You need to set your aspirations at a reasonable level and have goals that are relatively close (say, one order of magnitude away by some metric) to what you have now, with a plan that can get you there.
Also:
> If 40 out of 50 people end up in poverty in my neighborhood, then chances are I will given how similar metrics for ending in poverty is.
This isn't the case at all. Most people don't prioritise wealth generation. They prioritise things like staying close to family, maintaining old friendships, not moving, working in a specific field or on specific problems they enjoy, etc.
If you actually go out there and seek it, yeah, it's hard, but the odds aren't anywhere near as stacked as you're making out.
The odds are mostly stacked against you in the sense of things like health issues, or passports, etc. Growing up simply with not much money isn't that hard to get out of.
That was an example, not exactly my situation. If wealth generation alone was a metric, I wouldn't have that much problem but regarding the last statement, most research would disagree. Growing up in poverty fuels a mindset of poverty, I have experienced it first hand. Maybe things are different in other places so I am not gonna make a generalization about anything else. Poor countries with overflow tends to have people who put wealth accumulation above all.
And I think I set a reasonable expectation. That is one thing I am afraid of doing the most, setting expectations high that you would never reach for myself or others. I don't find any balance here. I don't have any metrics to compare or find a reasonable solution to what I should expect of others or whether at all. Do I expect my family to be reasonable or not? Do I expect my environment to be friendly or not?
If overestimate, disappointment. If you underestimate, trap of trust issues and general existential crisis of why bother.
I just decided I want an average first world life quality eventually but THAT is hard. Eh, getting average quality of life removing the wealth as a metric here is hard.
I guess I could call it cultural, environmental or social disintegration?
I don't know a lot about your situation but it sounds to me like for the most part you need to 'get out' and somehow manage a visa or whatever to a first world country. That seems like a reasonable goal to me?
Different magnitude of situation, but I felt the same way about my hometown. It wasn't really about money, though it felt that way at the time - I just needed to find my people, and they weren't there.
Not at all. Upwards class mobility, in the true sense, is essentially impossible within a single generation. Speaking from a British perspective, a child with a poor upbringing is unlikely to be able to convince others, at least on close inspection, that they aren't actually a prole. (How might I know that?)
I am specifically talking about, as I say, "growing up without much money". A poor individual getting from the bottom, or close to it, up to a solid income (say 80th percentile). From there, the wealth is a matter of financial discipline. Some of the 'class' might come, but life is not an act, and Tarquin will always differ.
At least where I'm from (UK), it's a trivial problem in the sense that an equation might be trivial to solve, for an individual. The ingredients are there; an individual must apply themselves to the task at hand.
If you are healthy and of reasonable intelligence, obtain a degree from a good university, and apply those skills to a job, it's quite hard to fail at that catastrophically.
In a collective sense it is impossible, at least the way that society is currently set up. A lot of people have to not be on top.
What confuses people a lot is that they look at these statistical averages and assume that because most of the poor remain poor (and most of the rich remain rich - wealth is sticky), the same likelihoods apply to them.
But if you're actually trying to get out of that situation (most people honestly aren't - they might say they are, but it's not their #1 priority) you're not in that same cohort and you can quite easily be more competitive than those brought up in middle income families.
This is all based on my experience in Britain. In the US it's probably different.
If you're born in a poor _country_ then you probably need to get out first, and I imagine the whole passport visa situation is rather a challenge.
If you're born with severe disabilities, and poor, you could well be shit out of luck. So it goes.
Also:
> If 40 out of 50 people end up in poverty in my neighborhood, then chances are I will given how similar metrics for ending in poverty is.
This isn't the case at all. Most people don't prioritise wealth generation. They prioritise things like staying close to family, maintaining old friendships, not moving, working in a specific field or on specific problems they enjoy, etc.
If you actually go out there and seek it, yeah, it's hard, but the odds aren't anywhere near as stacked as you're making out.
The odds are mostly stacked against you in the sense of things like health issues, or passports, etc. Growing up simply with not much money isn't that hard to get out of.