Ummm, If a person spent just a few years hating the 40 hour a week thing, they could try and find another passion or kind of work. To choose to be poor: I've done that and I really don't like it so I would rather try and find some joy in the 40 hour a week job.
This is a question I ask myself all the time. I hope to simply find enough wealth to enjoy my life and not work myself into an early grave.
I have to say, this is the only question that you've asked that I thought appealed to me at all. I also have to say that limiting reality to those two poor choices is unrealistic, and altogether non reflective of any reality in this world that we both inhabit.
As long as i'm doing what I love, money does not matter. I believe that you should follow your passion in the work world, not the money. But to be answer the questions, i'd take poor (as long as it was on my terms).
So, you hate work, but you don't like being without either.
You could opt for being poor. I know many people who happily wander the streets. They only take work when they need a drink or a pack of smokes.
There are many agencies that provide for those who have not.
Or you could opt for 40 hours a week, or you could change jobs, or you could move to Europe and get one of those 20 hour a week jobs .
Or you could change the way you think. Any way you go, you will have to fill each day with some kind of activity. I advise that you choose the activity that pays.
Bottom line: it is the quality of the person that defines the quality of life.
I have always chosen to live a life I love rather than to be rich. For me, it's no contest. If I am passionate about what I do and I live each day to its fullest, then that is a much greater reward to me than money.
I cannot imagine being tied down to a job I hated.
If one has to choose only between these two I think a person should rather work 40 hours a week and try to find a kind of job which he/she can enjoy rather than choose to be poor.
I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.