This is a hype-article for the 'anyone can make it' myth, a myth that fuels culture of overworked young people[1] struggling against structural changes they're told to ignore.
[1]. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/02/religion-w...
Good. We need more of this kind of thing around here, and less negativity and the "luck is everything, effort is irrelevant, sit on your ass and wait for the government to fix all your problems" bullshit that we've been overrun with lately.
This is a hype-article for the 'anyone can make it' myth
There's a big difference between saying "anyone can make it" and saying "everyone will make it". There's also the fact that there's a wide continuum regarding what "it" means. Not everyone has to become a billionaire to have "made it." If you're working in the fields for less than minimum wage in 110° temperatures, then becoming a manager at McDonalds could easily count as "making it."
People should be encouraged to work hard and pursue their dreams... at the very least, I think we can all recognize that you're more likely to "make it" if you put the effort in, than if you sit around doing nothing.
This is something I thought was cool about this guy’s story: by the time he became a janitor, he had already “made it” relative to his campesino upbringing (or at least how the article makes it sound).
But he didn’t stop there.
110° temperatures has a tendency to kill off whatever crop you are growing. It's not a common growing condition and most areas with these temperatures regularly are not considered suitable regions for efficient agricultural production.
Phoenix itself - that is, the "Metro Phoenix" area - doesn't really supply agricultural products, but Arizona in general does, and has a very large and diverse set of climate zones which allow for this.
People tend to think of Phoenix and Arizona in general to be one giant wasteland desert - when nothing could be further from the truth.
Can you find such areas in Arizona? Certainly (but really, they aren't "wastelands" - just really hot and dry areas, but even so, there are plants, insects, and animals around). But there are far more diverse areas climate-wise in the state.
And many of these areas have been or still are large producers of various agricultural products.
Arizona is historically known for it's "5 C's":
https://azlibrary.gov/collections/digital-arizona-library-da...
Three of which are ag-based (cattle, citrus, and cotton).
Finally, this:
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/yuma-lettuce_n_6796398
...which has had it's downsides and issues recently, but things like that happen and are sorted out.
What a thoroughly disingenuous strawman.
That said, is is hard to explain exactly how "free will" would work in a universe that seems to be mostly - if not wholly - deterministic.
https://qz.com/work/1231617/what-you-learn-about-business-wh...
- guy with a website with a bunch of enterprise software gibberish
It means that although you are working hard but not working smart.
You do realize that nobody said that, or anything even remotely close to that, right?
Also... I've actually "been there and done that" as far as doing manual labor, outside, in the NC heat in July and August. So you can think what you want about what I have to say, but at least I'm actually speaking based on a lifetime of experience that includes growing up dirt poor, and managing to make it to a level where I can have "a website full of enterprise software gibberish".