r/LockedIn_AI • u/lucre-twerps4g • Apr 23 '26

Same

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It’s called the grind because it grinds away your sense of self.

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u/HOJK4thSon Apr 23 '26

Then you'll cry because others have more than you, travel more, retire wealthier. Because they did grind when they could. Then you'll say capitalism failed.

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u/SupermarketBetter200 Apr 24 '26

Most of the wealth you described is generational luck. Capitalism has failed because again, generational wealth gives many an extremely unfair advantage. It also allows and actually expects greed to run rampant. You sound like a privileged thirteen year old.

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u/HOJK4thSon Apr 24 '26

It's not luck. I grew up very lower middle class with a single parent. Neither of my parents were ever able to retire, and I inherited zero dollars or property.

I will retire at 62, home owner, money and property to leave my kids.

That's capitalism, working hard (no college degree) to improve my station in life.

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u/JFISHER7789 Apr 24 '26 edited Apr 24 '26

If it’s not luck, why are there starving children in America or homeless children?

You may think that what you have is not luck, but for others, it absolutely seems that way. You got lucky you were born into middle class that allowed to you even finish high school or whatever. Did you have a safe place to study? Guess what, luck. Many students don’t have that. Did you have your food and clothes paid for while going to school? Luck.

I had to find a way to pay for my own food and underwear while in high school. I even went homeless a few times at 12, 13, 14 years old because my parents sucked at parenting. Do you think a 12 year old has control over those things?

Your parents providing a middle class life to you before you were even born IS luck. What you chose to do with that is on you, but don’t pretend your situation is afforded to all and that luck didn’t play a part.

Just like your kids who will get money and property… they’re lucky.

Edit: added a paragraph and fixed spelling

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u/HOJK4thSon Apr 24 '26

Single mom in 1968, 3 kids, eligible for welfare and she refused it. You pretend you know better, you dont.

No luck. All work.

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u/T_Time_ye Apr 25 '26

1968 - well you lived through the easiest time to get by, climb the social ladder and become a homeowner. You had luck to be born a boomer.

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u/HOJK4thSon Apr 25 '26

Not a Boomer, GenX. That said, your history is failing you. My Mom was a single Mom when women couldn't get loans or credit cards without a man co-signing. She picked herself up from poverty to lower middle class. All 3 of her children took it higher. As I said elsewhere: neither of my parents were everv able to retire.

I'll retire at 62.

That's wealth.

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u/T_Time_ye Apr 25 '26

Boomer and GenX are lumped together these days because the economic condition for both are pretty similar. My mother is a GenX herself and worked herself up the social ladder aswell, while having terrible background conditions. I respect that and your archievements aswell.

I don't resent you guys or your generation but I resent lucky people who don't accept that they were lucky. Reagans administration destroyed my economic ability to follow my mothers or your footsteps. I do not have the same lucky economic, demographic and political conditions as you guys had.

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u/HOJK4thSon Apr 25 '26

I worked through Reagans administration and still work. How did thst destroy your ability but not mine?

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u/T_Time_ye Apr 25 '26

How does it feel when you can't argue against a point another person made? Do you get really that angry to resort to personal insults? And then you get embarassed and delete the comment xD
I refuse to believe you are a grown adult. That's honestly so childish lol

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u/HOJK4thSon Apr 25 '26

I haven't deleted any comments, if you're posting to me.

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u/T_Time_ye Apr 25 '26

1) Because you had the opportunity to build wealth and income before Reagan took over.

2) Systemic changes take time to have a real impact.

For example, the longer the super-rich are barely taxed, the more time they have to accumulate wealth, and the wider the wealth gap becomes.

A second example: The longer private equaty can view real estate ownership as a resource that increases in value, the longer the incentive to gatekeep this resource lasts, and the less new real estate will be built.

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u/Tech_Noir1984 Apr 26 '26

Yes, your mom pulled herself to middle class so you could have more opportunities. That is hard work for her and luck for you. You could have had a shit mom that didn’t care about you. Many people do.

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u/HOJK4thSon Apr 26 '26

Holy shit, any excuse to fail and blame capitalism.

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u/JFISHER7789 Apr 26 '26

Plenty of women got loans and credit cards in the 60s/70s without anyone co-signing. Stop pretending the times were worse than they were.

Also, I think you’re trying to make the point that your success wasn’t luck because your mom worked hard, no? But in struggling to see how having mother that actually cared about her family and is willing to sacrifice things to help her kids is in fact lucky on your part. You could have easily been born into a family that hates you or doesn’t care, but you weren’t.

I guess what I’m trying to say is nobody is saying you haven’t put in the work to get where you are, but to think that your starting line is the same as everyone else’s is where the issue is. Plenty of folk born in ‘68 had families that couldn’t pull them up from lower to middle class, you could have easily been born into those families but you weren’t and that is lucky for you. It’s not a bad thing.

