The 'Success" factor

Each of us comes into the world in basically the same way, but not in the same condition. Some of us are born into families that through a combination of luck, hard work and other factors, can provide the newborn with something close to a guaranteed successful future. Yes, the wealth and privileges can be wasted and/or lost, and we see those examples, but really, the vast majority of people born into wealth go to good schools, get good jobs and manage to pass on to the next generation the advantages they received.

Others enter this world on the opposite end of that spectrum. They are almost predestined to failure, although of course similarly some of them break free of the path they are led down and achieve success, sometimes in spectacular fashion. Once again, we should not forget that this constitutes the exception, not the rule.

Then we have what is often referred to in this country, the middle class. They aspire to improve their station and certainly may have an opportunity to do so in greater numbers than the poor, but they can descend as easily as they can ascend, and the economic problems we face from time to time are most likely to dislodge these people from relative prosperity to near abject poverty.

One of the things we like to consider as an American characteristic is the fact that so many poor immigrants improved their status in this country and oftentimes had second and third generation progeny that clearly entered the great middle class. They of course were able to do so because they had aspirations and access to schools that helped them develop new skills.

There has always been a difference between our poor immigrants and our American poor. You don't emigrate because you have accepted you lot in life. Immigrants are here because they want something better than what they had. They push their children to become someone. Certainly, some of our native born poor also exhibit these characteristics but if you simply consider statistics, the percentage of any population with these aspirations may be a determinable number. Say it is 25% (purely for example purposes). Those born into poverty in this country will have a 25% chance of having the "SUCCESS" characteristic. However almost 100% of voluntary immigrants will have the same characteristic. They wouldn't have emigrated voluntarily without it. This is one of the reasons that the behavior in refugee camps is so diverse from the behavior of immigrant groups.

Of course, just having aspirations does not guarantee success, at least not on the first try (see the number of small businesses that fail) but trying is much more likely to result in success than not trying. Yes, we have some who win the lottery, but of course many of these same people end up losing their winnings rather quickly, but in general trying to succeed if the first requisite to actually succeeding.