I read and reread this a couple of times. It makes sense because you acknowledged that behavior is a difficult thing to change. In fact, I have come to realize that quite often, people are not entirely in control of their behavior - much of it is ingrained by environment, culture and societal/social expectations. None of us is an entirely rational being. And some folks face an entirely different set of opportunities, disadvantages, etc. than others (which in turn drives their behavior).
In the poverty-strewn environ of my youth, I was surrounded by incredibly destructive behaviors - it was an extreme environment. Drug use was rampant, crime was ever-present, education was a joke. Thankfully, my family was more or less passing through, the hardship was a long one, but things got better for us bit by bit, and we eventually moved to better circumstances. Looking back, I used to wonder what separated me from the other kids - why was my behavior so starkly different from theirs?
In hindsight, I can see that I came from a different culture. My mom had a college education. My dad was military (though he did not adapt to post-military life very well). My parents did everything they could to insure that I would have a better life than what I was born into. Others did not have that kind of motivation - they were stuck in generational behavior patterns not of their own making. I can't blame them for not seeing the forest for the trees - their behavior was reinforced by the circumstances that surrounded them.
It's an interesting "food for thought" topic.
My growing up had a similar background. My parents were immigrants, English was not my dad's native language, and for the first 15 years in America we lived in a slum (so bad that the block I spent my first 11 years on has since been razed). My dad had a high school education, my mom did not even have that. Crime, drugs,gangs, and vermin abounded. Of probably a dozen of my friends I had at the time, only one other had a father who lived with them.
Why even come to the U.S, in the 1950s, at a time of much greater discrimination and racism than today, knowing that you could only afford to live in a ghetto? My dad said, in sum, "people from the U.S. would come to our country and complain how bad things were there. But they still had more than we did. And they were not skilled workers. I felt I could make it there and provide better for our family as I knew I could work hard to gain whatever skills were needed" (I am so glad I recorded him saying that before he died, it has made an impression on my children and his other grandchildren).
My parents had to battle both the bad behaviors, as well as the well meaning but bad advice given by those purporting to help (such as a government social worker telling my to dad to move out the apartment so that his wife and kids could go on welfare and get better health care). They both taught responsible behavior (much of it faith based), and we saw them actually trying to behave like that. The phrase, when raising children, of "more is caught than taught", rings true. My parents also taught us that life is not fair but that does not justify not trying, and that there are no guarantees beyond taxes, death, and trouble, but you can do things to increase your odds towards a better way.
We are not unique. I know of many families, both immigrant and non-immigrant, who chose that way. In my experience, the most consistent action was seeing what others had that you wanted and not lamenting that you did not have it, but trying to figure out how they got there so that you could try the same thing.
Even then, I had to battle emulating bad behavior. But somehow I had the "gift" of seeing bad things happen to people around me, and assuming that would happen to me if I went down that path. Every time someone offered me drugs, the image of the addict (we called them "junkies" back them) I came across coming home from grade school one day in our apartment hallway, who had a needle in his arm and I thought was sleeping but was actually dead, came to mind.
But eventually you have to own your own behavior, and make the right choices. The first time I really was away from home was in college. I will not forget making friends with a guy who had such a similar background as I did - we literally grew up a few blocks from each other, his parents were also immigrants who emphasized behavior and education, etc. But after our first term at a Ivy League school, I had a B average, he had a C and 3 F's. He chose to enjoy the "freedom" of being away from home and fell into all sorts of bad behavior that he put ahead of going to class. Several of us tried to help him in the next term - but he just stopped going to classes, and began to resent me (and others) because he wanted us to help him in ways different than how we wanted to help him (he wanted to cheat).
With all this, there are no guarantees. If right after college you told me that I could be FIREd by 60, I would had laughed, much in the way that I laughed at first when my high school guidance counselor told me to apply to Ivy League schools. But I still knew I wanted a solid financial foundation... and pursuing that is what eventually led to give me an chance to FIRE.These days I believe folks confuse "opportunities" with "guarantees". Even changing your behavior will not guarantee the best outcome. But it increases the odds, and sometimes changing the behavior opens up opportunities that you would have not seen otherwise.
