to be poor.

It is always easy to do what we have always done.
It is always easy to never question what our human mentors said was the truth. It is often easy, though hurtful or abusive, to accept the judgements of older, richer, or more powerful people who tell us that we are weak, selfish, ignorant, bad, or sick. Of course, that motivates us to work harder for them, or do more for them. Easy doesn't make it right.

If you want to be a somebody, you have to first find out who and what you are. That means finding out what your Basic Personality is, not just accepting the assessments of others. That means finding out about your emotions, not just letting others manipulate and deceive you with them. If you are using what you have in the most efficient manner, you won't be wasting your time and money on activities that cost, and don't deliver. Don't pine, make the time.

If your health is messing up your finances, your work, your life --- perhaps you would benefit from releasing Energy Blocks through Balancing Therapy. Often, your health outcome is the result of your health input. Poor patterns of input will result in patterns called illness. For most of us, illness costs. Time off work increasingly equals time not paid for. Enough time off work equals no income. The bills keep coming. You become poorer. Stop the illness, increase the income.

Patterns. We're talking patterns here.
Change the pattern and you can change your life. Change is not easy, for many of us. Change takes effort. Change means working from a place of comfort and dependency, through discomfort, to freedom and comfort. You can be a slave to addictive habits and be poor, or, you can dump the habits for choice and be richer.

Spiritual perception -- how does it relate to poverty.
With spiritual perception we can put the reality around us into perspective, find options, make effective choices, make what we have translate into more than we expect. What are we talking about here? Relevancy! If what you are doing rewards your Basic Personality on a daily basis, you are never poor. Rewards are not only physical, material, money. They can be, but there can be others.

What is it that really lifts your day? Does being out in nature do it? Does looking after children or animals or patients make you feel happy and worthy? Does showing someone else how to fish, or draw, or sew --- allow you to share over and over the thrill of when you first learned the skill? Does meeting with other people and persuading them to do something that will improve their life, remind you of what it was like when you discovered that you could improve yours? Money won't keep you from poverty. It can help. Only you can make yourself rich by your choices and actions and successes.

Q48: Can spiritual strength bring prosperity?

The assumption that prosperity can or will help one on one's Higher Path is erroneous by all Spiritually Guided references. Jesus spoke of the person who had material benefit as finding it almost impossible to become spiritually oriented. Physical wealth always has the tendency to dull the compassion, empathy, awareness, and reverence which one has.

Perhaps the error here is in what one defines as one's Higher Path.
For the New Age and secular followers, one's Higher Path is physical contentment with an expectation of peace, wealth, laziness, lack of need or of frustration. This is perhaps an Ego fantasy and a SuperEgo expectation of a materialistic society since few other societies beyond the industrialized ones express this.

The New Age and secular idealists would like to believe that well-intentioned rich people would improve the world in a compassionate way, such is a historical myth. This has so seldom occurred that most of human misery has resulted not from the efforts of poor people but from the efforts of the better off.

One's Higher Path, from a spiritual perspective, is what God wants for us.
It is that simple and that complex. We have been gifted with a Basic Personality which by the use of its strengths and the avoidance of its weakness it will be content. The Spiritual Guidance that we can receive to help us make more constructive decisions about career and finances often has more to do with financial sufficiency than financial wealth.

Sufficiency, from a spiritual standpoint is having enough, not having what we would like. Our Ego and SuperEgo frequently confuse sufficiency with want. What they want is much more than what they need in our society. It is often only by following Spiritual Guidance that they become grudgingly aware of this.

Following one's Higher Path, spiritually, does not necessarily demand a life of poverty or financial restriction. Ending up with financial wealth through Guidance happens so seldom because there seems to be few human Personalities which can cope constructively with such wealth. Add to this that there are few social realities supporting the acquisition of financial wealth that contribute to spiritual strength and one can understand the equation better. If you have to lie, deceive, manipulate, abuse, and mistreat others in order to become financially well off, how is such going to strengthen you spiritually. And why would a spiritual direction encourage such a path.

The secular materialist pathway, often shared idealistically by the New Age person, is that we are justified in doing whatever is necessary in the present so that we can do what we intend to do in the future. In other words, the rationalization is made that we can purchase our salvation in the future by enacting crimes in the present.

