I do feel reasonably successful (I earn a mid-six figures annual salary and have assets over a million after a divorce), although like anyone else, knowing that there are others who are doing better than me rankles just a bit. I simply acknowledge that jealousy is a stupid motive; jealousy seems to be your animating principle. Coming from a shack in Western Kentucky I feel things have worked out really well for me. But I'm smart, and smart people will naturally do better over time. Top 1% cognitive ability has lifted the Admiral from po' folks to the top 5% of wealth in America; the difference that's held me back, in my estimation, is ethics. I'm too ethical to grab every dollar that's been in front of me to be grabbed. But there are a lot of people who are not smart who got lured into going to law school twenty years later than I did, and I feel sorry for those kids.