Trying to figure out lazy people with nothing?

There is a guy I "worked" with and now he quit, but we still keep in contact almost daily. He and I have great conversations since we talk about almost everything. The thing is that he and I are pretty similar in how we grew up and the job pay, except he is dirt poor and I am getting richer every year. I tried to figure out why and it is how he makes decisions that hurts him. I try to give him advice on how to get out of his situations and he just ignores it.

I wonder why someone would ignore a successful person and continue doing the same mistakes with no solution? His main problem which can easily be resolved, is when he is faced with an issue he doesn't even bother to go to plan B. For example, he told me that everyday he has to travel a couple of hours for work, and he gets stuck in traffic for over an hour. So I told him if that is his same route and you know there is traffic every time, why not find a detour? He gets mad, tells me he rather stay stuck in traffic and be upset about the traffic while making less money at his job... I even offered to use my GPS and map to find an alternate route for him that is faster and he declined. This is only his recent problem, he has problems that he complains about everyday like this and he never ever finds a work around.

When I have a problem, I find solutions. He wonders why I am so happy and seem to never have problems, well because when I do have a problem I come up with a plan B and C. He is always stressed out and doesn't realize that he is causing the problems to persist. I just don't understand why some people do not use a little effort to get rid of problems instead of just complaining about them and being miserable, while shooting down the advice of a successful person who has been through the same problems.
I didn't offer advice until he kept complaining to me daily about how to get out of his situation. I only offered my advice once and let it go, since he may have never had anyone to help him out before.