This is the core of the thought: that you can only do good and that you can do more good by throwing money or power at it. Human history proves otherwise, but the Ego is unconcerned with history and the SuperEgo only wants to hear what it likes.

The Pathway followed spiritually accepts you for what you are, not what you intend. You are judged by what you do, not by what you own or how much power you have. You are held responsible for your actions and inactions, your choices and attempts. Whether Spiritual Guidance will bring you financial comfort in the near term, long-term, or ever will depend upon the spiritual mission you have been given. And that will only be discovered by following such Guidance without any expectation other than that will be the best that can be for you.

Q49: How safe am I around homeless persons?

SUMMARY: This more often translates into how safe are they around you?

Whenever others are treated with disrespect, it is normal for them to become defensive. Most homeless people receive disrespect --- from everyone. If, in the past they have been abused by someone more powerful than they, it is also normal for them to fear that person, avoid that person, and become passive to such a person.

Anxiety will result any time a similar situation arises until the abused person comes to simply expect mistreatment before it happens. This expectation removes the anxiety and replaces it with confidence. But the confidence is one that he or she will be mistreated, unless, they withdraw, keep their mouth shut, accept the abuse, be passive. This will result in their harboring frustration first, which unresolved will build into anger.

If the cycle occurs enough times, or the person is humiliated enough in one or more circumstances, rage will develop. Rage becomes expressed as violence. It appears to the victim who knows nothing of the origins of this expressed rage to be an extreme response to the present action. If violence is acted upon a person who has taken no action beyond looking a certain way at the enraged person, the victim becomes confused, defensive, and feels abused. The potential for abuse received has been countered with abuse. Past abuse has been transformed into present defense against a fantasy. That is the enigma. The reality is not what it seems. You are a real person not a fantasy.

The mystery behind the answer is that you have to look into the past to know how the present is going to play out in the future. If the circumstance is common enough and repeats itself often enough we often project ... pardon, we usually call it rationalizing, the past into the future. So, now we see that the potential for you to be in danger from a homeless person is an enigma. It is a fantasy within the mind of the homeless person. The riddle is how did you become part of their abuse fantasy? That is the real question. Unless you understand the mystery, you can't solve the riddle, which makes you and the homeless person an enigma to each other.

The reality, if it plays out as a danger to you, is that you in following some non-verbal pattern the enraged person identifies with his or her victimization, forces them to defend themselves. You, the present victim will be encouraged through your ignorance and lack of awareness to assume that the aggressor is crazy. As craziness really means mental confusion, you are closely correct in your conclusion.

Being right, doesn't equal being safe.
The only sure way to be safe in such a circumstance is not to be there. The only way to be assured that you will never be in such a situation is to promote awareness, skill development, and ways for such persons to grow beyond such earlier experiences and release the Energy Blocks which now compel them.

If you understand the mystery, you have the answer.
If you are not participating in reducing and remedying the problem, you are part of the problem. It is only by participating constructively that you can change your part in the fantasy that is already real for the abused person. Leaving things as they are means supporting the continued growth and expression of abusive patterns. It means allowing the fantasy to play out and then disown it and say that it is "their" fault.

But you know the answer to the mystery now, so you are no longer ignorant. It isn't "their" problem, it is "our" problem. Each abuser multiplies their victimization onto their victims. Is the homeless person safe near you. If you are not helping them, you are contributing to their victimization. Be part of, or get out. Voyeurs are dangerous to their own health.

There is no guarantee of being safe around homeless person, yet, you can improve your odds. Check out the information in the Homelessness section of the earthtym.net site. I have been there. I didn't like it but I coped with it. I was sometimes in danger, but I never felt afraid and was never physically or sexually abused. Prepared, you are as safe as you can be. Unprepared, you are taking big risks.

Consider these features of homelessness:

Most FEEL desperate, depressed, frustrated;
Many have 1 to 5 chronic illnesses;
You have more money than they do;
Food, shelter, clothing cost money;
Most have suffered abuse;
Few have good coping skills;
You could be next!

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