LOL. Yeah.

This article could have been written in every generation since the beginning of time.

was true when I was in school. The kids I saw buying cars and houses were ones who didn't have a lot of student loans or other debt once they graduated. I was jealous!

I know we Gen Xers have that in common. Most of us will probably never recover.

on the bottom had some chance of getting into a good paying job. Many of those jobs are overseas. And college has never cost more than it does today. And housing....more expensive.

You are correct this has happened in the past but the wealth divide has never (almost never -1929) been bigger. Not has it ever been more expensive to overcome that.

parents' home to live is relatively recent.

Most of the college educated boomers lived ndependently after they graduated.

Compared to today. It will get worse as the everyone should go to college continues. Somebody still has to do regular jobs that used to be held by HS and GED. Now held by bachelors because a huge percentage is going to college.

The article's hard to follow.

We know 30% or so of Millennials (the article's #s) return to the nest.

We know, likewise, 46% went to college, at least for a while. Of those, 61% (28% of Millennials) got some help with college expenses. Note that includes letting them live at home, not just doling out money for them. And that's "some help", not "daddy paid for it all."

Of that 61% of Millennials getting help for college from their parents (28% of the cohort), 43% became homeowners by the end of the study's time interval. So that's 43% of 61%, meaning 12% of Millennials. A quarter of them get help with down payments, or 3% of Millennials. The article puts the larger of the stats up front; you have to read down further and sometimes calculate things yourself for a more accurate picture. (That's because the Zillow person who actually provided all the numbers wanted to do it that way to show that that many are "unfairly" shut out of the real estate market. Who knew, an analyst working for a large real-estate industry firm wants to say access to that market is hampered by incomes.)

Quick: Of the 30% who are at home, how many went to college?

And what state are the 55% "in between" sofa-surfing and buying in, besides "in between"?

No, it doesn't give that information. Nor information about non-college kids who have bought a house. Nor even how choice of college, whether to accept the maximum in loans or scrimp, etc., affect things. Very messy, this business.

It does say, however, that a primary hurdle is where Millennials want to live--in cities where houses are more expensive.

It also seems to insist that you need 20% for a down payment. Yeah, it's a great idea. Not necessary, though.

It's always been true that having a fat account with the Bank of Mom & Dad was an advantage. It's just become a much bigger advantage with the combo of soaring college costs and fewer good paying entry-level jobs.

thanks to the TPP and TISA.

Just like the old days. None of this unwashed masses competing with their evil spawn.

Like FDR, JFK, and RFK?

Just because you are born into wealth, it doesn't make you evil. Likewise, being poor doesn't make you angelic.

What a twisted view of the world.

just the Real-World view of a former Graduate Teaching Assistant who had to deal with them.

there are a few but they seem to be the exception and remember Roosevelt was treated very badly by the "upper class" (which was his own class). It takes courage and honesty to do what is morally correct and money seems to corrupt as one can see in our government now.

There are millions of 1%ers in this country that support Democratic candidates. They support "progressive" causes. They donate to programs for the poor and even start and run many of them.

They just aren't Douchebag Trump who feels the need to make everything he does into a spectacle.

That's why I shake my head about so many lambasting the 1% as if all of them are Trump or the Kochs. There are plenty on our side.

You think Obama raised the most money in history from poor people? You think Hillary is doing so well because she has connected with the food stamp crowd? Of course not.

Wealth =/= morality, compassion, or values. There is not an inverse relationship between the two for every wealthy person.

So you think 100% of the 1% are "decent?" Or just two million. Because the s on that million sort of messes up the math.

Fox News, Rupert Murdoch sources? I know there are wealthy progressive folks out there, but they are a distinct minority of the 1%-ers. Sources, please.

--the 1% are in NO WAY on our side.

There is NO substantial evidence for your absurd claim. The vast majority of the wealthy 1% are extremely selfish and protective of CORPORATE interests.

(Exception mainly a handful of actors/musicians with a heart).

... or is it a ticket to a successful financial life?

Philly is becoming a haven for startups. Storefronts and offices opening everywhere with a population of hipster tech types in expensive clothes. 'Co-working' spaces are filled before they even open.

I'm a designer and have some dealings with them, mostly socially.

'So what's your product?'

'I don't have a product.'

'Who is your client?'

'I don't have a client.'


