Meritocracy

Meritocracy is the idea that people should be awarded based on their abilities and work ethic. The idea being, the more work you put in and the more abilities you possess, the more you should succeed in life.
As an ideology, it sounds wonderful. Maybe it's just my American upbringing, but that's how I thought the world worked and how I thought the world should work for the entirety of my adolescence, and really the idea is still clinging on in the recesses of my mind.
The issue becomes when we go from thinking that's how the world should work, to that's how the world does work. I find this to be an especially prominent idea in America (though, truth be told, I haven't traveled to other countries to figure out how it works elsewhere).
Often, throughout political debates and article comment sections, you hear and see people arguing that people with less off are just lazy or stupid or somehow don't deserve success. After all, their cousin or sister or aunt was able to raise two kids by themselves while working three jobs and going through nursing school! Whether or not those commenters or politicians are exaggerating a bit, people get this idea that their personal story outweighs countless experiences of others' and studies that say the contrary.
This is where the problem lies. When people believe so much in meritocracy, that they cannot lend a compassionate hand to those less fortunate because "obviously" they are just trying to get a government check without working, or "obviously" they're just too lazy to cook healthy meals at home, or "obviously" they're not searching hard enough for a job or they'd have one, or "obviously" if they didn't want to work for minimum wage, they'd be going back to school to get a better job.
Maybe those so clinging onto the "reality" of meritocracy do so because it's disheartening to imagine a world without it, or maybe they need to believe that their own hard work will keep them safe from financial troubles and failure. However, how much more improved would the world be if we would all stop believing everyone is rewarded based on merit, and instead work to setting such a system in place, however impossible it may be?