To a real gangster, the life is normally something you become a part of as an underprivileged individual. Most of them came up poor; some of them came up rich. Most of them came from humble beginnings; some of them came from spoiled ones. The life is something a man could either want his kid to grow up understanding for safety purposes or something that someone would want their kids to have nothing to do with at all for their entire lives. Most of them acknowledge that not many of them are ever going to live to see the end of their fulfilled lives, in their nice warm beds. Most of them acknowledge that they're only going to wind up in one of two places and refuse to let the thought of jail or death ruin what short lives they actually live. These men are not ashamed of who they are. They do not look at the floor when their wife yells at them about what they do and who they know. Granted however, these men are not always proud of who they are and tend to catch themselves in moral situations where you have to "Do the right thing" or "Don't get caught doing the wrong thing." The life is not about "Being a gangster." 


The life is not about "Being a shot caller." It's about being able to survive in a world where a convicted felon, an uneducated man, or even someone without two nickels to rub together can't... and have people around him that he can love and consider "his family." To some bloodlines, the life is a blessing.