What are the advantages of poverty? Yes, you heard me right! In other words, what good can you say of poverty?
Joke apart, what is the good side of poverty?

I never thought, just as you are thinking now, that there was any good thing about poverty, especially because of the way we curse and pray against it in our churches and mosques, until the thought of writing this story came into my head.

Most of the people I spoke with in the course writing this story never saw anything good in the plague called poverty until I advised them to think deeply the way I did.

No matter how negative it might sound or what anybody might say about it, poverty has its own advantages, just like its globally loved counterpart, riches.

Do you care for such advantages? Find them below.

1. Poverty is one of the best teachers in life. It opens the spiritual eyes of its hosts to see, learn and understand the things of life. Whether most poor people learn from their poor state or not is a topic for another day of discussion.

2. Poverty is the mother of creativity. The Togolese-born Nigeria comedian once said on television that poverty helped him to discover his talent in comedy. I believe him in toto because of most the things of life that I know today were learn when I could barely afford a meal for myself.

3. Poverty is a killer of fear. Are you aware that most rich and wealthy people are always afraid to walk in public? Are you aware that most of them like living in heavily secure apartments? Are you also aware that most of them hardly sleep well as a result of fear of the unknown?

This is totally the opposite the life of most poor people. How? Are you not aware that poor people fear less than their rich and wealthy counterparts. Are you not aware that most poor people can walk freely anywhere and anytime of the day. Are you not also aware that most poor people even leave their unsecured houses open at night? I can go on and on on this topic.

4. Poverty is a good foundation of most successes. I am neither a graduate nor student of history, but I do know that most countries of the world got to their present enviable positions in their deliberate attempts to escape poverty. Japan, China, Malaysia and Singapore, and South Africa are some of such countries.

The same goes for some individuals. Most rich and wealthy individuals got to where they are after deciding to defeat poverty. How did I know this? I knew or discovered this because of my penchant for reading interviews, biographies and autobiographies.

5. Poverty breeds some form of courage – As most rich and wealthy people are courageous in so many ways, so also are some poor people. For example, while some rich people usually have the courage of taking boldly, especially in public, and taking investment risks, some poor people who do not have such courage have the courage of eating anything they like without being afraid of sickness or death.

6. Poverty brings out the humility in some people. Have you not noticed that most poor people are humbler than their rich and wealthy counterparts? If you notice any poor person who’s not humble, it is either that he or she is perpetually drunk with alcohol or has some elements of insanity in him or her. Poverty makes people humble with a view to getting what they want or need from their rich and wealthy counterparts.

If it is not for poverty, the world that we live in would have been more difficult than it is today. How? Because everywhere would have been filled up with more arrogant, proud and boastful people than we have today.

I know you are wondering what must have informed my decision to write this comedy sort of article. I did not write it because I want to glorify poverty and its cause-agent, Satan the devil. I also did not write it in order to lure or encourage other people to remain in poverty or to go back to poverty in case they had escaped its bondage.

There are two reasons that triggered off the writing of this article. One, to let you know that there’s sometimes sense in some of the things we call nonsense. And two, to make you laugh and reduce the stress which the present situation in Nigeria has caused or is causing you.

I promise you more of this story. Expect them!