Of course things can change and I wholeheartedly agree with you. If a plan goes bad you adapt and overcome. Also, I've experienced being poor and lived in warzones/slept in terrible places, which gave me a very positive look at life in the USA. No need to worry about me as I assure you I'll be good either way.

Life is actually very good here and there is a lot of mobility if you have even a small amount of motivation. I feel like I'm preaching to the choir here though jacquesm - if I recall correctly (I'm not going to look at your comment history), I feel like I read once that you come from a family of first gen immigrants that experienced conditions similar to what I did when I was younger, and I would love to hear more about their/your perspective on being in a place like the USA and the opportunities it did/didn't bring.