Scott 1
Evan M. Scott
Carol Parsil
Comp. 1110-556
Oct. 21, 2012
The Rich vs. The Poor
“Mommy? Why don’t we live in a nice house like the other kids in my class?” asked a
five year old girl walking with her mother. “Well baby we don’t live in a nice house because
mommy can’t afford to live in a nice house,” her mother says with a little pain in her voice.
Imagine being that mother having to tell your own child that you can’t have a nice house because
you can’t afford it. I want to distinguish the difference as how the lives of the rich and poor are
different. I would like to discuss in this paper how not everything is easy to obtain when you live
in the lower class range, while the upper class has all the opportunities in the world.
The rich, as we like to call them, live in what seems to be a total different world than
everyone else does. In their minds they believe they worked hard to get where they got to when
in reality only a few actually worked for it. Some also believe that the lower class is full of
people who ‘mooch’ off government funds and do nothing to help their situation get any better.
An example I found of this was in the book of T. Harv Eker’s “Secrets of the Millionaire Mind”.
When I read this I was offended as how he had down played what the lower class mindset was
and had the audacity to compare how they think against how the rich think for example “Rich
people believe “I create my life.” Poor people believe “Life happens to me” (Eker 49). This is
totally false especially coming from experience, sometimes people do come into hard times and
yes some people do believe that life does happen but that is not the reason why they are poor.
The rich do not understand that it is hard for others of different status as them, to live a
good comfortable life in this type of economy. There are many more obstacles that we have to go
through than them. Poor families do not have privately owned valued goods that help boost their
income each year, or have privately owned companies that are only family owned. The poor
work to live a comfortable life where they can provide themselves and their families with the
Scott 2
things they need and things that will keep them happy. The rich spoil themselves and live fancy
lives because they can and know they don’t have to worry about spending too much like the poor
do.
Now there are ways that even the poor can obtain to become rich themselves but just not
as lucky to make it:
“Too many people believe that the rich in America got their wealth in ways not open to
most of us. The rich inherited most of their wealth, or they were born with special talents for
singing, acting or sports, or they just happened to be lucky. Inheriting money, being a star in the
National Basketball Association, or winning the lottery are great ways of getting rich. But these
are not the ways most people get rich in America, and it is a costly mistake to believe they are.
Most rich people in America did not come from rich families, are not great athletes, and have
never won the lottery. They got rich because they chose to do so, and pursued a path to wealth
open to most of rest of us.”(McKenzie and Lee 25).
