Everyone has some good cards and some bad.
If only that were true lol, unfortunately there is no balance to the cards we are often dealt unless we really stretch the definition of "good" or "bad", some receive an abundance of privileges/a good hand, others receive the inverse-a life with endless hurdles, disadvantages, with the only "good cards" being the most minuscule and insignificant of things, like finding a penny/coin on the ground or having a handful of people treat you with basic human decency in the entirety of your life.
I do think what you said about it being a matter of "both" (I assume you mean both life is what we make of it
and we are what life makes of us) does have a kernel of truth, because even if we are handed a good lot, we can't really just sit around and ride on the back of life like a passive witness, we would still have to be active in doing
something, in further utilizing what already benefits us.
So it's possible for someone to end up squandering their good fortune, even though some perks and advantages will be had whether they go out of their way to build off of them or not.
However it's very easy to get ahead when you're given all the tools to do so, and it's very difficult-outright defeating-when you are given so few or none at all.
Those who live in squalor and who have absolutely nothing-no other weighty factor in helping them to advance-save for determination to get out of their predicament..well when these people succeed, they are a rarity, an exception to the rule, perhaps their preferable trait being sheer resilience (and/or exhaustive compensating).
I think the rest who commonly succeed are very prone to denying all of the other factors that lead to their ascension, people get very testy when you try to point out why they (person A) got to the top-while person B and C, who worked just as hard, if not harder-did not.