Invariably I find out that they are working on spec and their living expenses are covered by daddy.

Without daddy Trump wouldn't be Trump:

"In March 2011 Forbes estimated Donald Trump's net worth to be $2.7 billion, with a $60 million salary. Many praise and analyze his “success” as if it were self-made, and they fail to attribute the proper credit to others in society where it is deserved. Despite what Trump may espouse, his success would have been in no way possible without his father"


http://www.alternet.org/story/156234/exposing_how_donald_trump_really_made_his_fortune%3A_inheritance_from_dad_and_the_government%27s_protection_mostly_did_the_trick

As a group to be wooed by politicians developers alike by local COC types wanting to gentrify former working class areas to whitewash the erosion of the working class' economic viability.

Idle rich hipsters, I'll call them.

wealthy hipsters have housing, stores and schools that cater to them; sky high property costs and rents; displaced local working people and their housing, services and jobs with nowhere to go. Like Rahm in Chicago, RE, tech cos. and many others who know to feed off this population and generation. Prior to the 90s artists often gravitated to cities, no more. 'Creative, artistic, curators' my a*s.

Hard hit, over expanded suburbs that never had the social services kind of infrastructure of cities are becoming zombielands, and the many blighted, job gutted, once thriving cities like Balto., Cleveland, Buffalo, Detroit and more are in continual decline. Prisons are doing well though. There was an article here a few months ago about residents in a smaller town/city that almost rioted to try to get back the prison that moved away because they needed the jobs. A sick country; didn't have to be this way. But like Chris Hedges says, progress isn't linear like we think.

In the 90s a friend in Seattle, originally from the east knew a high school teacher with 2 degrees who spent his summers cleaning carpets in expensive, almost empty homes of junior execs. from Microsoft and other tech cos. They bought for the deduction and investment, were single, rarely home, no spouse or kids. > Reaganomics.

Tuition Assistance while active duty and a free 4 year Post 9/11 GI Bill to use within 15 years that also pays living expenses. Plus 0-down VA mortgages with no PMI, it's a nice financial springboard for young people.

the background. A person doesn't have to have it all right now but if willing to wait can get what they want in the end.

I had nothing when I joined and got a degree and good jobs because of it.

Pointing out that serving in the military could springboard someone just like having a rich daddy!?

Well I never!

But no, seriously; too many people overlooks the effect that the benefits granted to veterans in the post wwii era created the middle class and the era of American growth.

When boomers eschewed that lifestyle, refused help from their "square" parents, and didn't get that leg up, they reset progress for their children; the millennials.

I never said it was not earned or deserved, I have benefited from it myself.

You said it perfect, it's a good financial head start financially in a young person's life.

I got a degree on active duty and was able to transfer my full GI Bill to my son, it's a great benefit and puts you ahead of the game.

the benefits after are part of the compensation for their labor. Whether they get shot at or let someone else get shot at.

Not free - anyone who was really in the military earns it. You should know that.

They are great benefits for a young person to graduate college or technical school debt free and be ahead in life financially.

Anytime I hear someone use the word "free" in describing how people get something, it makes me sit up.

It's not free. They just don't have write a check for the tuition because it has already been written by their service. I think that is important to remember.

Seems like a minor point until one forgets what it really costs.

Instead of free, how about " no out of pocket costs" for the new one?

what my family went through. VA benefits are helpful, but will never make up for what we experienced.

The thread is about younger people having the benefit of earning education debt free and TA and the GI Bill are great ways to do that, I'm endorsing them, they have benefitted me greatly.

of the GI bill. The air force is a good bet. The training is excellent.

Electronics, IT, Aviation, Health Services, etc.

you risk being put in a position where you're ordered to slaughter innocent brown people (and why? U.S. corporate profit, of course), which would be even worse, to me. And then you might take on a lifetime's worth of PTSD.

Not worth it, IMO.

Who is the corporate beneficiary of our war against ISIL and our other military actions?

in the past dozen years include Lockheed, Boeing, BAE, General Dynamics, Raytheon, Northrup Grumman, EADS, Finmeccania, L-3 Communications, United Technologies. Most of that is Iraq related.

Are you denying that we invaded Iraq for corporate profit and needlessly slaughtered tens and tens of thousands of people for this aim?

My point stands. We have invaded countries in the past and mass murdered people for no honorable reason. It can happen again in the future.

