I really appreciate your words, and I understand where you're coming from. And I realize you may disagree, as most people do; but honestly, that is just not the case in Mexico. It's a whole different story. I mean, no to compare, but just to show it's possible; it's kinda like saying that to a Uighur in a Chinese camp, you know? Sometimes, the claim that "they won't let me" is true, even though it's not as extreme here. Still upward mobility is almost impossible economically speaking as you need money to make money, especially with the kind of personality nobody likes. Like being straight forward and honest. Damn, people are sick.

Not to be contrary, but in addition to not being apparent, opportunities are almost never static. If opportunity knocks and you're not home it may not be there when you get home and this particular opportunity may never return. Too many of us -we're all in this together- have never learned critical thinking and don't even understand what it means. Too many of us who think we're educated have never heard of Socrates or Plato and have no clue of their "critical" importance to reasoned thinking which should be the primary goal of the mind. Just my 2 cents worth. Very good comment.

@A1fredo There's a concept called Locus of Control. It has been around since like 1940 originated by a guy named Rotter. He started a whole branch of research that has led to some very revealing data that claims. It turns out that believing that you are the sole arbiter of the success in your own life is very highly correlated with being successful as judged by wealth, happiness, and feeling of freedom (I think there were other criterion too). This would be in contrast to believing that external factors are the major influence in one's life. Interestingly enough, people of all socioeconomic backgrounds and in many different countries all had this correlation. So it didn't necessarily matter whether the opportunities for success actually existed, it was the believe that they did that drove them toward better lives.

@A1fredo As Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was sitting in prison for the crime of voicing an unfavorable opinion in a private conversation with a friend, he spent much of his time thinking of every possible thing that he may have done wrong in his life to make him deserve that punishment. He ended up writing a 2000 page book and had to memorize most of it because there was little paper to use and it may get destroyed anyways. His book ended up being a major part in the destruction of Stalinist Russia. This was a a victim in every facet of his life, except for in his mind. And that was his salvation.

@Jwine He didn't live to enjoy it, did he? I don't care about my legacy, just wanna try happiness on for a while as I've been going after it for so long. All this is just too big for me to be a factor in any way though. If you've seen my post, you know I've tried, but... haven't really accomplished anything...

@A1fredo happiness is not an end in and of itself. It is a byproduct of living a meaningful life. If happiness is seen as the main goal in life, then what happens when someone gets hit by tragedy? If my children were to be hit by a car and I no longer have the capability to be as happy as I was with them, is my life no longer worth living? If I seek out what makes me happiest today, it may leave me less happy tomorrow, or next year (i.e. watching TV and playing video games vs studying).

In seeking out meaning, by voluntarily taking on responsibility, then we are more grounded in the natural principles of the world. If I have kids to take care of, it would make committing suicide much less desirable no matter how poorly my life is going. The more the world relies on me, the harder it is to give up and the more happiness I have from achieving something that matters to not just be, but to my community too.

@A1fredo Solzhenitsyn got much more out of life than he ever knew was possible. He was tortured and exiled and people were killed hiding his book from the government before it was published, but they all knew that the good that they could do through that book was worth it.

@A1fredo as clinical psychology, Jordan Peterson, puts it. Start with what you have complete control over. Clean your room and do it well. As you assume responsibility in your own life, then you become competent enough to help your family. Over you are competent enough to help bring your family together and make it stonger, then you can start to affect your community in a positive way.

We have a lot of people trying to fix the world who aren't nearly competent enough to know how to do it, so we must stay small and work on ourselves so that one day, we can see a problem in front of us and do something about it.

@Jwine I appreciate it and I know what you are saying, I do. Sigh... Sometimes I really feel the need to stop expressing myself with people from the first world because I realize where you're coming from and it's not your fault you don't what it's like here. There is simply no way for me to explain it because it the kind of thing you need to experience in order to understand... It's just not the same. It doesn't work that way here. For a "meaningful life" you need free time, any free time; but you carry the burden or the fight or flight response all the time when you live under wages that aren't enough to survive. And I don't mean "I bought the new iPhone, so I couldn't make end meet" kind of "survive. I haven't bought myself something just for pleasure in probably over a decade. It's just different. It's not just the money, but the money create emotional circumstances, and you need to resolve those before you can--It's like this: We all like to think about abstract stuff here, right? We worry about the meaning of life and stuff. If your heart is broken, then you don't care quite as much. And if you're sick with something hurtful, then you don't give a damn about your heartache. It's a pyramid of hierarchies. "Meaningful life" is up there in the Mind/Neocortex top level of the pyramid. At the very bottom is the Body/Reptilian brain instinctive needs. If those aren't satisfied, then there's no emotional satisfaction nor mental fulfillment. And being poor causes emotional troubles on its own. So it's a feedback loop in some way. I hope I'm not over explaining myself pointlessly. Sorry about that...

@Jwine I love Jordan Peterson, BTW heard all of his stuff. That's why troubles me so much. I daydream as I listen to be able to worry about that kind of stuff and be an actor in the theater of life. That's what I meant. I don't want the theater place to burn down. It will take longer that I have left to live to rebuild, hence no play...

@A1fredo No. Not over-explaining at all. The studies to which I was referring also including areas where there was quite a bit of extreme poverty.

I get that I will never be able to fully understand your situation, but what if you also don't fully get from where I make these claims. I am heavily influenced by a group of about 30 of my friends who were at the point where they had to choose between buying milk or bread for their families for the week (them being here in America) and a few of my Venezuelan friends whose friends back home were eating out of trashcans.

I would have to disagree on your concept of the hierarchy of concerns which resembles that of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. A mind is much more powerful than we often claim it does. I know too many people who were in poverty who made it out when their siblings didn't solely based on their attitude.

@Jwine American concept of poverty is very different than Mexico's. We can die from starvation, there's no kitchens for the homeless here. Can't afford food, you die. Nobody will help you because they are struggling themselves. You can disagree. I would encourage though, to test yourself. Don't eat for five days or so, and see how much you care about your mental convictions. I don't mean it as something peyorative. I just really wish people were willing to empathize instead of simply empathizing. And I do know what you mean. I don't mean to blow my own whistle--I am a friendless poor loser. Still, I am here trying day and night to encourage people to act, giving ideas all the time, as stupid as they might be. I helped building a site for potential projects (culturalwarroom.com) and set up a timeline for us to get a big picture of what's going on (its posted on the homepage). All of this while struggling a lot to get by food in the middle of the pandemic, under curfew and being really, really poor. I know what mental strenght is. As well as emotional strenght. But death beats them all. Dying of starvation is not as metaphore here in Mexico, man.

@A1fredo hey man. You're in a shit situation; there's no way around that. But my empathy isn't going to do anything for you. That only way you could possibly get out of your situation is by creativity, working your ass off, and some luck would definitely help. But more often than not, we have to make our own luck. Prepare yourself for when and if an opportunity comes do that if it does, you'll be ready for it. The only one you can count on to help you, is yourself. If you give up, then that's it.