Reading the New York Times is just reading the NYT. It does not make you elite.

 I'd rather have the opportunity to succeed as me, than have the opportunity to make sure that people who look like me succeed, where I or my children don't get to.

Today's new left seems to be all about living through the lives of others.  

Working for a billionaire elite makes them feel they are like that elite. Having people who look like them, dress like them, have intercourse with people of their type, or with the same dislikes of the body they have as them, makes them feel represented among the elite. 

The problem with what sociology terms sympathetic magic, is that it does not work. Reading the New York Times is just reading the NYT. It does not make you elite. 

It is a rather smart trick to play though. Foster divisive identity. Convince people they are so alike others who look or sound like them or live where they do or have sex like them, that it does not matter whether they themselves are successful in the society they are propping up for the super rich ... who benefit most by a system requiring close contacts with the state; often they run in the same circles as the political elite, or are pleased to have and lobby for regulations they can comply with while new competitors are kept out by the complexity and expense. 

A youth which complains endlessly about a system they themselves vote for every few years, because they feel more part of the elite by doing so, is the opposite of elite and cause their own poverty, tragically, for a hope that does not benefit them personally.

Apologise for your temptation

Temptation. Pray, thank God you have not fallen yet since last time. Apologise for your curent temptation. Ask him for the grace to continue on. 

If it persists, ask, is this thought habit or new. Habit happens in thought, actions merely follow. You also know where habitual thoughts go. If habit, disengage, it is not 'thought', but repetition, thoughtlessness. 

If it remains strong, know our minds are analogue, not digital. Ask what the thought symbolises to you, what its meaning is below what you think. It is a symbol of something else, other desires or concerns. Address those symbols, but engage meekly, and pray to God, thanking him and asking for grace. 

If it persists, distract yourself, focus on something else. Remember that you cannot fight future battles, only your present one. Often we push ourselves into temptation by living in a thousand futures that may never happen. Turn to prayer, even pray out loud. 

Life oscillates between strength and weakness, awareness, and sleep, easy and difficult. Both difficulty and ease will come and go. Staying firm despite both is the virtue of fortitude. Don't try to argue with your devils, you would not be aware that your temptation were wrong if you did not know those arguments will only work, because you have oscillated into a stage of weakness, and not against your sound and logical mind.

If you fall, immediately apologise to God for disappointing him, and ask his strength to again pursue good. Don't wait for confession to repent, confess later, but repent that moment.

Have faith in God, and start the fight to serve him again that very moment. Despair is a weapon the devil loves to use against us. Hope, real hope, is a power from God. Pray. Thank God for his grace, and for giving you repentance, yet again, and ask that you continue to walk in it. God does not judge you by who you were yesterday, he cares about who you are today.

Fight those battles you can fight, any one you see you are able to. Take your opportunities. Those which may not be there tomorrow. 

Fight in the present, and be always aware of where life's currents drag you to. You build today what tomorrow can behold, you strengthen your defences tomorrow, through present actions. You build virtue tomorrow, by forming habits of good virtue today, whenever you have the opportunity to. 

Present resolve is strong, future resolve is only as strong as the present resolve of each day you face. God gives us our daily bread, like he gave heavenly bread to the Israelites in the desert, enough for our present needs, but nothing secures against the future, which winds about out of sight and predictability. We get each day, now, we only get tomorrow tomorrow.