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You walk in your shoes Aimee, and you carry with you your life experiences and the things you have witnessed. Others walk in their own shoes, and carry entirely different life experiences, not to mention genetically in-built proclavities, talents and potential areas of weakness. The fact that some people can point to their lives and say I survived, and I did ok, despite these many barriers and anchors, does not necessarily mean that some other person given a very similar set of circumstances will be able to achieve the same outcome.
I do not, for one moment, believe that most poverty is entirely, or even primarily self-inflicted. I do believe there are people who are living in poverty and distressing circumstances, whose life choices and general attitudes have put them where they are. I believe they are a minority. I think the people who manage to break the patterns and chains of poverty are the exceptions who prove the rule. And I very much do not believe we should base our approach to ameliorating poverty on the experience of the exceptions.
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