Mr brother-in-law has passed away. He had very few moments where built up some savings. Smart guy. Just some demons that impacted his pathway through life. He would start to complain about some slight or injustice that occurred 30 or 40 or even 50 years prior. I would listen as he seemed to need to step into the victim role and plead his case.
I would then say he absolutely got some bad breaks along the way.....yet, in the mean time guys with 8th grade educations that had limited ability to speak English had risked life and limb to sneak through arid desert to try and stand next to him in a grocery store line. And, some of those persons had actually solved the riddle of how to put together a plan for financial success and executed the plan while getting a few lucky breaks and a few unlucky breaks which they mostly overcame.
I would then say that being able to walk over to the light switch and flip it up and always have a light come on, to turn the water faucet and have safe water spill out at pressure, to have a microwave, a cell phone, a roof over your head and cash in his wallet that would still be worth something a year from now with minimal fear of violence separating him from those items made him wealthier and safer than probably 90% of the people alive at that moment.
He would agree. Then a few weeks later lose any remembrance of how many blessings he had merely being born in America in the 1950s as a white male in a two-parent household that never had food security issues and never was abused.
You can do a lot of things right and still not end of wealthy. Even are living paycheck to paycheck juggling bill collectors you are short-changing yourself if you ignore the blessings such as being healthy, loved, respected, athletic, smart, courageous and industrious among other things you do not always earn but have.
I have caught a few bad breaks in life. We all likely have. I would like to think those bad breaks were not my fault but most of the time my preceding choices had a varying likelihood of an unfavorable outcome. When you push the envelope, sometimes you end up as the hammer and sometimes you are the nail. Not a victim in those situations.
I was damn lucky to have started life with a good hand of cards. I was blessed on the day I was born. I did not screw that up. I did not get an unfair amount of unlucky breaks. I got a lot of lucky breaks. I realize I should not strut around the barnyard as if I am the greatest at anything or have the secret to success that would allow anyone with discipline to have ended up where I am today. A few more bad breaks and my trajectory could have stalled or fallen. I have now out-lived 1/5 of my graduating high school class. Still being alive is a nice way to start the day.