Is that a personal impression or a memory of research that you can't find at the moment?
Memory of research. I don't know enough trust-fund kids to have a personal impression.
"Adversity builds character"
We're talking about a slightly different thing: the need for external motivation. The point isn't that for proper character development you should spend your youth going to school barefoot in the snow uphill both ways. The point rather lies in establishing the pattern and the expectation that if you want something, you should be prepared to pay for it in work (time, effort, resources), that some desires are too expensive this way, and that the amount of work you're prepared to do limits the things you can get.
If, as a kid or a teenager, you don't get any practice in limiting your wants and in pushing yourself to get something, you do not develop the appropriate "muscles" and so grow up lacking in abilities to control your desires and push yourself over the internal whining of "but I don't wanna".
Note that I'm not arguing that poverty is better. I am arguing that growing up without any financial constraints is not all rainbows and unicorns and brings with it its own set of problems.
Gotcha. I'd sure be interested in seeing empirical evidence demonstrating a link between socioeconomic class, parenting style, and/or impulse control and self-discipline.
Your job, should you choose to accept it, is to comment on this thread explaining the most awesome thing you've done this month. You may be as blatantly proud of yourself as you feel. You may unabashedly consider yourself the coolest freaking person ever because of that awesome thing you're dying to tell everyone about. This is the place to do just that.
Remember, however, that this isn't any kind of progress thread. Nor is it any kind of proposal thread. This thread is solely for people to talk about the awesome things they have done. Not "will do". Not "are working on". Have already done. This is to cultivate an environment of object level productivity rather than meta-productivity methods.
So, what's the coolest thing you've done this month?