> I have a saying when my peers compare themselves to the Zuckerbergs and Gates and Musks of the world: How many hundreds of thousands of dollars did your parents spend on your education? Because you have to realize that is who you are competing with.
I went to a VERY RURAL high school. We had 3 math classes that everyone went through... none of them college level. My math class decided it was funny to rip up the floor tiles and smash them against the blackboard when the teacher's back was turned. Kids would just not do the homework and they would pass them so they didn't have to deal with them for another year.
No AP classes, no test prep to speak of. Top of the class were just the obedient kids who did the 7th-grade level homework assignments. We had a small band and it was tight-knit and fun.
I get really down on myself because I'm so far away from what I actually want to be. But did I actually have a chance? Yeah. But a small one. Much smaller than a lot of other people. And now the kind of jobs I can get are... fine I guess. Not great, just fine. I'm almost 30 and now I need to learn a ton of mathematics my peers have known for a decade.
I ended up going to whatever Chicago college would take me at an affordable rate ( DePaul ). College was hard. I worked 40 hours a week and went to night classes. I struggled through the "easy" classes and SCRAPED past on the hard classes.
Still, my early education wasn't SO BAD. At least I didn't have to worry about violence or a gang trying to draft me.
I have a crazy idea around this: End high school sooner.
Let the kids leave sophomore year, or even earlier. Let them go to trade schools.
For most of the country, school is just child jail. Why are we forcing students who WANT TO LEARN AND IMPROVE deal with students who do not want to be there, and are going to end up working at a tire plant anyway?
"But but but.. the education!" They are not getting an education anyway. The schools do not have enough resources to teach these kids. They do not want to be there. They are torturing everyone around them because they are bored.

I think there's some value to recognizing where you've come from and the hardships you faced / still are facing. But there is fundamentally a mindset of inferiority laced within your comment that is completely unnecessary and frankly just disrespectful to yourself. You say you're "almost 30" as if somehow you're another decade from death.

Forgive me if this is harsh, but I think it's important for you to hear this. You're acting like a loser right now, and if you don't change that, you're going to stay a loser for the rest of your life. Your comments about yourself and their self deprecating nature will end up 100% true if you don't snap yourself out of this nasty and grisly self-fulfilling prophecy. This doesn't have to be the case though, and it is completely up to you whether you want to continue walking down the current path you are following. Whatever your circumstances from the past, whatever things outside your control, there is one factor that you have complete sovereignty over, and that is yourself. Everyday you make a choice in how you live your life. Individually they have relatively little impact. In combination, they are quite literally the definition of what your life is, "destiny" or "fate" being some words that people often use in order to absolve their personal responsibility to the final outcome.

So what will your choice be for today?*

* A reminder that choosing to do nothing is still very much a choice.