Wesley-sensei

The I’m stuck mentality. The thought that it can’t be helped. It’s the biggest thing stopping people from rising above their situation. But you don’t know what you don’t know. It can be easier to move and start over somewhere else than you might think. But if you haven’t been taught how, you would never know it. Personally speaking, it’s doing things I’ve never done and don’t know about. That’s the single biggest driver of my anxiety. Sometimes to the point of it being crippling. So I understand the feeling of moving to escape your situation feeling overwhelming or impossible. I can’t tell you how many times I was struggling with anxiety over something I needed to do and wished someone would help me get past this one thing. But other people aren’t going to do it for you. If you’re willing to reach and climb up yourself, people will more often give you a hand. But they can’t and won’t carry you… Don’t let appearance fool you, they’re all struggling themselves.

I think you’re giving white people too much credit. We aren’t that smart. It’s more a cultural practice that we seem to be losing. I think there’s two important factors causing the intelligence gap you’re talking about. Our public education system is flat out failing our children. They’re being taught to just follow along, rather than to think critically and question everything. I think some people are more likely to pull their kids out of public education and send them to private schools. Secondly, I think culture plays a huge role in children’s education. The mentality of the people around them. Whether or not they believe they can achieve more, or if they feel they’re stuck so why bother trying. And also the expectation of discipline in school and devotion to their studies. As far as adversity is concerned, you have 2 choices. You can pull yourself up and rise above it, or you can use it as an excuse and let it define you. I have 2 brothers. They both had the same opportunities to succeed. And they both went opposite directions down that path. One has for the most part succeeded in life through sheer effort, while the other is drinking himself to death in self pity. It’s an age old debate of nurture vs nature. You’re putting too much emphasis on nature, maybe because it’s something we can’t help and have little control over. It’s an easy excuse to justify your limitations, that it just can’t be helped. I’m guilty of that too. My social anxiety is my nature. It’s my excuse. But don’t miscount the importance of nurture and the culture of the people around you. People who rise above adversity normally have someone in their life telling and showing them they can. Or they have a strong desire not to be the bad example that exists in their life.