The lottery of circumstance and the people in your life

posted by Jeff | Saturday, May 30, 2015, 10:57 AM | comments: 0

I recently posted a link on Facebook to a cartoon that tried to explain how a great many factors can play into the socioeconomic outcome of a person. It used the term "privilege," which I hate because it's a loaded term used to imply unfairness and douchebaggery, but I still think it made a good point about how our circumstances and environment can have a huge impact on how we mature into adults.

I'm generalizing, I'm sure, but it seems like a lot of people who have done "OK or better" are quick to discount the "failure" of others by attributing their circumstances to a series of choices. I honestly don't understand how people can think that someone who grows up in a crappy house with absent parents, in a high-crime neighborhood with underfunded and ineffective schools can't be heavily influenced by that environment. (Or if you want to take it further, put the kid in some civil war-torn country in Africa or parts of the Middle East.) Conversely, I also don't understand how people can think that someone who grows up with supportive parents in a nice suburban neighborhood with A+ schools doesn't have a better shot at making it.

Part of the problem is that I think as adults, we fail to recall how things around us can influence our actions and view on the world. (Seriously though, do you not remember doing stupid things just because other kids did them?) I often equate this to the pattern where people suck at relationships, mostly because their first teachers were their own parents, who didn't get along. Take the same concept and apply it to, well, everything.

I suppose I could say that in my own life, I won the lottery for at least being born into a white, middle-class, Christian family. Beyond that though, there were specific people I encountered as a teenager that had a profound effect on my ability to belong and succeed. I had a boss with my city job that gave me responsibility to record public meetings on my own for cable. I had coaches that asked me to support their teams in various roles (because God knows I couldn't actually play any of the sports at the time). Even our athletic director paid me to do various jobs. I also had three teachers in particular who were not afraid to call me out for be a lazy dick, and recognized that I was capable of more.

And these environmental circumstances don't even get into issues of mental health. People who deal with depression, ASD and other challenges can't simply turn them off. They sure as hell didn't make a choice to be afflicted with things that make it hard to conduct their lives.

Look, I'm big on personal responsibility. I really am. But to be apathetic and believe that circumstances and people play no role in how someone arrived at their current place in the world is pretty naive in my eyes.


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