[calt]

Don't tell me that I just needed to believe in myself more.

My belief in my ability to succeed was briefly shattered by my dad's employment situation. He was a well qualified engineer laid off from manufacturing. That made us struggle.

I was always thinking about money and feeling the need to optimize for $2 meals instead of $4 meals, and wondering if my car would hold in long enough to be able to get me to school in a week. These are things that only your first, most motivated, category of people will overcome.

I didn't overcome these obstacles. I temporarily dropped out. Don't tell me that I just needed to believe in myself more.

My story only has a happy ending because state schools are cheap and engineering internships are paid.

[pwinnski]

I didn't read a "just" in the previous poster.

I do believe that belief or trust is a necessary but inadequate precondition to success. Believing in yourself is not enough to help you succeed, but not believing in yourself is enough to help you not succeed.

As a society, we do a very poor job giving people that trust or belief.

[rectang]

> As a society, we do a very poor job giving people that trust or belief.

So, do you address that with pep talks, proselytizing about "meritocracy", and "tough love"; or by actually addressing economic insecurity through safety nets that allow people to make a mistake or two without crashing and burning?

[pwinnski]

I think it's rational for people to not have trust or belief given our society as it is. So I think we should address the root causes of economic insecurity structurally rather than cheerleading people who have no reason to feel secure.

Empty cheerleading gives us no-doc jumbo loans at sub-prime rates... until the music stops and bad debts are revealed as the bad debts they are.