In threads such as this one, when the consequences of one's choices and decisions are considered, it is often pointed out that no one WANTS to be sick, in debt, overweight, hungry, etc.
Of course not. When a person lights up a smoke, they don't say, "I'm
doing this because I WANT to get cancer." Nobody *wants* to, but it happens anyway as a result of the sum and cumulation of a life time of decisions each time to smoke or not smoke.
Where each of us stands today is almost entirely the result, the combined result, of all the decisions we have made in our lives. Getting to some other place will be the result of all the decisions we make from here on out.
I have heard many times, just as expressed by some in this thread, that almost everyone recieving food stamps (do they still call it 'food stamps' now that it's on those plastic cards?) really needs them and the abuse of the system is rare. Don't see it that way, do I.
farmstead here but from time to time I stop by a mart or grocery to pick up this or that. After I have agonized over getting the best bit of produce for the stir fry or the best possible deal on a gristly scrap of meat for tamales, almost every time I am in line behind three buggies piled high with things I cannot afford to buy and the score is paid with that plastic card with the American flag.
Have I ever seen a buggy with flour, dried beans, canned and frozen vegetables, ... the things that would make the food dollar from whatever source go very far ... have I ever seen those things in a basket paid for with the food stamp card? Yes, on very rare occasions. Mostly I see convenience food and expensive cuts of meat the cost of which I could feed twenty people for a month.
The way out of that poverty/dependency cycle exists. It isn't easy, it isn't pretty, and it doesn't start by saying "Poor baby, I'm sure this came upon you as a fell swoop in a single night and you had nothing to do with ending up in your present circumstances."
So to say that someone in those dire circumstances doesn't WANT to be
there is true if by that one means that if you could wave a wand, or
win the lottery, or some such and move to better digs around a better table, then they would WANT to make the move. Buth that's like saying that someone with advanced lung cancer would *want* to suddenly have intact lungs and be in full health. Your reckon?
But when there is a way out of the cycle no matter how hard, rocky, unglamorous, difficult, it might be and the person instead remains in
the cycle, then, yes, they WANT to be there compared to the alternatives.
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