It's all about dumb luck. No, it's not because they worked hard. It's because they're lucky.

If people try their best to make it work and fail: I don’t think they’ve made the choice to fail.

yes, but they make the choice to stop trying, and then then are guaranteed to fail.

everyone fails at shit. the difference is some of us try again, and again, and we learn and improve. others just give up and never try again, and then blame other people for their failure and use it as an excuse to never ever try to make things better for themselves.

I am actively going through this with one of my nephews. me and his parents both have to constantly lecture and fight him to get him to try, because he often decides trying is not worth the effort and he'd rather just fail. and the irony is... when he does try he does really well, but he seems to think it's not good enough, so why even bother. He'd rather get an F, than a C/B, and it's scary AF we can't break him out of this mentality, because none of us want him to be a failure of a person, but he seems stubbornly insistent making choices that guarantee he does fail. he also lies to his parents, gets caught in the lie, and gets angry at them for his own lies...

and his teachers all do the same thing. they are more than happy to encourage him and help him and improve his grades when he does do this, but often he systematically just refuses their help and then gets angry and blames them. then his mom goes to the teachers and they talk through it all, and it's clear that the fault is not with the teachers, it's him who ignores the teachers and sometimes straight up lies about the help he is offered.

he really just can't seem to connect the fact that if he tries and puts in the effort he will do well, but it won't be perfect or as good as other kids. and that's totally OK. and we are all hoping he gets through this, and doesn't become bitter and nasty and give up on his life because he seems to think life should be effortless for him and he should get As for never putting in any effort at school. it's scary to think that he could easily take that track in life.

and to make things worse, he has a brother who studies and works his balls off, and is really really good and got into very prestigious college... and instead of being happy for his brother he's just kind of bitter about it... despite his brother always always always trying to help him with his school work. he seems to be like just bitter that his brother has made much better choices, and reaps the rewards of those choices, and uses it to justify his own shitty view of himself that he will 'never live up' so why even bother.

and it sucks even more because I had friends just like him, smart people who just pissed away their lives into low-effort bitterness, who used me and other more successful people as excuses to fuck up their lives actively and willingly, and i am 1000% with his parents on making sure he doesn't end up like that. he doesn't have to be a fucking rocket scientist, just self-sufficient.