Being born in a service class family, I have seen a steady flow of money all my life. The childhood was spent hearing rant of elders on how things are getting expensive and why we need to get secured job with Tatas, Bank, LIC or Railways. The 1991 globalisation had minor or no effect in the the routine discussions and thinking process. However by 2000, the Jamshedpur township had changed. I am not a statstician, still every third/fourth high school passout I met were heading for further studies at Pune, Bangalore, Chennai, Kolkata or Delhi.
Somehow the children and their middle class parents were the Tata labour benefit jobs. They felt thirst for new. Though not a statstian I can still say, majority of us were again leading a service class life leading else where, only the pin code changed. Looking at the better quality education and inflation factor salary was hardly a factor. Then came a thought, if People moving out of a small town to have a better life in bigger cities, why there is no change in the core thought process about lifestyle, status or society. The answer may be lying in the thought process in how they look at money, earning, living, life goals and what they want to leave behind at legacy for their offsprings.
There is a lot of bitter sweet tale to this relationship with money. The thought process originates at the way we feel about the term money. Money in majority of the bottom of pyrmaid earning crowd is seen with a negative emotions like envy, hatred, difficult, far-off, false etc. The emotions ultimately create the relationship with money.
The mindset shift is harder than acquiring new skillsets. It comes with reading, observing, unlearning a few things and most of all treating money like what it is — enabler of a good life!
