Can we stop acting like everyone has an equal capability to become well off?

[DeluluTaylor]

Based on the pension thread but not about OP. All this ‘why do people spend their whole lives on MW’ is so woefully ignorant. Some people don’t have a choice.
Neurodiversity
confidence
childcare availability
institutional racism
learning disabilities
trauma and it’s impact
Lifelong insecure housing
Being able to speak English but not write it
So many, many reasons why it is difficult to climb up the ladder. I’ve never been able to as I don’t have the right skills for management. But the world needs more worker bees than managers!
Who do they think should do these jobs?

Maybe what I mean is this: our lives are shaped by the choices we make — and also by the choices others make for us. They’re shaped by the circumstances we’re born into, by mental health, by physical illness, by trauma. Not everyone starts from the same place, and not everyone has the same capacity or opportunity to reach the same outcome.
I had a friend who was locked in his house by his alcoholic mother during our A-levels. My heart still breaks for him 22 years later, even though we’re no longer in touch. Trauma like that doesn’t just disappear. Childhood abuse, neglect, instability — those things are heavy. They follow you.
No one truly knows the path someone else has walked.
So if you do manage to “get to the top,” there’s no room for gloating. You should recognise the pitfalls you passed — and how easily you could have fallen into them yourself.
You can be proud of what you’ve achieved. You can acknowledge that it wasn’t easy. And at the same time, you can recognise that it’s not a moral failing if someone else is still struggling.
Success and compassion can exist together.

Beautifully written. Thank you! What happened to your friend and his A levels? My heart breaks as my son just starting college in September....

Because society and the education system crushes the soul and ambition out of some people?

My mum is severely dyslexic, not diagnosed until 14 but from entering school was told she was dim and stupid. She didn't get to sit the 11 plus she was given blank paper and told to entertain yourself and be quiet whilst the rest of the class did the test. She left school barely able to read and write.

She went on to have a major stroke at 23 with a newborn at home and an abusive husband to boot. She had to learn to read, write, talk, walk all over again whilst trying to look after a child. She became a single parent back in the days where there was a lot of stigma. She was living in poverty reliant on handouts from family, friends and strangers to live. My sister was heading the same way. Identified at her school as a daydreamer from a single parent household that probably wouldn't amount to much. My mum met and married my dad, they moved house and found a new school for my sister that help her find her focus and aspirations.

My mum has the reading and comprehension level of a 7 year old. My dad is also quite severely dyslexic but has a natural ability for logic and that has allowed him to build a success career in electrical engineering. My mum worked for 30 odd years as an untrained nurse. It might not have been highly paid or highly skilled but it was something she could do well. Compassion is a skill that rarely is rewarded financially. The education system failed her and then her body failed her too.

Also I think the "just try harder" mentality is damaging. And victim blaming. Just try harder no matter the impact it has on you, if you don't it's your own fault for failing.

My brother suffers from quite serious mental illness. He will never be "successful". He's just moved into his own flat at the age of 36 and this feels like a massive win for him. I am not putting him down by saying those things about him, I'm incredibly proud of where he is given the challenges he's faced. I'd be very annoyed at someone suggesting he should just have tried harder not to be schizophrenic and then he could have been Elon Musk.

Sorry not sure where the gif came from and can't remove it!

Yes, absolutely agree that traumatic events shape the course of someone's life. Having been born three months prematurely and was weaned off heroin, I was very fortunate to be adopted by the most wonderful loving parents who gave me a brilliant upbringing.

I've written a post upthread outlining the events that have shaped my life over the past decade (head injury and post concussion syndrome before being injured permanently by an off label antipsychotic), and how this bad luck really impacted my life indefinitely, including now how my career is. The PP who pointed out that I wasn't being fair to those who achieved success through hard work did have a point, and i agree, but she hasn't experienced my trauma, health problems and the awful experience I've had to overcome with adverse reactions to medication and a movement disorder.

