[earthanet]

Steve, I was just about to ask you to write about your bankruptcy! I was going to say that we can learn more from failure than from success, but after reading this excellent post, I've realized that I've been using the wrong definition of both. In reality, failure is giving too much power to society's definition of being poor as failure, and not giving enough power to my heart's desire. I've always been a nonconformist, but our social conditioning puts such emphasis on money and material things that it gets inside our brains without our noticing it. You've done a great job of explaining how true success doesn't mean getting rich OR living in poverty--it means giving up on money and material things as ends in themselves, and finding my creative energy, which is where the real power is.

Many of the responses to this post are heartbreaking--a lot of people out there are hurting right now. It's bad enough to be poor, but it's the shame that does the most damage. From personal experience, I can say that the best way out of this trap is to find your inspiration--not as an intellectual exercise ("I'd like to do X"), but to physically experience the joy of doing what inspires you, bookmark it with your brain, and come back to it as often as you can. Usually you have to actually do it to experience the joy of doing it, but even when you can't, you can tap into your body's physical reaction to it and bring it back whenever you wish. It's called imagination, and we can't save the world without it, so we'd all better get started!