I live in US and I know how it is here. I also lived for 10 years of my 15-year (almost 16 and I am an 11th grader BTW) life in Europe. I am a five-year subscriber of National Geographic and I have almost every NG issue from 1970. Yes I collect them. I have spent every summer since I was five years old traveling across various countries. Trust me, nowhere is it easier to become successful than in America if you just work hard from the beginning of your high-school years.

For example, there are hundreds of millions of various scholarships in US for academically talented, economically disadvantaged, or for just various ethnicities/nationalities. Education up to college is free. School is incredibly easy in here compared to Russia. I get straight A's in advanced classes with almost no effort (except for Math, which I actually have to work on). If you are not mentally/physically disabled, get good education and you are hard-working, then you will have a very wholesome life in the United States. In South Korea, for instance, students study for an entire year, giving themselves only the Sundays off and only four hours of sleep for just college entrance exams!!! It is very similar in China and Japan, although it is a little bit easier than in South Korea.

If you are healthy and poor in US, then you are lazy or weak-willed, a druggie/alcoholic, or an irresponsible slut who has sex outside of marriage. The only exception is a woman who was abandoned by her husband or elderly people/young children.

I was not so much saying that America is an easy place to live in as I was emphasizing how easy it is in comparison. However, if you think that American life is hard, then you either don't know a lot about foreign countries, soft, or just plain lazy.