[masraum]

Originally Posted by fintstone

Yes, I often laugh when people tell me they are poor and don't have opportunity...after growing up in an area/era where indoor plumbing and television were rare, no one had A/C, and health and dental care was practically nonexistent. Not being born into the middle class or higher should only make one more "hungry" for achievement and more willing to work hard/sacrifice to reach their goals. Opportunity is everywhere.

A lot of that is based on the personality of the person in the situation. To greatly simplify things. If a person grows up in a bad environment (poor, abusive, substance dependencies, etc...) there seems to be 2 or 3 main results.

1 The person perpetuates the environment. They act basically the same, having learned from and emulating how they grew up.
2 The person becomes a victim and can never let go of and get past the issues that they went through.
3 The person sees what is going on and thinks "this is crap, I'm not going to perpetuate this. I'm going to rise above or get out of this and make something better of myself." This is, I believe, the rarest of the three. I've seen it several times, but it's far from common. I believe a big part of it is based on the personality that is intrinsic to the individual.

Congrats for being one of the few #3. Unfortunately, while that's an option for everyone, it's in same ways, probably also not. Not everyone can be an olympian. In a similar way, not everyone has the personality to overcome, but will deal differently.