Do you ever wonder why people’s lives are so different?

I know quite a few self made millionaires (nowhere near one myself). They would all swear blind it was all down to hard work, and they DID work hard BUT...

It is a million times easier to take risks and chose creative roots if you start off from a comfortable background. If you come from being properly poor you will have an inbilt fear of not earning.. and start ups (as well as taking unpaid work experience in professions) means not earning initially on the gamble of high earning later... which is risk taking behaviour that people who have no family home to go back to if they cant pay rent wont want to take.

I'll never be rich because I am too risk adverse to ever not have a "job". This is because I have been poor. So I wont take the risks that it takes to get properly rich "self made". There is no "family money" to bail me out. No big family home that could put us up. Nothing. No safety net. So I'll always just have "jobs" IYKWIM

If youre comfortable money wise its easier to look after yourself health wise.

Its easier to be carefree and fun to be around.

Its easier to be generous with your time.

You CAN be poor and do those things, but its harder.
You can be financially ok and a grumpy slob, but...

I also know poor people and well off people who are carers for children with extreme disabilities. (Think completely imobile & non verbal) Guess which ones see it in the more positive light?

Its not that the poorer family dont look on the bright side, its just that their bright side isnt the same..

Once youre down in your luck one way the others follow:

Ill health: savings used up: earning potential drops: relationships are affected etc...

Like dominos

I’m not sure I agree notanan, I think if you start with little, it’s actually easier to take risks, because you’ve got less to lose, I think if I had to go back and live in the little terraced house we started off in, I could, because it was a lot nicer than the council house I grew up in!

If I’d always had a comfortable lifestyle, I may feel I wouldn’t want to risk losing it.

Well statistics would disagree Sara.

It takes monet to make money. Children from low income families on average earn less than children from high income families. It doesnt mean that one works harder than the other, however, higher earnibgs often require an initial period of internship, training, or risk that isnt as easy to absorb if you have to help your family pay the rent/bills

That’s true. But many people from low income homes do well, I know it’s harder, and here, we’re back to that little bit of luck again!

Maybe it’s more to do with personality, some people aren’t programmed to take risks however rich or poor they are. Whilst others take risks all the time.

Obviously it’s better to be born into a wealthy loving home, but just because you’re not, it doesn’t mean you’re born to fail

Statistically it does. There are of course exceptions.

And not all born with privilidges have the personality or luck to take full advantage of it either but....

Take serious illness. A huge trauma whatever your economic situation, but look at what we applaud as "positivity" (as a society): the cancer patient embracing trying different wig and head wrap styles, the amputee who can afford sports limbs & adapted vehicles to travel to accesible sport facilities etc. These of course take courage and personality, but are not an option for people facing illness and poverty

Money can't buy happiness but it doesn't half help to oil the wheels.

Notanan

I’m sure cancer is terrifying and utterly debilitating for rich or poor, you can’t buy yourself to good health

But like every aspect of life, it’s harder if you’re poor, and of course I get that the rich cancer patient will be able to afford things to make life easier, but I still don’t think that it will necessarily make him any happier than the poor patient

This thread got me to thinking about the young ( 35-45) women I work with in a voluntary capacity.
We all come from more or less the same beginnings, council house, basic schooling.
These women's lives are more or less no different to how they grew up whereas mine is is not a world away but a planet.
The difference: I got the breaks, they didn't.

Petra

So back to luck again! And I imagine a lot of hard work!

"Luck" = opportunities or hurdles that do or dont present themselves to you

Good luck presents itself more in some environments, and less in others.

Its still what you make it but you get more or less chancea to grab it depending on where life positioned you in the first place. (I dont just mean geography)

I think luck is equally apportioned, but some people spot it, and take full advantage of it, while others hesitate to act, and then the opportunity is gone

I think we’re back to the willingness to take a chance

Having said that notanan, I feel bad luck strikes randomly, rich or poor, successful or failure, but I suppose even then, people deal with it in different ways

I think luck is equally apportioned, but some people spot it, and take full advantage of it, while others hesitate to act, and then the opportunity is gone

Right. A baby kid in Aleppo gets the same chances as kids in leafy surrey.... they're just not grabbing life by the balls as much??

Okay! Good point!

But my point is still valid, maybe not in Aleppo, But here, in the UK, where we are neither victims of war or famine, you will always have people who look for opportunities, and others who don’t, and I think it’s about the person, not their wealth or lack of it, and of course a bit of good luck

I concede that a child born in Aleppo would need a shed full of good luck, to change the course of his/her life

There is a lot of inequality within Britain too. There are people who have to battle for the basics daily and that doesnt allow room for taking other "opportunities"

The tenacity and drive that may make someone comfortable take chances in careers etc is the same tennacity and drive required by others just to get ends to meet.

I absolutely know what you mean notanan . I have never been bailed out in my life. There is no family money, no help up the ladder, no inheritance to fall back on, nothing......zilch.....bloody get on with it or stave .

Exactly gillybob. And that means not taking a year out from earning to explore pie in the sky business ideas (that could make either millions, or zilch).

I know people whose business ideas have gone national and are now well known brands. They worked VERY hard (no harder than many work on min wage though) but were in a position in the first place to explore their ideas which meant being able to take a break from earning a consistant wage

I think that life is very random in what it deals out to us. By a certain age, I think most of us realise that accidents, ill health, financial worries etc will strike, regardless of background, status, religion etc. Just makes you appreciate the lovely things that happen too!

I know there is a lot of inequality notanan, I grew up, not in poverty, but on a council estate, and certainly not in the bosom of a loving family, no one has ever given us any money, or left us any money, yet I still consider us fortunate.

We’ve had our fair share of bad things happening, we’d both lost someone very close in our early twenties, we’ve been through periods where it seems that everything that can go wrong, does go wrong, we’ve taken chances, and they haven’t always paid off, I think our children who have had a more middle class upbringing than either of us, think we sail too close to the wind at times

I know I’ve been lucky, I could have ended up, like a lot of girls I went to school with, living within a stones throw of my parents, working in a local factory.

I know it’s an unequal world, but unfortunately it’s unlikely that will ever change

Been told so many times that if my life was made in a tv programme people would say it was too far fetched. Life is far from easy, never has been and since losing my husband money is even less and I don’t know which way to turn but my children have all grown up polite and understand the value of things, something that people with a lot of money don’t.
May not have two beans to rub together but I will always help anyone.
Our home is full of love and as long as it is we will make it through

I think having to earn my own money as a teenager and learning to save up for things, therefore really valuing them was a great start for me. Also having a father who worked all the hours he could without complaining, I am so proud of him.
My marriage to someone so cruel was the loss of my freedom in what should have been my best adult years. I know money worries are terrible, but being with someone cruel is worse. I am very hard-up now and have constant pain but I value my freedom to be myself. I value good people above anything else on this earth, after that my dogs (probably equal actually!). I know we are only here for a passing time and I try to spend at least some time each day with the Lord. Without Him I could not cope.