When you join the military, you can't say, "Oh, I only want to be involved in small-scale operations with a limited anti-terrorist objective that I agree is necessary for actual 'defense' of the United States." No. You are putting yourself out there as someone who might be asked to mow down innocents at the pleasure of Dick Cheney/PNAC types.

and company that provides services to them. The names Halliburton and Bechtel ring any bells?

I didn't realize there was such a steep "upside" to getting drafted. GI Bill and VA benefits were a big plus.

On the other hand, when I went to college, the state kicked a lot of money to the universities, so tuition was cheap. Now the tuition is high and the annual increases are way above inflation.

The newer GI Bill typically pays 100% of tuition, books and living expenses equal to E-5 BAH.

The VA loan is a great pathway to home ownership as well for people in this age range.

Plus in the modern volunteer military the member is in much greater control about what job they do depending on what rating or MOS they select.

I know many people under 30 that have gotten degrees with zero $$$$ out of pocket and bought homes with $0 down and no PMI. Them being that position early will greatly benefit them financially as well as their children.

My daughter is one of those millennials who is doing just fine -- great, in fact. She only has a bachelor's degree (a humanities degree routinely mocked as "useless" by lots of people who fail to understand the value of critical thinking and communication skills) but has been working since the day she graduated; she got her job on her own, without utilizing any connections or alumni networks. Three years in, at age 25, she is now making a salary that puts her in the top 20% of all US income earners, regardless of age. She lives on her own and could easily afford a car if she wanted one (as a city-dweller, she doesn't); she can't afford to buy a home yet but could do so by age 30 if she chose to; meanwhile, instead, she's been socking away money for retirement and has a healthy 401k.

My wife and I are not rich. I'm a government worker and my wife has an unconventional and inconsistent work history (this year, in fact, our daughter will out-earn her). Nor do we come from rich families; our parents, in fact, have no savings and live on social security.

So how is she doing so well? Two things mattered:

1) Lack of student debt. We cut a deal on education with our daughter early on: we'll take care of college, but nothing more. I know not every parent can afford that; hell, we couldn't afford it (she graduated with between $30-40k in debt, which we have taken on, and that was after getting tens of thousands of dollars in financial air from her school). But it was clear to us that college costs might hobble us, but they would absolutely cripple her, so we bit the bullet. I am not saying all parents should do this. What I am saying is that sensible education financing policies that allow students to graduate with minimal debt are essential to young people succeeding.

2) Health care. My daughter has health concerns that would complete constrain her finances if she did not have access to affordable health care. She gets it through her employer, but thanks to Obamacare she could get it regardless.

Long story short: kids don't need rich parents; they have a rich country. We just need policies that compel that rich country to act like the rich parent it is.

if one already rich. Ask any bank$ter/donor or their political lapdogs.

For the 99%, however, it's hit and miss, with a lot more miss than hit.

A lot of my friends are leaving for Nevada and Texas because rent is much cheaper than California. My friend lives in Reno and he and his wife pay like almost half of what they paid here for a 3 bedroom house where here that would barely get a one bedroom studio apartment. It's nuts.

We have a large house at the end of our street. The young people who live there share a kitchen and bath facilities. They just have rooms, and the rent is maybe $500 per month. It is insane. For people starting out, Los Angeles is not affordable. And then there is the water shortage. Too many people move to Los Angeles and other big cities because that is where the jobs are supposed to be. Certainly there are no jobs for young people in the really small towns in America in most parts of the country. It's sad because the quality of life once you have children is better in smaller cities and towns.

I'll miss the weather and my sports teams but at least the rent will be affordable.

but housing costs in a lot of places here is still high. boulder is outrageous, denver is a little better, but even fort collins is getting pricey.

I have what would be a good paying job anywhere else (well, decent, I suppose) but housing in this area is outrageous. I live and work in Annapolis and currently rent. When I was looking, rents within a reasonable commuting distance (say 15-20 miles) were all around $1200 for a one-bedroom apartment.

The problem for me has been that places with decent quality of life (blue states, mostly) cost so very much. Places with low costs of living are usually not places I'd like to live. I lived in Texas for a long time and there is not enough money in the world to induce me to move back to that hellhole, especially since the lunatics continue to be in charge of the asylum.

