Black Jack

I have always found it challenging to speak about income and wealth inequality when I live in an upper-middle-class suburb outside an economically prosperous city. It is easy for me to hold a deep hatred for rich kids who have had opportunities handed to them their entire lives, but it is far challenging to look inwardly and think of myself as that rich kid who has faced few obstacles from pre-school to university. The hardest part to reconcile is that the work I have put in isn’t meaningless, but rather something that was assisted by privilege.


“no matter what your ability is, effort is what ignites that ability and turns it into accomplishment.”
― Carol Dweck

I have always been drawn to stories of hard work and overcoming adversity to achieve their dreams. These stories resonate with me because they remind me of my experience in my youth with mindset, school, and athletics. During challenges in my childhood, I have met the majority with hard work and resolve. I learned that no one is going to hold my hand when I enter the world; I am responsible for all of my successes and failures. Being able to grow and overcome challenges relying on your own hard work is an exceptionally important skill that can be seen all through history and day-to-day life. I subscribe to the idea that hard work and the ability to overcome adversity are the traits that will define your successes.

Leonardo DiCaprio plays Jay Gatsby in the film based on the 1925 book.

There are few pieces of American literature that better exemplify the flaws in my idealistic vision of hard work’s fruitfulness than The Great Gatsby. Jay Gatsby is an eccentric millionaire who hosts extravagant parties to impress his love, Daisy Buchanan who was an upper-class woman. Gatsby was a savvy businessman who worked exceptionally hard to reach the pinnacle of society in order to chase his love. His goals can be seen as a metaphor for society’s idea that if you work hard you can achieve anything you want. Gatsby is everything that the American dream was supposed to produce; an individual who made his way into the upper class via hard work and shrewd business ideas. Ultimately, Gatsby’s eventual murder is a symbol of the flaws in the dream that he had believed in his entire life. Despite his hard work, he was never going to win Daisy over. His fatuous faith in the American dream was his downfall.

The 2008 economic crisis and the opioid crisis are perfect microcosms of the rigged game we live in. In the 2008 crisis, the lower class felt the brunt of the economic turmoil.

Lehman Brothers were one of the companies responsible for the 2008 economic collapse.

Meanwhile, the banks, insurance companies, and regulatory agencies were paid billions in bailouts. Instead of instituting change in the organizations, many companies used the money to pay bonuses to the executives while millions of people were put out of jobs and their homes. The rich not only profit off the backs of the lower class in good times, but the lower class also is liable for their greed in the crises.

The Opioid Crisis was caused by a manipulative plan assembled by astronomically wealthy families to exploit others for their own profit.  They introduced painkillers that they knew to be addictive and watched while they were overprescribed. As the years passed, they made billions off of the backs of their dependant users of opioids. Their use of drugs has many parallels to The Great Gatsby as they both made their money off of drugs. Strangely, the far more addictive and destructive one, opioids, was legal and had the backing of the government institutions. The disadvantaged hard worker is forced to bootleg alcohol during prohibition, while the rich develop their insidious pills under the eyes of the regulatory agencies.


It easy to be content with the hand you have been dealt; you could have poor genetics (maybe low intelligence or a slow metabolism). The idea of being alright with who you are, desiring no improvement leads you to live a stagnant life.

“Becoming is better than being”
― Carol Dweck

It may suck that the game we play is rigged, but that doesn’t mean it is productive to give up and complain about how much you have been screwed over. Our society is broken, but we aren’t going to change the rigged system of society by sitting on the couch.

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