Does it, though?
I’ve been more observant of the fact that people just assume that the past trajectory of somebody, good or bad, defined where they will be in their life. There are some aspects of it that make sense … Like, if you don’t change your trajectory, which is a lot of the time likely, your future is predictable to some extent based on your past trajectory. But that’s messed up to some extent at the same time. What I feel like happens most of the time is not that the individual in the picture has maxed out their potential or that they are just too “lazy” or “comfortable” to change, but more so that the society and other external factors that can come into play and allow this person to change, just don’t do it! Because they just don’t see the greater vision that this person has! So in a sense, we are, for better or worse, in a society where if you go to Harvard, you have a higher chance at being able to do what you want to do in life afterwards, regardless of how much you mess up the actual college exerpeicene. Whereas somebody else can get into a more normal-ish school, do everything right, and still not be able to do what they want, because they’re just not offered the chance to do it.
Do I see this kind of process changing in any meaningful way any time soon? Not really, unfortunately. Society as a whole will always have standards that don’t necessarily mean anything, but it just does its own thing. On an individual basis, though, I believe people who are persistent enough will most of the time be able to carve out their path, even if they don’t have the strongest background for whatever reason. It is unfair that people are raised with different upbringings, different access to resources, and are still judged by the same “objective” outcome instead of being judged by how far they’ve come along, but meh, that’s just life. I can’t really dwell on that.