There is room for both circumstances and the decisions others make (and we make) that impact how things turn out. I agree with you about this totally. Those factors absolutely influenced my life in the past decade and i actually felt a bit upset with the PP who's not been through hell like that but kept going.

I'm happy your last sentence was so beautifully written, and made so much sense. Thank you 😊

I'm bookmarking this. It's a beautiful reply.

OP, what point are you trying to make?
That some people can't become successful? yes, of course. So what? there always will be people living below average for any given society at any given time.
Assuming it's sufficient to house, feed and cloths them.

Do you want everyone to be equal?

No, life isn't fair. I never said it was.

And I wasn't dismissive. Only in your opinion.

It's not totally luck. There's something called hard work, skill and drive. I agree with PP, you were dismissive.

Some people have yes, but we’ve decades of sociological research to prove that these are factors that prevent people from becoming “well off”.

No, that’s not what I wrote. You’ve added that part yourself

A massive part of it is entirely dependent on where you are born which is - I'd say - largely a question of luck. If you, for example, are born a girl in Afghanistan currently you could have all the work skill and drive in the world and still most likely end up an uneducated housewife with no rights to even speak outside your home.

Yes, i acknowledge that. But it's possible to have hard work, drive, determination, and intelligence yet bad luck that means all of it makes no difference.

Exactly. Agree. Some posters on here seem to think hard work and skill will get you to where you need to go, regardless of what luck you have. Life isn't quite that black and white.

I was born as a woman in India in a low income family. Didn't stop me getting my master's in civil engineering. People born in the UK have it so much better.

It's lucky for you that you had the opportunity for a degree, even in the face of hardship. It's also lucky for you that you had the strength and mental capacity to keep going. You should be proud of what you have achieved. I still don't think that changes my point.

What kind of "bad luck"? Health issues and disabilities I accept. But what else?

I don't know. Redundancies. Being a single parent. Divorce. Having not much support. Money problems. All sorts, I suppose.

I guess my bad luck was health problems but I just carried on for my children.

Are we talking statistics or anecdata?

Statistically intelligent and driven people with right attitude will be more successful than stupid and lazy ones.

Of course there are some tragic circumstances health and disabilities related, but in developed world people have plenty of opportunities to do well.
I don't think we should ever expect for everyone to be well off - it's all relative to the level of prosperity within given society. We should aim for everyone to have enough to live on.

An experience which has made you feel lesser than you are.

My mum has believed she is stupid and worthless and to avoid people who are capable as they will see her as she is and put her down because of this. This has come through the nature of the education system in the 60s and 70s and then from an abusive relationship.

My sister had to drop out of her a levels in part because of how the school treated her being stalked by a fellow pupil.

My primary school assumed because I was quiet and reserved I was dim. Thankfully I had supportive parents who gave me self worth but many without that support would believe the teachers when they put in reports that you "had fluked good results"

I experienced discrimination in my undergraduate degree and my PhD. I do have a mental health condition but with support and treatment I can manage. My undergraduate tutor told me "depression was a girl problem and he didn't deal with girl problems" and my post graduate supervisor engineered an almost impossible situation to come back from.

Some many people that come from difficult situations will say things along the lines of "I had the food fortune of finding a course that fitted alongside my 3 jobs" or "I had a mentor that inspired me". Those with bad luck look for a course that will help them do something but that course only runs on a Tuesday at 8am and it was impossible to get there in time or found a course but it cost £3000 to do it and I was already in a negative budget.

At one of my previous jobs we had a series of talks from people further along their career talking to those of us that were just starting. Once spoke about how she was able to restart her career after her husband died because of the kindness of her daughters teacher. Her daughter has just started school and she had been able to negotiate finishing at 3 to pick her daughter up at 3.15 and completely the rest of her hours once her daughter was in bed. In the meantime the school changed it's hours so that it finished at 3 (in an era before after school clubs). She broke down on the teacher and said she didn't know how she was going to keep working. The teacher said don't worry, I will keep hold of her until she got there whether that was 3.05 or 3.15. This was good fortune that allowed her to restart her career. It doesn't take much of a stretch for there to be a different universe whether that happened and there was no one else to get her and she had to seek out a different job or give up work entirely because it didn't fit with family life.

