Anonymous wrote:The secret was being born to UMC/UC parents who funded everything so I could live on easy street my entire life.

Nope. Went to top 10 undergrad (on financial aid with debt)/went to top 5 law school (debt). Got job at top 3 law firm in country.

Repaid loans. Easy. Made partner.

Met spouse at recent grads party for my university when I was 25. We were 3 years apart. Married at 30.

Key is being surrounded by very ambitious, very smart, very driven, and very connected undergrads. Second key is career choice. In big law, that’s still dictated by tier law schools.

Spouse wildly more successful than me.
Net worth - over $30m

I did not come from money. Qualify for financial aid and a Pell grant….

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Anonymous wrote:Male here. I am good looking and have a big d!ck, and it has helped me with almost everything on your list. I worked my a$$ off at the gym in high school, got a sports scholarship. Was able to sleep with a professor or two to get my grades up. Hooked up and married someone who was a trust fund baby and her parents set my business up. She only wanted me bc she had heard of my rep.

#notwinning

Not saying you don't have a great life. Good for you. But nothing there makes me envious, like hearing about some people's lives. You just have a more ornate cage.

I think it was meant to be parody

It wasn’t parody. Like I worked very hard for what I have - the only thing I was blessed with was being well endowed. I used it to my advantage but worked hard too.

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Anonymous wrote:Male here. I am good looking and have a big d!ck, and it has helped me with almost everything on your list. I worked my a$$ off at the gym in high school, got a sports scholarship. Was able to sleep with a professor or two to get my grades up. Hooked up and married someone who was a trust fund baby and her parents set my business up. She only wanted me bc she had heard of my rep.

#notwinning

Not saying you don't have a great life. Good for you. But nothing there makes me envious, like hearing about some people's lives. You just have a more ornate cage.

Whatever. I have earned everything I have.

Anonymous wrote:Simply being white and attractive has gotten me everything I’ve ever wanted.

That’s the 100% truth.

Really? Tell us more. So many non-white people believe this to be true.

Anonymous wrote:The secret was being born to UMC/UC parents who funded everything so I could live on easy street my entire life.

Opposite here, but taught strong work ethic, patents had little else to give. Paid for college, wedding, house ourselves, since we had no one from whom to expect handouts.

Friends whose parents helped them with all that plus funding private schools, cars, etc. had tougher time bwcause they expected help.

I think you can move the goalposts a bit and still come out happy:

- Married or met spouse by 30
Yes. Combination luck and not having super-high standards, I suppose.

- Made $150K or more by 30
Still not making that at 45, but don't feel like I need it, especially with a two-income household and DH's side hustle.

- Owned SFH by 35
Yes, but we rented cheaply for a long time, so saved up for a 20% downpayment. But also true that DH's parents helped a bit.

- Graduated with zero or manageable debt
Yes, but that's luck: low-income parents and good grades. Paid off my college loans in five years with a side project I got through work.

- Remained thin and healthy throughout
I've never been DCUM thin but have remained in good health/exercise regularly, so happy with my body the way it is. My advice here: as long as you're not already struggling with weight, avoid dieting. It messes up your hunger cues and then you're relying on self-control, which most people don't have.

- Continued with hobbies or activities or travel to make a fulfilling life.
This has varied over the years but overall I would say yes. Attribute this to having a supportive/capable spouse and luck with having healthy children.

I happen to check all of those boxes too.

I don't expect things to be handed to me and I know I have to earn it and work hard.

Some things are luck but luck also favors the prepared.

I recently read Atomic Habits - a lot of it was stuff I already do to try to eat healthy, and exercise, even though I can always get better at it.

Don't wait around for other people. What can YOU do to get what you want? You can only control yourself. Focus on concrete, tangible things.

I always believe in small things making a big difference in the long run.

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Anonymous wrote:Male here. I am good looking and have a big d!ck, and it has helped me with almost everything on your list. I worked my a$$ off at the gym in high school, got a sports scholarship. Was able to sleep with a professor or two to get my grades up. Hooked up and married someone who was a trust fund baby and her parents set my business up. She only wanted me bc she had heard of my rep.

Okay so I think this is genuinely funny, but does bring up something that I have been thinking. It seems like men are *much* more likely to do everything on OP's list, and I wonder why that is? Aside from the gender wage gap, why is it that this list seems much more attainable for men?

