Pleasure or pain: which would you choose?

Concur. It has also been well-said that poverty isn't lack of money, it's lack of options. The article's comments about Eastern Tennessee could have been illustrated just as well with examples from the UK - we joke about one part of Glasgow (Scotland) that there, you know you're a failure if you're thirtyfive and not a grandparent. My own country is looking at significant welfare reform, something along the lines of workfare, and the cries of outrage are being heard already.

If we are engaging with people who are poor, and this is a focus at the moment at the church I belong to, then diagnosis of /why/ they are poor is the critical need. An inability to delay gratification may be at the root of some people's problems, but that might not always be the case.