If you can look back on how you got from where you started to where you are now and say yes I worked hard and it paid out but I was fortunate that more often than not a solution could be found and that allowed me to improve my situation it doesn't take much of a leap to think there might another person where instead of a solution at each turn further problems arose?

My dad worked in china for several years when I was a child. He spoke to one of the female interpreters, she was one of the best but in a more junior position. She told him that she had been unable to afford to get the qualification that would allow her to move up to higher positions. It was a lot of money for her but affordable to someone on western earnings. There were three people from my dad's company working there and together they paid for her to get that qualification. She quickly moved to a new role earning far more than she was before. She had the good fortune of meeting people who were able to support her getting the qualification she needed. How many other women that didn't meet people like my dad and his colleagues who never moved on from starting position ?

Brilliant reply. Yes, I've had a lot of experiences that made me feel lesser than I am. I lost my ability to see in my mind's eye after my head injury. I lost my ability to read after it too. I had a breakdown, essentially it made me so ill that I was polydrugged and given a horrible off label antipsychotic that gave me a terrible movement disorder. This has made me even less of the person I was a decade ago.

Some people experience terrible things and recover. I have partly been ok but I will never truly be myself again. That person is gone.

Ok, let's work through this. Perhaps with a more physical example at first. Let's say that to be running a marathon very quickly was success. The factors that would influence that might be:

• Genetics - am I naturally sporty and well coordinated? - luck
• Physical disability - I have usable legs/ am able bodied/ no been in an accident - luck
• Location/ means - I am somewhere where I can train and have the luxury of time to do so. I don't, for example have disabled children or work 3 jobs to make ends meet and I can afford good running trainers - luck, largely, probably some choice involved..
• Discipline- I've trained well and eaten right - work/ effort (although I reckon some people are more naturally disciplined or motivated)

To run the fastest marathon ever is beyond me, no matter how much discipline I exercise, I am a 5ft2 43 year old woman. No matter how much work or effort I put in I cannot erase the luck factors. I can probably run a marathon generally, even if I didn't have the genetics or was physically disabled but that would require HUGE amounts of discipline vs someone young and naturally athletic. Even more so if I had lost my legs in an accident.

So for you and your degree, you obviously overcame a lot of adversity to get where you are. However you still had access to higher education (albeit in more challenging circumstances) than my example of an afghan girl, or say a refugee in a South Sudanese displacement camp. You also like have decent mental health and intelligent to be able to overcome adversity - again some of that will be genetic or circumstance of your upbringing. Someone who genetically is not intelligent or cannot physically access higher education cannot achieve what you did, EVEN recognising the hard work you put in.

So I think there is a scale for success factoring in opportunity (luck), circumstance (luck), ability (luck) and perseverance/ discipline. That doesn't take away from your achievements, but it does recognise there's not something wrong with someone because they cannot achieve what you have. It's not just that they are lazy or didn't try hard enough.

That's what I said. You left an enormous hole in your explanation of why some people aren't successful.,

Honestly, those of you that are in a place you don’t want to be and are not the version of yourself you wanted to be — firstly, give yourself the grace to mourn that loss and appreciate the version that you have.
Start small, be kind and focus on the positive — even if it is one thing and it’s so hard.
Try doing something different — if you can’t read a book, listen to a podcast, do breathing exercises, make small changes towards something. If you have kids they will hopefully see you as the role model that is focusing on the betterment. Try learning something new, something small — it will build your self esteem.

If you can’t work, see if you can do any free online courses. If you don’t have the time then give yourself that grace but think I need to do something to change this for my kids.

Having a positive mind set is hard — but studies in psychology show that believing you can grow and improve increases persistence and resilience. The only way of moving up is if you aim up and focus on that. It might be that you love the version of you that turns up for your child — to advocate for them if they have the same difficulties as you.
I am struggling with boundaries and my friend has been trying to help. We have been trying — you owe it to yourself.
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