Congratulations on your achievements rkz...but I think your argument is bullshit when applied to society at large. Plenty of people have hard childhoods and achieve great things in their field. My husband is one of them.

We're not just talking about going to school and getting the best out of it. It's about having the opportunity to put to use the knowledge you might gain yourself. Some people simply don't ever get that opportunity no matter how smart they are. No matter how hard they've worked.

I could give you plenty of examples, but one is the commercial fishing industry. An industry which is traditionally filled with people who're uneducated but work hard for the money they earn, and yet governments continually make life harder for them by imposing restrictions which are not usually in the best interest of the industry. How can someone, no matter how hard they work, seriously be expected to understand legal jargon to the extent where they can argue against it in order to improve their likely outcome?

These are the types of scenarios which are regularly to be found in the real world.

Do something else... go to school part time... move on.
Many do it.
Fear of/fighting change is a dead-end.
Reading problems were not my only issues. I had a great deal to overcome... it was very hard and is for anyone who has to do it, as a child or adult.
I am in no way belittling that, I am celebrating it.
I often say, a simple solution is rarely easy.
If your job is dead-end or becoming overpopulated, the solution is simple. It will not be easy.
The only time one loses is when they quit or say that the solution lies in relying on others to solve the problem completely when you can actually do it.
It makes me crazy to see those who can work choose not to for simple excuses when I would give almost anything to be able to work again.
I don't buy it... if you want to work at it, you will, if not... you will not.
I worked until they took me out of that building in an ambulance.

Who is Gary Ryan Blair?

There's no way that my reality is the same as yours, or anyone else's, therefore reality is far more discriminatory than Mr Blair would have you believe.

What's the definition of reality? Something that is real. But from what perspective?

How do you prounounce the word for the car Jaguar? What's the reality? What do you think is a good education? Yr 10? Yr 12? Finishing University? Exactly whose perspective are we talking about?

Everyone has a different reality, and showing them that there's a difference is something that takes more than just telling people.

I disagree.....reality is entirely subjective.

Wow, cool... I get to decide not to be sick!!!!

Yet again I hear an argument based on the fact that a few have achieved what is difficult. For every one who had succeeded despite dyslexia, I can show another five whose lives and self esteem have been irreparably damaged. We as a society lose so much through those people.
I have, in my time as a literacy tutor, met people who were so bright and yet so damaged by life and their early schooling, that they will likely never contribute to society as a whole.....but they could have done so much. It's truly heartbreaking.

No, but you get to decide how much it affects your life - no disrespect intended, but as you say, there are plenty of people who have similar stories as you but who do not live their lives in such a positive way.

Nope.....but how that sickness feels to you, is entirely your own.

LOL... let me crush your spine and then you get to tell me it feels like a massage.

As for the dyslexia thing... I agree, you choose to let others make you feel like it is a handicap or not.

Social capital consists of networks of social relations which are characterised by norms of trust and reciprocity. Combined, it is these elements which are argued to sustain civil society and which enable people to act for mutual benefit (Lochner et al 1998; Winter 2000a); it is ‘the quality of social relationships between individuals that affect their capacity to address and resolve problems they face in common’ (Stewart-Weeks and Richardson 1998: 2). Thus, social capital can be understood as a resource to collective action, which may lead to a broad range of outcomes. In his analysis of social capital and family life, Winter (2000a: 2-6) argues that despite some conceptual confusion in the social capital literature, three of the most notable social capital writers each conceptualise social capital in this way, albeit it in relation to differing outcomes, of varying social scale. Bourdieu (1993), Putnam (1993) and Coleman (1988) each understand social capital as a resource to collective action, the outcomes of which concern economic wellbeing, democracy at the nation state level, and the acquisition of human capital in the form of education, respectively 6.

I highly recommend reading the whole article if you have time.http://www.aifs.gov.au/institute/pubs/RP24.pdf

Okay, my point may sound facetious.....but, even with something as serious and devastating as a crushed spine feels different to each person. I cannot know how you feel, you cannot know how I feel, all we can do is extrapolate from our own experience base as to what we think the other person is feeling.

I know the concept and have read about it.
Had to do with me. I had a hard time early in life. Nearest neighbor was 2 miles away, was not related to as a normal child, really. Dyslexia and no social skills for my age group was a real set-back. Never had a social group until Jr. High. Spent the first part of my life solitary, even when in school surrounded by kids, I was alone. I had my nervous disorder and other things I don't talk about.
I learned very quickly to tell people what they wanted to know. Things in my teens made it worse.
Blame is futile... you do what you need to do to make things happen for yourself. If I ever let other's opinions affect me in any way other than a challenge I would be dead. It is not an excuse.
We are all alone in our skin, I learned that from day one... day two, it is not so bad alone.

I think you and I have quite a lot in common.

I was quite isolated early on, actually through most of my childhood and teenage years, through ill health (not stuff I really want to talk about in detail). It makes one quite.....self-sufficient in many ways.

Well I think that's your opinion, and if it works for you that's great rkz, but research suggests that you are probably one of few who have had the ability to do so.

Good on you.

Yup.