Individualism, especially of the “pull yourself up by the bootstraps” variety, is largely a scam. Yes, motivation, perseverance and discipline are factors, but so is how you were raised, your relative wealth, the type of education you had and even the types of food you normally got to eat. Thousands of decisions and circumstances shaped your life before you were even old enough to drive, the vast majority of them completely without your input or awareness. Only after all of that do you begin to make your own decisions, and most of them are made within the constraints previously defined for you.