It was for her first two years of college. I forget what the rent was, but I do remember it was totally nuts. Some apartment complex in La Brea, and she shared with two other girls. I was so relieved when she was done there--until she moved to Manhattan.

Out of the frying pan, as they say.

On the other hand, she is still there, and earning her own way, although by NYC standards, it probably still only counts as slave wages. But she loves Manhattan, and has no desire to move back to Germany at this time, even if she could get a decent job in her field, which is by no means a certainty.

Whatever. It's her life, and hers to decide how to live.

out there. A little bachelor apartment in Mar Vista took damn near all the money I had. Got tired of living so close to homelessness so I left. I do miss it sometimes but things are just easier here. Had some fun times during those two years though.

My parents are poor as dirt.

There are always exceptions to the rule, people who applied for just the right job opening, who had just the right connection, who found some niche to fill for which there wasn't much competition. But even if 10% of millennials doing well don't have rich parents, that's another 90% who don't.

My 26 yr old is an exceptional Union Ironworker,made 6 figures last year and will do better this year.

I did know people to put him in the right places early on,but hes his own man now living on Lake Michigan outside Milwaukee.

and good for him. The skilled trades will always be in demand. Glad to hear he is a union man.

I went into the Marines after HS, went to college on the gi bill, and now work as government contractor.

I'm a baby boomer, and this same issue was rampant in my own generation. Some simply started out "ahead" of the rest of us in the same generation. The rest of us have spent out entire lives trying unsuccessfully to catch up, too.

the relatively low tuitions at state universities.

Plus the job market called for educated, skilled, hard-working people.

There were many more good, factory jobs, Service representative jobs were available in the US. Stores hired lots of clerks to help customers find products on the shelves. When you called for service or information from your bank or any other business, you were not required to listen to a long list of possible choices and then finally after a half an hour of Musak, allowed to speak, just maybe to yet another machine, but possibly to a human being. And that person you spoke to spoke American English. That helped eliminate a lot of confusion and misunderstandings. Those jobs talking to customers are lost now. Nothing against the sweet young things in the Philippines or in India, but they have jobs that are generated in the US by US customers' questions and that work generated in the US is done in another country. Fewer jobs for Americans, especially young Americans.

It was very, very different.

In many fields today, you have to have a PhD just to get a full-time job. College teachers with only MAs or unfinished dissertations, for example, work as part-timers with no job security, no pension in the future, just living from semester to semester.

And that is true in most of the working world today. When I started working back in the 1950s and 1960s, the understanding was that employer and employee would give each other notice, usually two weeks, before firing or quitting. That is no longer true.

Much of this change is the result of Reaganism.

We need to make some big changes. Employers' tax deductions should be related not to how many new devices they buy that save the need to hire people but to how many people they employ and how much they pay their employees. Firing people should involve a financial penalty for the employer. We need to foster stability in the workplace and in families by making it just a little painful to fire employees. Rather than firing employees, employers should have an incentive to educate and work with employees who are not performing well.

As human beings, one of our greatest motivators is our desire to be appreciated, accepted and even admired. We need to teach employers how to use positive feedback as well as negative feedback to develop a strong team in the workplace. That would help our whole society to be more positive and more successful.

Millenials often get the worst end of our social problems.

And shared.

The "JEST WERK HARDER, BY GUMPTION!" set are seriously and willfully forgetting how incredibly easy they have it compared to this generation. The difference in opportunity abundance is simply not comparable at all.

in terms of college costs (and it wasn't easy for us either. I worked at all kinds of jobs for room and board, etc. when I was in college.) have children who are having a tough time. We do know what it is like now.

And finding a job is so much harder now.

Prior to 1970, it was free for residents. Here's an outstanding link outlining the entire UC history until 2014.

http://www.dailycal.org/2014/12/22/history-uc-tuition-since-1868/

Just some broadstrokes from recent years:

2005-06: Annual tuition and fees for resident UC undergraduates total $7,434. Annual tuition and fees for nonresident UC undergraduates total $25,254.

2009: The UC Board of Regents votes to increase tuition by 32 percent, pushing annual costs to more than $10,000. UC students protest by occupying buildings.

2011: The Occupy movement rocks UC campuses. Incorporated in Occupy’s message is discontent with budget cuts and rising tuition.

2011: For the first time, the total amount UC students pay in tuition exceeds the amount of funding the UC system receives from the state.

