A few months back I was listening to the radio and the topic was the tax cuts and the general attitudes towards wealth/success/etc. The various callers debated whether success was the result of work or opportunity or both.
One caller though caught my attention. He was the father of 5, the youngest in her 5th year of college, so you figure he’s around 60ish. He grew up as one of 12 children in a working class family, not abject poverty but very tight money wise.
As teens he and his siblings were encouraged to go to college but were told they’d have to pay for it themselves as there was simply no way the parents could do so. They’d help with getting scholarships, etc but it was pretty much ‘when you’re 18 you’re on your own’.
The man and two of his brothers worked their way through school, which is not at all easy and all three got advanced degrees. They’ve worked since then to build a successful life and while none of them are rich they are all very comfortable, sort of upper middle class range.
Recently he attended a family reunion with all of his siblings. The nine who did not go to college are not as successful and some are unemployed. They all berated the man and his 2 brothers for not understanding ‘what they are going through’ and for being ‘rich’.
Now remember they all started out exactly the same, with the same opportunity and the same cost in terms of going to college. The caller stated that if he and his 2 brothers were asked to name the smartest kids in the family they’d all name one of the other nine, not each other.
So in theory they even started out a little behind in terms of intelligence.
But they chose to go to college and make sacrifices to succeed.
Of course I am sure there are differing reasons the other nine did not go and in some cases it might well have been less a lack of desire than something happened to prevent going. But still, I think this does illustrate how people do bear at least some responsibility for where they end up.
Knowing the readers of TMV as I do, I suspect I will get some strong disagreement to this but I thought it would make a good debate