Do what? Succeed at the opportunity they do have? Sure why not. Everyone's life is unique. There's folks who started off with different opportunities than myself. So what. That's their life. Doesn't make it better, doesn't make it worse, just makes it different. There's only a problem IMO when we try to measure our life against someone else's.
Yes, measuring one's life against someone else's can be a problem, although I don't think it's an issue which can be explained by reducing it to individual anecdotes. I think what's really being addressed is a great deal of propaganda people have been fed about the "American Dream" and the wonderful free enterprise system where anyone with a bit of pluck and luck can become a tycoon. This kind of BS went into overload during the Reagan era and has continued unabated to this very day.
We hear it all the time, and it's this kind of pseudo-patriotic propaganda which has damaged the American psyche. It
does encourage people to measure their lives against others, and as you correctly pointed out, this is a problem.
There's a very strong undercurrent in the popular culture that an individual's worth is based on the value of their possessions and wealth. It doesn't even matter
how an individual earned his/her wealth. You could be a drug kingpin, a mobster, a Wall Street raider, or some sleazy lawyer or con man (aka "people who have never produced anything of value for America yet still somehow managed to get paid anyway"), and this is viewed as "success" in the eyes of a consumer-driven, materialistic, hedonistic, morally-bankrupt culture.
The irony here is that a lot of the same people who have propagated this malarkey are many of the same ones lamenting the decline of civility, the decline of morals, the rise of certain fringe ideologies - and yet, they still can't seem to make the connection.
But yeah, if your point here is that life is life, some people have it good, some not so much, rain is wet - then okay. I guess there's not much to argue with there, but you may be missing the larger picture.
And to be fair, the poor in America aren't quite so bad off as the poor in many other countries in this world. We have some social programs and services to help people, although we could probably do better in this area. We still need to improve accessibility and affordability of quality healthcare, education, housing, and food, but it's nothing like it was in the 19th century or in some of the more poverty-stricken areas of the world.
Heck, even some homeless people and panhandlers have boasted getting hundreds of dollars a day, so some might say "Well, at least they're surviving somehow." But even that's not entirely true for everyone.
The real tragedy of it all is that it doesn't really have to be like this, at least not in a country which has so much excess wealth and luxury. It's not like we're some third world country, but when you see so many people out on the streets, along with boarded-up storefronts, abandoned buildings, decrepit roads, failing bridges, outdated transportation systems, sub-standard education, sub-standard healthcare, rising prices coupled with declining quality, major bankruptcies, and a general shift away from an industrial economy to an economy that can only export food and mineral resources - that's what third world countries have to do, because they have no other choice. Is that what America is becoming?
It's not about class envy or pulling oneself up by one's bootstraps. It's about national pride. If we're truly as "great" and "exceptional" as some people would have us believe, then it would show. But we're seeing just the opposite.
I don't need a lot to be happy. I don't necessarily know that those who have a lot are. Perhaps it is a western idea that success/happiness is a matter of privilege.
I don't think that people need to have a lot either. I also don't believe in hand-outs or giving away anything for free, but I think that working people should be given more consideration than they're currently receiving.