highschool slacker now more successful then you....

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For people who have graduated from high school several years ago: would you say most people that you knew in highschool, even people who got lots of Fs, did drugs, and didn't try hard in hard school are now seemingly and surprisingly more successful then you are in terms of career, stable income, and quality of life now? I find with me, the majority of people who seemed to not try hard in highschool, whom I actually felt bad bc i thought were heading down a bad path in terms of bad decisions and grades compared to me surprisingly seem to now have a good quality of life in terms of success, money, and starting a family in comparison to mine. Does anyone else feel that way too?

Slackers and Druggies were the majority when I went to high school 1971-1975. There is no one outcome. A lot have done well while other died from the drugs.

Can't help but laugh... I was the one nobody expected anything good from.
I'm still a weirdo and I'd probably still rather hang out with potheads than the cool kids. I no longer wear a chain on my wallet or listen to moody or angry songs, etc.

I guess I do have a pretty decent career, because I've got two kids, stay at home husband, house in the burbs and a good start on my retirement savings... pretty much the standard 'american dream'.
The only real bad choice I ever made was my ex, he wasn't obviously a 'bad boy' like some of the guys I dated in high school and college, everyone thought he was great... but, they didn't know him... how he played on my insecurities and wouldn't let me hang out with anyone but his friends' wives and girlfriends and spent all my money and cheated on me. No one believed when I left him 'he seems like such a nice guy'... at least my current friends get it when I refer to him as Dorian Gray.

My grades did improve later in college, once I'd gotten away from my parents and then my ex, so I could attend to the health things that had gotten ignored when and could actually sleep through the night and eat a balanced diet. Home life was not exactly conducive to success in anything, especially school.

Most of my friends, the freaks and loadies, had similar parental home lives.
I'd like to say most of them have turned out successfully, but, let's face it, it's more like 50/50.

Most people around here started drinking and smoking pot around 13-15 if they were the type, and some were on hard drugs before finishing high school. I certainly don't envy the ones who wound up overdosing, becoming alcoholic, or with only the ones selling them the drugs for friends.

I'm not sure how accurately this answers the question, but druggies, slackers and the like usually are good at dealing with people. If they parlay those skills into something, they might go very far.

In contrast, the hard-working kids in school often put education above socialization, so they had smarts but no skills in getting ahead socially.

My older sister was a well socialized kid who also belonged to the national honors society. Her good grades made things harder for me. They'd be all 'oh, we LOVE your sister, she was such a wonderful student and so friendly, I expect good things from you too...' then they'd be disappointed when I hid in the back of the class instead of 'joining'.

She's still much better at socializing than me, but, that got her in college... she wanted to spend time with her boyfriend and friends and working for spending cash more than she wanted to go to class and do homework.
I guess I learned from her mistakes. I definitely prioritized, to the personal offense of family and friends.

We each dealt with our traumatic childhood differently. She's better off than we were as children, but, waiting tables and probably partaking in some herb worship, no home ownership, no retirement savings.

The formula for success is not a secret, it's just difficult to manage.
Do as well as you can in school. Get good grades, never show up late, act respectful in class.
Make as many friends as possible. They will not all be friends, but at least don't give anyone anything bad to say about you. A few of them will be strategic allies, others will be supportive in various ways. They are all part of your network, upon which success is heavily based.
Meet new people, in a variety of different environments. Do this by volunteering, joining interest groups, school activities, so on.
Volunteer for anything that will look good on your resume.
Once you're in college, work in the summers. If possible, get a part-time internship that allows you to work during the semesters too. A long, consistent work experience with decent responsibilities at a reputable company looks as good (or better) on your resume than anything you can say about your education.
Make as many friends as you can with co-workers. By this time, you should start keeping a LinkedIn profile, or some other relationship management tool.
It doesn't matter if you were a complete failure in high school. Life doesn't begin until college anyway. Anyone can do this if they are determined.

Funny enough in my case the most popular guy in HS was also the head jock.
He has a $60k+ job with full benefits and I do believe it is a union job.
Many of the others have similar type jobs and college ed required.

Many of the top tier students who did well in HS are struggling.

They say life is a popularity game...

Remember too that a lot of people paint their lives as much more spectacular than the really are...the person who seems like they're living the dream now could, in 10 years, be bankrupt because their "dream" was all on loan from the bank. I've seen different figures over the years, but it seems a huge number of people in the 20-40 range feel like their classmates in general are doing better than they are due to the joys of social media and sharing only the things that look good about their life. Sometimes it's not fake necessarily, just not what it seems. For example, I own my own home and am well on the way to paying it off. On Facebook, that looks like I've made a $150-200k investment and people could get jealous. In reality, my home was $58k, so while I'm still very happy with it, it doesn't mean I've acquired nearly as much wealth as one would assume from seeing me post "My house is paid off!" whenever I finally send that last payment. (I don't have Facebook and probably wouldn't post that anyway, but many people would, so I'll use it as an example anyway.)

So, realize that some of what you're seeing may not be the full story and it could be that you're better off than they are, but they're better at pretending to have a life they don't. At the same time, they could truly be better off, but just cause they look like they are doesn't mean they are.

I post on facebook every time I pay off another student loan... that's for the benefit of my family, though... they always want me to give them money, because they assume I'm well off (just because I have a house in a good neighborhood and a nice car and my spouse is a stay at home parent), so I keep not too subtly reminding them that my nice life comes with a pretty hefty pricetag.
But, let's face it, even when all of my loans (car and mortgage, too) are paid off, I'm still not giving anyone any money... it's just buying me a few years of relative peace.

OMG! A thousand times yes! I got honour roll 4 years in a row, had strict parents, a lot of potential, and now I'm a 27 year old NEET, addicted to video games and imageboards, with nothing to show for my life. Everyone who had laid back parents, and partied and got Ds or failed highschool are now more successful than me. I'm literally hanging on by a thread.

I dropped out of uni after a year, college after a year, and a 3 month trade school with two weeks left to go. Pathetic.

OP's statement proves that highschool is just a scam. Education is a scam! Plain and simple.

High school is a pain, but, I can't agree that all education is a scam.
I got specialized training (21), then an associate's degree (23), then a bachelor's (31), and hope to get a master's, too. Just because I was a slacker who didn't do homework back in the day (let's face it, I'm still a little lax on it now, too) doesn't mean all education is without value.

My bachelor's especially helped me out, as, along with my programming and statistical analysis courses, I also took things like interpersonal relations and motivation and self management that helped me with people skills A LOT, plus things like ethics and economics and politics that helped me understand a bit about the things that have an impact on the economy and the businesses I work with.
And, obviously, I wouldn't be considered for jobs without a degree. Whether that's 'wrong' as a matter of principle or not, it's true and a job-seeker has to live with that.

Education has it's place. I'm just happy education has changed and become more customizable in recent years.
I was allowed to take so many online classes to finish my bachelor's, plus had things like amazon for used books and a kindle for carrying around the massive amount of readings I had to do every week.

I am dreading my highschool reunion, I was actually hoping I would be living abroad before it came to that...

I find most of my classmates are renters, who are paying off huge student loans. I on the other hand am paying off a house, and have no student loans to pay off. I do miss some of them, however I did not get to go to my 10 year reunion.