Although there are many people who have the tendency to look down on poor people, I want to share my side of my story where I met rich and wealthy people who has shown a lot of empathy to me.

I was born into a family where monthly wage is around $1100 gross back in 1990s, my family would always quarrel about money and calculate our budget to each cent.

That cultivate a sense of scarcity in me which cause me to grow up later to be very calculating as well in my secondary school years.

Primary school and pre-primary school went fine since I don’t really grasp the concept of money and how the world works yet.

Then, things started to change in secondary school, my studies went from an all As student to getting f9 for all my subjects.

As I visited my friends condos and to a rarer extent, mansion, I start to build a concept of wealth gap and it’s effects in my mind.

I told myself that studying is pointless if we don’t even get the same opportunities to begin with and decided to just slack off. it hits me the hardest during prom when I could only afford a Levi belt and had to borrow a suit from my friend.

Nonetheless that friend did not laugh at me and neither did most of my extremely wealthy friends, there are a few of them who mocked my singlish initially but didn’t go too far.

When I was 29, I did meet a rather well to do person who would envy those better than her but secretly hoped that those poorer than her suffer, I had since cut off contact with her but wishing her well.

With all that I went through, it only taught me that showing empathy is an important skill because human beings are meant to work together and sharing is how we grow as a society.

Self improvement is important but broadening your horizon and not look down on others that are different from you is even more important.