This is what I Have Learned (so far) from Growing up in a Poor Family

Let’s face it,

We all want to be successful, but we want it free and without pain and sacrifices.

We all want the best car, the latest smartphone, and going to the Bahamas to enjoy summer vacations.

We all want it, or, at least, that’s what I thought a couple of years ago when a fascinating question came up in my mind, and that is: What is success?

Well, I don’t know for sure, yet I do recognize that I have learned several valuable lessons from different people and experiences that made me question the common concept for success.

I promise that this isn’t a three-step-formula for success article because I don’t know it.

However,

I want you to think about how education and the right support at the right moment can change someone’s life, even in a country like Nicaragua.

I’m lucky I have a great family (That is not as poor as I thought it was)

I was the first child of a very young couple.

My father was 21 and my mother 17 at the moment I was born in a small town in the north of Nicaragua.

During their lives, both my father and mother passed through different hard situations and also made the wrong decisions. (I’m no one to judge, so my purpose is to introduce them to you, dear reader)

My mom didn’t finish her elementary school because she worked with her father and siblings cutting and selling the wood to other people.

If you’re from Nicaragua, you may understand this job.

However,

As you may be from a different country, I would like to explain this briefly.

In Nicaragua, especially in the communities and towns that are located far away from the capital, people survive by going to hills to collect wood, so they can sell it to other people to cook.

Usually, people earn around 1 or 2 dollars after a long journey, which includes waking up at 4 am and walking about 3, 4, or even 5 kilometers to get the wood.

Then, they have to walk back carrying the wood and go house-by-house offering it.

So that was my mother’s routine every day.

On the other side, my father did finish high school, but he couldn’t go to university.

By that time, going to any university was extremely expensive (it is still costly). And my grandma, who was in charge of cleaning an elementary school, could not afford it.

Furthermore, my father started working with an uncle in construction. And then he moved to work by his own painting houses and doing traditional publicity for local businesses.

The money was not enough, so the main priority was buying food to survive.

Besides, my parents didn’t have a place on their own, so we have to live in my grandma’s house. That’s how I ended up growing with my grandma, too.

When I was one year old, my father got a detrimental piece of land to build our house. It was small and placed in a ravine near a river.

Suddenly, Hurricane Mitch in 1998 destroyed our house, so we were (again) without a place to live.

By luck, donors from Spain, Germany, and Holland started a project to build some new houses for all people affected by this incident, including us.

And that’s how we got our house where we live with my grandma and two younger brothers.

My first big lesson came when I was in elementary school

I was just a small kid playing with a hand-made toy, which consisted of some little sticks encrusted in a lemon when my father asks me to go and do my homework.

In that time, I was just in first grade in elementary school, yet I’ve just decided not to come back to school.

The reason:

I was embarrassed because my little classmates made several jokes about the way I dressed.

My family didn’t have enough money to buy my school uniform, so I have to recycle some of my neighbor’s clothing. The problem is that it was old and was ripped.

As children, most of the time, we don’t realize the harm that our jokes and critics can cause in somebody else self-esteem.

However, I had the right support at the right time.

I would never forget his expression.

My father looked at my eyes — I felt how a tear slipped down my cheek — and he said — like if he knew my problem already — tell them that you prefer to be poor but smart, rather than being rich but mediocre.

My old me understood, at that moment that my education and learning mattered the most.

Believe me; I wanted to quit like thousand times not only during elementary school but also during my high school and university.

But, my father was always there to push me back to the place where I needed to be.

My mom, smiling, encourages me to study to avoid ending up like them.

See us as your example — she said — You’re born to be more than what we are now.

And my grandma, making jokes, just told me to defend myself against anyone who tries to hurt me.

My family didn’t have money, but they have a huge sense of humor.

And they were responsible enough to commit to the idea that education was the unique way to succeed for my brothers and me.

I tried to pay back their effort by studying hard, but it was not enough

I knew it, the way I dressed didn’t matter as what I was cultivating in my mind.

During the last two years of elementary school, I decided to participate in a national competition to define the best students for each grade in the country.

But, I failed.

The competition was divided into four different stages.

First, schools needed to define their candidates.