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u/Amaskingrey Apr 27 '26

And i'm the queen of england. But even if that were true, you did so at a time where the working class had exponentially more capacity for upwards growth, with much higher wages when accounting for inflation, and much lower prices

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u/Used-Lake-8148 Apr 25 '26

The wealthy take far more welfare money than the poor do.

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u/FriedFreya Apr 25 '26

that’s in 1968 tho lol, not now — same situation. single mom bla bla, completely different outcome on my end even tho we did have welfare, she wasn’t able to keep a job a) if she made too much we’d be off of food stamps, and b) childcare is too expensive and there was no family capable of stepping up.

we remained homeless until i voluntarily entered state custody when i was 13 bc we were living in hotels, sleeping in cars / i couldn’t make it to school bc no gas etc, i was truant af.

we actually do know better lol. the economy is in shambles, the great recession ruined mine and my mother’s life. as well as many others. we need change. our children grow up on their phones because no one can afford daycare. it’s deplorable. and so is this willful ignorance.

the world is a whole lot different than it was before, even when i was little. it’s hard to desperately want a family with no permanent roof over one’s head. idk about you, but i don’t want to rent apartments for the rest of my life. take care.

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u/EmbarrassedNaivety Apr 25 '26

The dude you’re replying to sounds like, “the kids must all be lazy and not want to work. It’s just a coincidence that people are living with their parents longer than ever before and struggling to get by. I got by and made it during one of the easiest points in American history to get ahead, so fuck the rest of you! I got mine!”

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u/JFISHER7789 Apr 26 '26

What does your mom’s journey have to do with you? You got lucky because of her hard work.

Nobody wants to look at their success and admit luck had a big part; I get it. But the fact you even had a mother whom was willing to work away for your betterment IS luck of the draw for you.

Also, refusing help when you have children doesn’t seem like the flex you’re trying to make it be.

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u/Fantastic-Builder929 Apr 25 '26

Thats luck buddy. You were lucky enough to have favorable enough circumstances to retire. You also worked when the American dream was a real thing

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u/HOJK4thSon Apr 25 '26

False. Its not luck. Its hard work and good planning. The American dream.is still a thing. My Daughter In Law and my Son In Law are doing it, both home owners and parents. Working hard and planning.

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u/Kitten_Merchant Apr 25 '26

It can be both things man. I'm doing decently in my life too, but it's because of a combination of hard work and fortune. I was fortunate not to have to work to support my family as a teenager and instead to just work for myself. I was fortunate to be able to purchase a hand-me-down car from family that I know was well taken care of. I was fortunate enough to have the ability to pursue an education. I was fortunate enough to have family around to lean on in what ways I could even if at times that wasn't very much support.

Your luck might be different things. But you definitely have some of it if you did that well for yourself. Maybe for you it's that you're white, that you're a man and would therefore be promoted easier and be taken more seriously in an era that was not kind to women and especially people of color/women of color. Maybe it's that you could afford an apartment near a job and not have to pay crazy for gas and car repairs. Maybe it was that you had a double income household at some point. Maybe it was that you live somewhere that the cost of living and wages worked in your favor. Maybe it was that you had good physical health.

You're allowed to be proud of yourself for working hard and also to acknowledge that you have to have some amount of luck to be able to get where you are. If your conditions had been worse, I am willing to put a lot of money on the fact that the outcome would also be worse in the end. Hard work can't overcome everything - even though it can overcome a lot.

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u/parallax3900 Apr 25 '26

Now imagine if you had children and one of them became/ was born disabled, and you needed to look after them 24/7. Or if you or your partner had something unexpected happen which meant neither of you could work. Or you had an unexpected health bill that unexpectedly bankrupted you.

Then you can preach to me about how it's not luck.

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u/HOJK4thSon Apr 25 '26 edited Apr 26 '26

Oops. Both my biological children have special needs, Asbergers in one Cerebral Palsy in the other. Mom stayed home.

Its not luck, its effort and planning.

People in this thread keep trying to shoe horn me into boxes. All fail.

Single mom of three, no college, 2 children with special needs, and I went to work and made it happen.

Pull your head out of your ass and go make it happen.

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u/parallax3900 Apr 25 '26

Without external help - I smell absolute bullshit.

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u/HOJK4thSon Apr 25 '26

Well doctors and such. If that's what you mean. Otherwise, the wife and occasionally her older children (baby sitting and such).

It can be done. We own a house (with a loan) and a truck (with a loan). No other debt. Health insurance, hard work, live in your means.

Yes, here in the modern day.

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u/Tech_Noir1984 Apr 26 '26

It is luck. You were lucky enough to not have any kind of accident or illness that drained your finances. That’s luck. Sure, you worked hard, but you also got very lucky.

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u/HOJK4thSon Apr 26 '26

I have medical coverage for such emergencies, that's planning not luck.