“In Botswana, I lived on almost nothing and watched my students show up for school with a discipline that had nothing to do with money. What I learned is that poverty of resources is not the same thing as poverty of dignity, purpose, or community.”

“I joined the Peace Corps because I wanted my life to add love and fight hate, and living on almost nothing in Morocco taught me that clarity matters more than resources. When you have to explain what you need in a language you just learned, you stop performing and start communicating.”

“I lived two years in a Zambian village with no grid, no running water, and a stipend that bought almost nothing beyond food and transport. What hit me hardest was coming back and realizing how much of need in the U.S. is just habit.”

“In the Peace Corps I lived on a tiny stipend in rural Ukraine, teaching English with almost no materials, and I learned that having little forces you to build systems: I hoarded lesson ideas from every textbook, website, and USB drive I could find.”

“I lived out of a suitcase for years, slumming in hostels and doing Workaways across South America and Southeast Asia, and the people I met who had the least were usually the ones who had figured out how to like living in their own heads. My Peace Corps service got cut short by covid, but even that brief stretch taught me that subtraction, not addition, is where the good stuff hides.”