I'm in a similar situation to you - dropped out of school, worked dead-end jobs for years, then suddenly "decided" to turn it around and have a career, and mostly just talked my way into a series of larger and larger successes. And I've met a few other people who've followed this path. But I have friends my age who just can't pull this off. There doesn't seem to be any particular reason, but they just keep failing to find anything but the most soul-crushing low-paying jobs. I can't find anything that they're doing that's different than what I was doing - and some of them have nice college and graduate degrees, even. And, somehow, there's a correlation with the income level of each of our parents. It's as if it's just easier for some of us to navigate the economy, if we've had good examples of how to do it. So I guess I agree with you, even though I could have sworn I was trying to write a rebuttal.