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Much of my comfortable life is due to nothing but dumb luck. I have friends who lack just one of those advantages, and their lives are much more painful than mine.
I believe that poster is very right. I made some really, really poor choices when I was young in fact it's a small miracle I survived to adulthood. But I was a pretty young white girl. When I got caught shoplifting I was let go. When me and my best friend were caught by a cop with pot, we were let go. There was no shortage of people who wanted to rescue me. No shortage of places I could go for licking my wounds and starting over. I was then left money that allowed me to return to school, after dropping out in 11th grade. My high intelligence allowed me to get great grades and transfer from CC with a stipend to a very good school for OT.
When I now work with many poor, those who did not have white skin or good looks or families to take them in or cops who let them go to have a second chance, I think "there but for the Grace of God go I". Luck and birth circumstances have much to do with what happens to us in life, and whether we get do-overs in life. If I were a person of color, or ugly, or with a lower IQ, I would not be where I am if I did everything exactly the same as I did. It is not conjecture, I know it's true.
i can tell you this , i am still friendly with some of my old child hood friends from the projects where i grew up .
they had every opportunity i did , in fact i begged them to go to apex with me to learn a skill . they declined and made the choices to just float from one dead end job to another . well i found a very lucrative career by going to learn air conditioning and refrigeration that gave me a 40 year run and a good steady income .
they are now raising their families in the projects and still are struggling with their low end jobs. this wasn't luck! they had bad plans and never created opportunity .
It isn't just about luck, planning, hard work etc there is much more at play. One thing is the sequence of events in your life and the year and timing of those events. So many early boomers had their lives shaped by a simple decision made by a bunch of folks they didn't know sitting on their local selective service board. Or their draft sequence number. If you don't think being or not being drafted was a significant life determiner .......
Go to college? What is the job market when you come out? Good or bad? That can shape your future career right there.
For younger folks now it can often be not about their financial planning but their parents.
Mom and dad pay for college=no debt
You borrow=debt
Just so much beyond our control. The trick is planning around what we can control and trying to have alternative plans if things detour south. I said detour not head because the goal is to get back on track to towards your intended goal.
I believe that poster is very right. I made some really, really poor choices when I was young in fact it's a small miracle I survived to adulthood. But I was a pretty young white girl. When I got caught shoplifting I was let go. When me and my best friend were caught by a cop with pot, we were let go. There was no shortage of people who wanted to rescue me. No shortage of places I could go for licking my wounds and starting over. I was then left money that allowed me to return to school, after dropping out in 11th grade. My high intelligence allowed me to get great grades and transfer from CC with a stipend to a very good school for OT.
When I now work with many poor, those who did not have white skin or good looks or families to take them in or cops who let them go to have a second chance, I think "there but for the Grace of God go I". Luck and birth circumstances have much to do with what happens to us in life, and whether we get do-overs in life. If I were a person of color, or ugly, or with a lower IQ, I would not be where I am if I did everything exactly the same as I did. It is not conjecture, I know it's true.
I grew up in a low income rural town in New England. I’m white, female, never been the type the boys chased after. Much above average SAT scores.
My sister is white, never took the SAT, but was the chick every guy wanted to land. She graduated from high school and immediately married into a family that had a lucrative local business that is now worth millions. Instant security at age 18.
Meanwhile, I parlayed those scores into an ivy education, Wall st and Silicon Valley careers.
Retired at 42 with a multi-million net worth.
My sister decided to leave the marriage within 5 years. She had opportunities to go back, and opportunities with many other successful men as her looks were still intact. She made a lot of bad decisions and is lucky to alive. Completely broke.
Both of us had some luck in our birth circumstances, but lower middle class, in a family with zero college educated family members still requires an awful lot of “can do” attitude and good decision making.
I think the biggest difference between myself and my sister is when things didn’t quite go our way, I tried to learn from my mistakes and acknowledge that others might have more answers than I did. My sister couldn’t rebound from setbacks. She always took a victims mentality of it’s someone else’s fault.
To me, this is the biggest difference between me and her. And I see the “victim mentality” in the vast majority of people who are down and out.
It isn't just about luck, planning, hard work etc there is much more at play. One thing is the sequence of events in your life and the year and timing of those events. So many early boomers had their lives shaped by a simple decision made by a bunch of folks they didn't know sitting on their local selective service board. Or their draft sequence number. If you don't think being or not being drafted was a significant life determiner .......
Go to college? What is the job market when you come out? Good or bad? That can shape your future career right there.
For younger folks now it can often be not about their financial planning but their parents.
Mom and dad pay for college=no debt
You borrow=debt
Just so much beyond our control. The trick is planning around what we can control and trying to have alternative plans if things detour south. I said detour not head because the goal is to get back on track to towards your intended goal.
the year you are born and who your parents are , is the "LUCK OF THE DRAW "
I grew up in a low income rural town in New England. I’m white, female, never been the type the boys chased after. Much above average SAT scores.
My sister is white, never took the SAT, but was the chick every guy wanted to land. She graduated from high school and immediately married into a family that had a lucrative local business that is now worth millions. Instant security at age 18.
Meanwhile, I parlayed those scores into an ivy education, Wall st and Silicon Valley careers.
Retired at 42 with a multi-million net worth.
My sister decided to leave the marriage within 5 years. She had opportunities to go back, and opportunities with many other successful men as her looks were still intact. She made a lot of bad decisions and is lucky to alive. Completely broke.
Both of us had some luck in our birth circumstances, but lower middle class, in a family with zero college educated family members still requires an awful lot of “can do” attitude and good decision making.
I think the biggest difference between myself and my sister is when things didn’t quite go our way, I tried to learn from my mistakes and acknowledge that others might have more answers than I did. My sister couldn’t rebound from setbacks. She always took a victims mentality of it’s someone else’s fault.
To me, this is the biggest difference between me and her. And I see the “victim mentality” in the vast majority of people who are down and out.
I understand and agree smart decisions make a better life. That was really my point. I was "allowed" by society to make stupid choice after stupid choice and still get do-overs. Many do not get to make up for stupid choices. If I hadn't been born with advantages, I could be like the many who never get the do-over, who drag criminal records around for their stupid choice that affects everything forever, while I got a clean slate over and over not because of anything I did but for who I was and what I looked like and mainly the perception of society about whether I deserved second and third and fourth chances. Would I have gotten the same chance to make stupid mistakes and then put them in the past and start over if I weren't a young pretty white girl? I believe I wouldn't have.
There are millions of poor in this country who would love a do-over but would never pass the background check for a professional license or even at a job at McDonalds because society treated their stupid choices differently than mine, even when they were identical to mine. People want to believe it's a level playing field but it's not.
today so many left unemployed or in dead end jobs are there because by todays standards they are unemployable .
it used to blow my mind how many we drug tested and failed for opiate usage ,not even pot .
others have poor background checks , poor credit histories , and many speak like street thugs and can't get hired .
for many it is not the fact there are no jobes or good jobs . it is the fact there are few jobs for them .
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