Not contradicting per se, but this world ain't fair. From birth, even before, some have higher odds for survival, have better health, are more clever etc. In my point, there are 2 types of people for this perspective - "lazy" ones, that don't strive for better, avoid hard things. They don't plan much, and given a choice of hard(er) work from now, for couple of years, and only after that seeing improvement (ie higher salary), most won't do it. Which is OK, if they accept the whole package of matters (which is rarely the case, hence class envy leftist politicians so easily live from). And then you have opposite side. Of course world is not bipolar, but you get the picture.

This is what I actually like about current world - in this respect, it's much more fair than ever before. By far not for everybody, but literally billions of people have chance to drive their own life, within some boundaries. Every single day, life gives us opportunities, sometimes obvious, sometimes not at all.

Parents can (and do) "install" a lot of strength or weakness into their kids, but apart from truly abusive screwed up environments, once kids leave home, they are masters of their own fate. I've met people using not-so-ideal childhood as an excuse why they have screwed up life, but when looking closely, they consistently fail questions like "so why did you went binge drinking last night instead of learning a bit of that language/whatever"? Heck, even I am using my free time mostly only for leisure and fun, but I am happy and not complaining.