Second, the candidates from each school competed to define the best student from the community or city.

Then, each city candidate had to compete against other candidates from other cities at a regional level.

Finally, the candidates from each region had to compete against the other regions’ candidates to have the final winner.

I failed in the first stage for 3-years-in-a-row.

When I was in high school, I didn’t want to participate. I was a big failure.

However, my grandma told me that I had nothing to lose and too much to win. Let the world know your talent because we cannot afford a better future for you — I know she smiled to avoid crying.

I did participate, and that year I won third place at the national stage.

After that, I won first place at the regional level for four years in a row, and I achieved the second and third place in the last stage.

That was good enough to get a full scholarship in one of the most prestigious universities in the country.

In that place, I learned the English language and the second most important lesson in my life.

At the university, I met people from Honduras, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Panama, the US, and other countries.

This also meant that I met people with much more money and that have had a different life than me.

My parents didn’t spend too much money when I was at the university since my scholarship covered the payment for a room, books, and the payment for each semester.

However, this didn’t mean that I was apart from my reality.

I tried to talk with my parents as frequently as I could, and, on different occasions, I knew that they didn’t have enough money to cover all expenses at home.

I questioned myself several times if the university was right for me, or I just needed to quit and look for a job to support my family.

It would have been the best decision, but I didn’t.

Besides that, it was hard for me to say no to my friends’ trips, birthday celebrations, and other events that require, as you may know, some money.

So while my friends went to the beach or went to a party, I was in my room listening to music, reading a book, or learning how to write poetry.

Weekends meant an eternity, and all nights were long and full of sadness.

By luck, I had incredible roommates that were as crazy and extroverts as I could never be.

They gave me long nights talking about nothing, trying to study, and running at 3:00 AM in the soccer field to avoid falling asleep.

I got Fs in some tests; I was claimed to be the best in other courses.

Learning become a more advanced task. Thus, it was not to learn and repeat a concept from a book; it was more about trusting in myself to break the barriers of my comfort zone.

I learned to give speeches, to give epic presentations, to dance, to speak more to people, and to be more inclusive.

Empathy and emotional intelligence were abilities that appeared in my life, and those skills helped to question and comprehend people. (Including my parents)

My time at the university helped me realize that I was living in a bubble and that just studying hard was not good enough to succeed in life.

I learned that by growing up in a low-income family, I unconsciously molded my mind to just one world perspective. Their perspective.

A way of thinking in which there’s not an exit door.

Study, work, and die. What type of life is that?

I discovered a new big world full of opportunities for people like me. And if I wanted to take advantage of that big world, I should abandon my comfort zone.

And, basically, that is the main reason why I’m writing this piece of content.

I just had to create a new perspective and continue learning

My parents’ plan was to help me finish my university studies, so I could start working and earning money. In that way, I could guarantee a better future for me.

Nonetheless, that is the most common plan of miserable people.

Just think about it, you are born, you study, you work, you have a family, and then you die.

That’s it. (No it’s not like that)

By now, I’m 23 years old, and I have earned experience in the digital marketing field.

My father biggest desire was that I worked as an accountant (Because I’m good at math)

My mom's biggest hope was that I became a Doctor.

And my grandma wanted to see me as a lawyer.

Although I had a degree in Business and Marketing, I’m here trying to make my path as a copywriter.

I know that my family won’t understand my profession, and perhaps they won’t share my excitement. However, I discern that they will feel so proud in the future.

I can support my family now, and that makes me happy. But, I also envision more significant projects.

Thanks to my family I could go out of a detrimental cycle of poverty, and although I’m not rich (economically) I have enriched myself throughout the years by learning from big failures, success stories, and other people's experiences.

Growing up in a poor economic and social environment gave me the right tools to first understand how to live with no money and how education is critical to fighting against poverty.

Lastly, education gave me the tools to explore a different life and to create empathy with people from other backgrounds and with different stories.

Perhaps, I could have wished to be born in better conditions. However, life gave me the opportunity to fight to create my unique success.

Thanks for reading my story. By now, I’m a Content Marketing and SEO Strategist in Nicaragua. If you would like to add me to your Linkedin connections, please follow the link above