2011-12: Annual tuition and fees for resident UC undergraduates total $14,460. Annual tuition and fees for nonresident UC undergraduates total $37,338.

They lost out on the inherited wealth advantage generations ago. They have to make on their own without much help from their great-great-grandparents. They have the most to gain from the promise of affordable pre-school education and free college. They have the most to gain from a more equitable economic organization and from fairer taxes that will reverse the trend of wealth redistribution that has put more and more money into the hands of the inheritors and less and less into the hands of the doers.

And that is what working people are: doers.

Bernie Sanders can turn this around.

it was very unusual for someone to graduate with a large debt. My parents were not rich at all. We were plain working-class. But they were able to send me to good schools without borrowing a penny. I worked odd jobs for spending money and they were easy to find. I don't remember the numbers but the difference between wages and tuition has gone nuts.

wasn't college almost exclusively for rich people's kids?

Do colleges ever flunk out rich people's kids? Too much of that and administrators might have to cut back on their 5-figure raises.

The myth of the "healthy middle class".

This middle class was created by a fluke set of circumstances (and wasn't even as widely spread and successful as it's romanticized to be), in the mid-20th century due to a number of factors that never existed before and are unlikely to exist ever again.

I lived it and I know better from experience.

But that was before thousands of factories in the U.S. were shut down and moved to Mexico and then China and Vietnam, costing millions of well-paying jobs that allowed a lot of Americans even without any college to work their way into the comfortable life of the middle class. Many worked well-paying jobs in harsh conditions so that their kids could go to college and do even better.

It's true that Europe and Asia weren't much competition for a while after WWII so the U.S. had a distinct advantage. But the U.S. economy generally worked much, much better for 99% of the population when the wealth recirculated, the top tax rate was around 90%, and excessive greed was not "good" but publicly scorned--before Reagan and the "trickle-down" swindle.

1. No one could buy anything during the depression because nobody had money. No one could buy much during WWII because civilian production was cut way back because of war production. At the end of the war, Europe and Asia had been destroyed. The people in the US had money to spend and the US was cranking out stuff to spend it on.

2. In the twenties, the US really clamped down on immigration. Very few people were getting in. In the 1930, people put off having kids because they didn't have jobs. During the 50s, very few people were coming of age and joining the workforce. Because of the above factors, the US had a labor shortage and unions had the whip hand.

3. By the time the mid-60s rolled around, immigration restrictions had begun to ease and the baby boomers came into the work force. Europe and Asia recovered their productive capacity. The scarcity of workers became a flood.

buy cars and a house, and they were strictly LOWER Middle-Class (like, a 900 sq. ft. house, no garage, and furniture from 1960).

For many of those millennials, it should be a sign that they're saving money.

Once upon a time, I bought a car and put money in a savings account while I lived with my parents, and our son is living with us now and doing the same thing. He should be able to buy a house, too, eventually.

It's common in most of the world for 20 somethings to live with their parents till they're married, while here the idea used to be that everyone's supposed to be out at 18.

Letting your young adults continue to live at home is a simple way to help them save while they establish themselves.

1. Capital
2. Capital
3. Capital

- drive, in the sense of mega persistence, which also allows to get experience based knowledge. This is fueled by intense desire and optimism.

- intelligence, of course

- opportunity, which is perhaps the luck based part

- Mentors are also important, but drive + intelligence is what's needed to attract a mentor. Mentors can put you on the fast track to success.

Success in a capitalist system is basically an opportunity that is exploited by someone with an intense drive and the intelligence to take advantage of that opportunity. Someone like Edison had the opportunity to make the first light bulb, and he used mega persistence plus intelligence to try and fail, try and fail, until he found the right design for a light bulb.

An intense drive plus intelligence allows someone to attract and gather together the right people to help him / her to exploit the opportunity, as well as to get whatever else is needed to make success possible. Success is never guaranteed, but if someone has the intelligence and the drive, success is pretty much likely at some point in time.

Consider two individuals with identical drive and intelligence, one is working class and one is a child of wealth.

One will struggle to pay for an education at a community college or state university. The other will have an all-expenses-paid adventure in the Ivy League.

One will graduate with a stifling amount of student loan debt, and will spend the first ten (maybe more!) years of his career struggling to pay it off. The other will graduate with no student debt, and will spend the first ten years of his career accumulating capital.

Who will have more opportunity?

