At some point I came to realize that a large chunk of the population in my country (USA) live their entire lives paycheck-to-paycheck, never getting ahead. I th

At some point I came to realize that a large chunk of the population in my country (USA) live their entire lives paycheck-to-paycheck, never getting ahead. I think even in the very best of times, this number never gets below 20% or so. And that's not to say that all these people are irresponsible, far from it. Often it's just some combination of low/unpredictable income and life happening too fast. Anybody who has the opportunity to build wealth (as I have) has to recognize that at least part of that is luck.