Not sure if you grew up in the US, but a lot of people in the US make a conscious decision it's not worth it to work hard earlier in life to have a better outco

Not sure if you grew up in the US, but a lot of people in the US make a conscious decision it's not worth it to work hard earlier in life to have a better outcome later in life. I grew up in Massachusetts, one of the most educated states, but I grew up around a lot of the kids in my town and surrounding towns who were "on the wrong side of the tracks" and I had many conversations with peers around middle school where they clearly indicated they had already decided it was not going to be worth it to work hard in high school and that there was little point in going to college. All of that was too much hard work and there was little point of it for them, their perception was that it was just too much easier to just go towards menial and low paying jobs just because it was easier today. Working hard in high school would just be too much of a detriment to enjoying a carefree teenage experience. Now is that the fault of early education and/or parents for not making them understand the value of work today for a better outcome down the road? Who knows. But this is a prevalent mindset for a lot of people who grow up in the US. This was such a pervasive thing my parents had to intervene and send me to a Catholic school. That mindset was completely absent at that school and it snapped me out of things just about instantaneously because the mindset there was 100% that hard work now is worth it. To put it in context of the article a lot of that carefree teenage experience would have been going to parties and getting drunk.