To make it in this system, you must support the goals of the current owners of capital, ie you must be willing to right off many millions of your fellow human beings as undeserving of just treatment and a decent life.

Developers are actually building luxury apartments in college towns FOR students. Often parents buy the condo or house as an investment: the student lives in the place while they go to college while the parents make more money off the student's housemates/roommate. Then the condo/house can be sold at a profit after college.

Poor people go into debt during college. Rich people with good credit and liquid money to invest are positioned to make bank off the situation. Poor people can't do this.

At the same time, rich people may be contributing to a housing crisis in the local community if they think this property is such a good investment that they buy up more units and help push up a speculation bubble. The people who need to live there are competing with out-of-towners who are just looking for investment properties. In some cases these investors are from foreign countries. China is an avid investor in college towns because those properties are considered stable investments. Real estate investment firms go on junkets to Hong Kong to sell packages of US properties for Chinese people to invest in. Local real estate firms get in on the action by collecting local properties and packaging them for the bigger fish.

For those who are confused having seen my baby daughters pics, I have two daughters, one 3.5 months old, and one who is 21 and will be a senior in college next year.

My older daughter is going to a private college and has not taken out any loans through three years. But both of my parents, my ex wife, her husband, her husbands mother, and me and my wife have all been paying out tons of money to make that happen, that includes partial academic and sports scholarships. And she will graduate with no debt. The seven of us never agree on anything else, but we agree she should not take out student loans because they are horrible.

I feel bad for anyone else caught in the student loan trap.

Biggest estates in history. Gen X will be part of that too. They are saying that inheritance will be huge over the next 50 years.

... we selfish boomers are going to live for as long as we can, so don't count on a quick inheritance.

"Soylent Green" could fix that, though.

We need you!

My millennial son is doing very well. He has a great job that he loves and is rising through the ranks. He has taken over paying the college loans we took out for him. He is saving for retirement, traveling and enjoying life.

All this with an English degree.

We are far from rich. My husband is a public school teacher here in Florida. I work part time as a freelance writer.

Rich kids in their 20s buying $750k houses & then spend more to update it. Cuz you know, when you're in your 20s, you should have a house almost as nice as mom & dad's.

There was a once a day when legitimate news sources like The Atlantic wouldn't stoop to that kind of thing.

who are thriving without rich parents and who are also making student loan payments. It is never a good idea to assume everyone of an age group are all the same.

Policies that favor the rich have destroyed the American dream.

I look at my daughter and her friends.

The ones who had children early are doing badly.

The ones who are focused on school/jobs and are childless are doing great even though their parents are poor.

Children are incredibly expensive and are a difference maker in one's financial security.

Having rich (and connected) parents paves the way to success.

Shocked, I am SHOCKED, I tell you!

Money and riches replicate money and riches. It sure pays off big to be in the lucky sperm club.

He even has a pool table and a rec room.

What he doesn't have is a college degree, student debt, affluent parents or an aversion to pumping septic tanks.

Maybe the problem is something else.

yes indeed

If it doesn't generate a compensatory income, you can't.

In fact, you shouldn't.

Life is a math problem, and jr high equipped all of us with enough skill to solve that particular one.

66% of 22 year-olds enter the workforce competing with one another for the job in the city that will finance the apartment that served as the set for Friends. Most will be disappointed. The winners will have parents who could afford to finance a few additional years of unpaid internship.

If you're going to be a barista anyway, better to be one without college debt.

Learn to weld. Learn to turn wrenches. Learn to paint houses. Learn plumbing. You'll only be competing with 33% of your peers.

Use the income to buy a house near the library.

it would seem that more and more, college degrees are required for jobs that 20 years ago did not need a college degree - a lot of it is a huge scam

i.e. degree programs in "social media" are a thing.

I will be using that

But they put me on the College Illinois plan since my birth, which allows prepaid credits at the rates of the date paid. Combined with a year of community college, scholarships and savings from the high school pizza-making job, I earned a Masters with $4,000 in debt.

I'm not trying to grandstand, I'm just saying an affordable degree is possible given years of preparation and savings. Of course, I would advise the youngsters to only go to college if you know exactly what you want to do and a degree is necessary to obtain that career. Don't just go because it's expected of you.

and then learn to get good at playing the game.

http://oliveremberton.com/2014/life-is-a-game-this-is-your-strategy-guide/