If these men married someone, wouldn't the woman by definition meet all these requirements once they were married and shared finances?

That sort of assumes that men and women marry at equal rates and have similar finances, but without getting into that, there are things on the list that don't involve finances, like maintaining hobbies.

Fair point...though how many high earning, take-care-of-themselves, etc. men in their 20s do you know that settle down with women who are BOTH low earners and the type that doesn't maintain their health/body/interests?

Those are usually the men who upgrade and get a second wife.

Except…if she doesn’t work he gets screwed in the divorce financially and loses his kids. So they stay unhappily married.

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Anonymous wrote:Male here. I am good looking and have a big d!ck, and it has helped me with almost everything on your list. I worked my a$$ off at the gym in high school, got a sports scholarship. Was able to sleep with a professor or two to get my grades up. Hooked up and married someone who was a trust fund baby and her parents set my business up. She only wanted me bc she had heard of my rep.

Okay so I think this is genuinely funny, but does bring up something that I have been thinking. It seems like men are *much* more likely to do everything on OP's list, and I wonder why that is? Aside from the gender wage gap, why is it that this list seems much more attainable for men?

If these men married someone, wouldn't the woman by definition meet all these requirements once they were married and shared finances?

That sort of assumes that men and women marry at equal rates and have similar finances, but without getting into that, there are things on the list that don't involve finances, like maintaining hobbies.

Fair point...though how many high earning, take-care-of-themselves, etc. men in their 20s do you know that settle down with women who are BOTH low earners and the type that doesn't maintain their health/body/interests?

Those are usually the men who upgrade and get a second wife.

Anonymous wrote:Simply being white and attractive has gotten me everything I’ve ever wanted.

That’s the 100% truth.

Me too except I'm Asian.

Graduated with zero debt by forgoing the classic college experience and commuted to U of Md.

Job paid for me to get my masters degree.

Able to buy SFH at age 30 in large part because of the lack of school debt.

Met/Married by 30 because we worked at large company with lots of people in their 20s and 30s. I bet working from home has made office romances much more difficult.

I was lucky and born to highly educated parents who valued education and also made smart-ish kids. I was also lucky in that I happened to meet a wonderful DH very young and we started dating at 18 (after years of friendship), got married at 24 and started having kids at 28 after enjoying many years unencumbered. Sooooooo..... luck. It's mostly luck. I certainly didn't go out of my way to make bad decisions ,but the good decisions were also easy to make.

Anonymous wrote:There is an unhealthy obsession with wanting to attribute all successes to being born in the right place rather than one's own hard work and accomplishments. It's become fashionable to talk like this in the last few years.

In reality, real life is very different. I could tell you ALL the stories of the kids born on third base and who are effectively flunking out of life. Downward mobility is real. And I could tell you ALL the stories of people from nowhere who ended managing directors, head of companies, law partners, doctors, business owners.

Some people are genuinely born with the drive and discipline to work hard. For some people, this just comes more easily.

If there is a pattern to success, it's hard work and discipline. Then if you combine it with getting your education out of the way earlier, getting married (and doubling your HHI) in your mid-late 20s, and picking the right career paths, the odds of coming out top increases substantially.

But not everyone has the work ethic.

Meh anecdotes don’t mean much either way. So let’s look at data. What do you think the data shows in terms of social mobility?

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Anonymous wrote:Male here. I am good looking and have a big d!ck, and it has helped me with almost everything on your list. I worked my a$$ off at the gym in high school, got a sports scholarship. Was able to sleep with a professor or two to get my grades up. Hooked up and married someone who was a trust fund baby and her parents set my business up. She only wanted me bc she had heard of my rep.

Okay so I think this is genuinely funny, but does bring up something that I have been thinking. It seems like men are *much* more likely to do everything on OP's list, and I wonder why that is? Aside from the gender wage gap, why is it that this list seems much more attainable for men?

If these men married someone, wouldn't the woman by definition meet all these requirements once they were married and shared finances?

That sort of assumes that men and women marry at equal rates and have similar finances, but without getting into that, there are things on the list that don't involve finances, like maintaining hobbies.

Fair point...though how many high earning, take-care-of-themselves, etc. men in their 20s do you know that settle down with women who are BOTH low earners and the type that doesn't maintain their health/body/interests?

Simply being white and attractive has gotten me everything I’ve ever wanted.

That’s the 100% truth.