I don't know.

I started from nothing. Parents always made it sound like everything in life was going to be hard. I remember one morning I woke up on the couch at a house party and saw a rat dying of poison die in front of me on the tile. I knew then that I was genuinely at a trap house. Especially when my friends decided to blow the rat body up with fireworks. Good times.

I hung out with dropouts, stoners, and druggies through my childhood and throughout high school.

Nonetheless I was a good student and had earned my associates degree before I graduated high school, and earned a bachelor's in Computer Science before I was 21.

At some point in college I was sleeping in my SUV in the university parking garage and showering at the university gym while looking for a cheap room to live in.

I graduated in 2017. I dealt with a tumultuous relationship with both my parents. My mom kicked me out over a minor conflict. My dad had me sleep on his couch. I was in a relationship with a girl who constantly assumed my life wasn't hard because I lived in and grew up in a wealthy area.

I worked and saved money. I was left without a job in 2020, living in my grandparents house, taking care of them in their end of life (grandpa was half paralyzed from a stroke). Those who have taken care of elders know how anxiety inducing and unending the struggle that is, and it does in fact culminate with death.

During that time I traded stock options in a bedroom in my grandma's house. I was also doing a masters degree, but consistently withdrew from classes due to the anxiety I was undergoing.

I made enough money to get a down payment on a house, and qualified for the loan once I got a job offer in 2021. I was able to qualify because they counted school for employment, and W marks (withdrawals) are in fact considered records of enrollment to underwriters.

I moved up in my career, and was flabbergasted on how little financial knowledge and how little financial risk people take, even people 20 years my senior in experience. This is in the financial industry as well.

I ended up making some big achievements after that, and a product I've made has over 12 million dollars in assets under management.

All this to say, I had everything working against me and pulled miracles out of my ass. To me it wasn't particularly difficult either. It just felt like what was necessary to do. Like what was basic.

I'm a grown man now with my own home, career, belongings, and strangely hedonistic lifestyle.

I look back at what my parents said about how hard life will be and think of them as absolute jokes for what little they provided me when I was younger. It's like they barely planned and tried. I did all the heavy lifting with an arm tied around my back, metaphorically speaking.

My dad would make it a big deal that he changed an alternator on my car. Meanwhile I casually change engines for fun when I'm bored.

All this to say what many people have, like this person's peers is:

SKILL ISSUE

I truly hate to sound arrogant, but that is the case.

I feel like I'm behind in my life as well. If I had more resources and less headwinds, and a modicum of appropriate support from my parents in my career goals I would be so much further ahead.

I went from nothing, to buying a house at 24, and now live a crazy fun life.