It is all a matter of context. The way we achieve these things, the way our lives play out, has everything to do with the circumstances in which we are living. Where and into what family we are born has everything to do with where we end up. Some things are simply out of our control. But it's not that simple.
Poverty has power, too, a power that holds people where they are.
I know a woman who lives in Bromley-Heath, a single mother who grew up on welfare and is on welfare herself and is determined that her children will not be on welfare. Her daughter, a bright, beautiful, lovely child, would like to be a lawyer. Well, let's think about what it will take. She will have to fight for a good education in the Boston public schools with their painfully limited resources and teachers who are forced to deal with so much more than just teaching. She will have to find a way to stand proud and not listen to the peers who will make fun of her for studying, so many of whom will drift off, out of school, into gangs and pregnancy or just nothingness.