# Choosing Poverty **A Statement Against a System of Inequality** This isn’t some romanticized, “I’m-going-to-live-off-the-grid” hippie diatribe. This is about choosing poverty as a statement, a big, fat, middle finger to a system that doesn’t see equality for all human beings as an objective. It’s about rejecting the idea that our worth is measured by dollar signs and that our consideration for each other is some kind of economic equation. And an incorrect equation at that. Now, I know what you’re thinking. “You’re choosing poverty? You, who once owned a house that sold for a million bucks and earned $165,000 a year?” Yeah, that was me. But then I found myself living partially on food stamps, and you know what? I discovered joy in things that don’t have dollar signs in front of them. It’s like Warren Buffett, who I sincerely believe has come to see the good he can do with his vast wealth. He’s gone further than all of us. And you can too, whatever your means. I started with a “dollar a day” challenge. If someone asks me for a dollar on the street, and I have it, I give it to them. Even if I did that every day for the rest of my life, it would be less than the cost of a new car. But for whatever those dollars are spent on, maybe cigarettes or booze, or who knows what, it’ll be a better investment than that car. And that was infectious. I once found myself with $4,000 in hundred-dollar bills that I tried to pay to my former greedy corporate landlord when they attempted to evict me over a $132 dispute. They ultimately succeeded after paying a large law firm perhaps tens of thousands of dollars, but because accepting that rent would undermine their court case, it was rejected. I instead chose to give a few people surprises, and some of those one-dollar asks were automatically upgraded. I wish I had stopped long enough to see the reaction of a man who asked me for a dollar, which I gave him, and then said, “Two dollars will buy me something nice.” I had only one other bill in my wallet at the time, but to be honest, I was embarrassed at seeming patronizing and scurried off as I handed him the hundred, so I hope he did buy something nice. Now I’m saying, choose to be poor. Opt out of the system that doesn’t provide for you, and doesn’t provide for anyone. Because no matter how much wealth you have, there’s always a reason for more. Even billionaires see other billionaires with newer yachts, bigger houses, better companies, and they want more. Not for their fellow humans, mind you. That’s an egregious crime against humanity, and one I can’t participate in anymore. Throughout history, there have been those with immense wealth who died in poverty. I hope they died happy, because it’s nothing to die with a big bank account. What a shame to have such an opportunity and squander it during your life, to miss out on the joy that could have been provided. This isn’t about being a martyr or a saint. It’s about choosing to live a life that aligns with my values. It’s about rejecting a system that prioritizes profit over people. It’s about finding happiness in the simple things, in human connection, in the act of giving, in the knowledge that I’m not contributing to a system that perpetuates inequality. I see enough hypocrisy in this world of ours, so mark my words, I mean what I say. And yet it’s astonishing to me that those who say they participate in the rationality of our economic system commit such irrational acts as my former landlord, or even my former employer, who illegally terminated me for going on federally protected medical leave, but then stubbornly refused a settlement that even equated to the twelve weeks of paid leave they initially granted me. And yet here we are. But they are entirely greedy, hungry for more to extract—oddly seen as the maximum economic value. Here’s the part where I go off on a polemic about how lawyers have ruined the world, and I truly mean that. But they should probably go to accounting school, or at least learn economics, because my former employer and my former landlord have one thing in common that will run them into the ground: those same attorneys who, it seems, just like to argue even at their client’s expense. Win, lose, or draw, they still get paid by the hour. And so a $132 dispute is now a $50 million lawsuit for fraud, misrepresentation, and real damage against my former landlord Veritas, founded by a first-generation immigrant and Harvard Business School graduate. He must have skipped the course on risk management and now seeks to squeeze every last dollar as his company runs itself into the ground very nicely. And then there’s iManage, which oddly provides software used by the world’s largest law firms. Its lawyers surely told them that I would happily take a 4-week severance, even after the 12 weeks of leave they promised me. $300,000, or two years of my former salary, was readily rejected, and yet they stand to lose between $3 and $5 million in an ultimate lawsuit judgment. They will lose for their significant violation of my rights and subsequent retaliation, and yet they surely are too blindsided by the short-term to see the forest for the trees. But my last offer to them was that I would accept a settlement going not to me, but to my non-profit in its entirety. I would not benefit one penny other than to see good come from where an injustice had been done. To spring forth good out of injustice—and the same thing will be true, I will forgo any personal monetary benefit, because the greater benefit is in knowing that somehow that will do tremendous good that I could never possibly realize on my own. This is my personal experience, my own perspective. I’m not saying everyone should choose poverty, and I acknowledge my own privilege. I know my experience isn’t representative of the struggles faced by those who live in poverty due to systemic inequalities. This is a provocative statement, a challenge to the status quo. It’s a call to consider the true meaning of value and to question the system that defines our lives. It’s a call to action, a call to choose a different path, a path that prioritizes human well-being over economic gain.