> I wasn't raised to believe that if you work hard you WILL get it. No, it's that if you DON'T work hard, you WON'T get it. Well said. I think the common misco

> I wasn't raised to believe that if you work hard you WILL get it. No, it's that if you DON'T work hard, you WON'T get it. Well said. I think the common misconception comes from reducing these wisdoms into aphorisms that are short, but easily misunderstood. Any adult who has lived more than a few years in the real world quickly understands that hard work doesn’t guarantee success, but that success isn’t going to fall in your lap without putting in work. The online discourse has become particularly bad, with the pendulum swinging between extremes of “You can do anything if you follow your dreams” to the opposite of “Nothing you do matters because it’s all blind luck”. The latter, cynical mindset has become particularly popular as a way of dismissing or downplaying the success of others. I can’t count how many times I’ve heard people try to attribute Jeff Bezo’s success to that one time he was lucky enough to receive a loan from his family. Yes, it was a lucky break, but it should be obvious that something like receiving a loan from one’s family doesn’t automatically predispose someone to lucking into building a trillion dollar company. Yet there’s a growing contingent of people who want to believe that Jeff Bezos tripped and fell and landed in the founder seat of a successful company by pure luck. I think the truth is that a lot of people, especially younger people still finding their way, are insecure about their own success or place in life. It can be extremely comforting to surround yourself with explanations that nothing is actually within your control or that others’ success or happiness is the result of randomness. I think this is why we see the oft-repeated trope (on HN especially) that people who post happy photos on social media must actually be secretly sad and miserable behind the scenes: It’s a convenient excuse to downplay the happiness and success of others. Ignore the extremes. Accept that success isn’t guaranteed. Know that luck is a factor, but it’s not the only factor. Hard work is your lever to maximize the cards you’ve been dealt. We’re all dealt different cards, but it still comes down to your own actions in leveraging the hand you’ve been dealt.