Enviorment certainly plays a critical role in whether people succeed in life. It would have been very easy for me to have dealt drugs and to have ran with the wrong crowd. What kept me away from that lifestyle was (TWO)
loving parents and athletics. I saw many kids go down the wrong path and end up in jail, dead, drug addicted, or some combination of the 3. When you see this stuff everyday as an impressionable youth you assume everyone behaves this way and before you know it you're trapped in this cycle. I don't know if many grasp this if they haven't lived it.
Poverty is a mindset in many ways and yes it's possible to break out of it but it can be hard for many to even dream that they can better their situation because they've been around the wrong people for the majority of their lives.
I worked part time at a battery factory and part time in a lumberyard many years ago. These were both potentially hazardous jobs. I had no health benefits from either job. I had no health insurance period. I shutter to think what my life my be like today if I had experienced an accident at that time. This type of situation can make you legitimately "poor".
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"Those who can't remember the past are condemmed to repeat it".- George Santayana.
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