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>>>>So what is the moral of the story here? Life is what you make it. If you do not like the state of you life, it is up to you to take steps to change it, just like I did. There is nothing extraordinary about me and if I can do it, so can anyone else.
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>>>The mistake in this point is the degree to which random events, utterly beyond your control, actually influence your life - it is not just up to you at all. The role of randomness is far greater than we tend to realize (or want to admit). Being smart and having a willingness to work hard are only pre-requisites for success in life, without them you will almost certainly be on the wrong track. But being clever and willingly to work play only a (perhaps relatively small) part in the final outcome. Hence the moral of the story is be smart and be prepared to work hard and then hope for the best.
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>>...and get something good. It is important to say that hope (i.e. good luck) is pre-requisite to catch something extraordinary, i.e. the best. At the same time, reasonably good achievements are quite normal, i.e. one should have really bad luck to miss them if other, personal prerequisites, mentioned by you, are in place.
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>Actually I think it may be harder than your post may imply - If we assume that positive outcome random events are distributed evenly across a population (which I do not think is so) and intelligence is distributed by a normal bell-curve distribution and a willingness to work hard is also distributed by a normal distribution then we are talking about a relatively small subset of people who are both smart, hard working and exposed to positive random events ...
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>Furthermore there is evidence not only that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, but also that the smarter parents have smarter kids who get better education. I think it is not so simple as those lazy people on the dole and us hard working good guys :) I think we should be grateful for the positive outcome random events in our lives that have benefitted us ...

Grateful to what/whom? Personal success is not pre-determined, but it is earned in most cases. On the other side, not all people on dole are lazy, but laziness helps many of them.
Certainly, I don't agree that positive outcomes are distributed evenly disregarding personal contribution. The latter is not the only determinant, but it is a very compelling factor defining success. I would even say more: it is the most defining factor virtually assuring success; the only 'problem' is that people rarely raise their dedication to success to 100% level, because every person is unique and for most people success is not necessarily 100% priority, at least not to the extent of quittiing anything else; they may have different goals and addictions, and this is how it should be in real world.