How did you climb out of your situation and mindset?
But then I did this thing and could not afford to that. So I moved in with my parents, and I was just so ashamed that I would wake up early in the morning and work till late at night every single day, weekends and weekdays. When I had saved enough to move back out and get my own place, somehow that attitude just stuck and really, if you just work really long days, money comes. Wake up early, work till night, don't have too many friends, don't watch TV and within a year you can afford most anything.
Going back to school is something I did LATER, and frankly, it did not have as big an effect as just working hard for others.
Uhm... It's not that simple at all. If you work for some big company in a cubical, working really long days probably wont help you at all. Do you mean working for yourself long days? That isn't guaranteed either. Perhaps you just mean entry level-ish hourly jobs?
What about sleep? Health? You seemed to pull yourself out, but what was the cost to your body and mental state? How long did it take?
I really felt as if I was put through some kind of wringer, and came out tougher, but I also lost part of my humanity. I'm just not as nice a person anymore, less patient, more angry, not as easy-going, not quite as pleasant to be around.
So yes, that shit was not free. I paid for it, I got what I wanted in the end, but I know I'm definitely not the same person as before.
Be careful with that, when you are writing the narrative of your own life.
One often looks at the materially poor in developing world and finds them to be at least superficially happy.
The problem here in the west for me is the question of stability - I'm poor and happy but when 20% VAT hits if business goes down the tube then we'll be down and outs.
Literally we're on a knife edge highly susceptible to external forces in a way that makes it hard to be completely content.
It's incorrect to assume that poor people don't want to work, as well. Most of them want to work so badly that they'll work for less than minimum wage. Think Hispanic illegals here working for < min wage. This really just ends up hurting everybody in the poverty range. But employers don't care; a body is just a body to them, menial workers for minimum pay equals more profits in their pockets and just enough dangled hope to keep them enslaved.