Maybe the moral of the story is to never allow yourself to wallow in self doubt because you don't measure up to any given success story. On the other hand, do

Maybe the moral of the story is to never allow yourself to wallow in self doubt because you don't measure up to any given success story. On the other hand, do allow yourself to use an inspiring success story to spur you into action when the time is right. Maybe this is just moving the goal posts. After all, it seems to imply that there is some unknown mechanism at play that guides a person into a moment of opportunity. The question then becomes, "What is the nature of that process?" As far as that goes, I'm sympathetic to the idea that a lot of it just comes down to dumb luck. However, to me that's more a reason to just take a deep breath once in a while and quit freaking out than to throw up my hands and declare, "It's all fate and I have no control!" To put it another way, you can still take some general wisdom from advice about success (as opposed to failure). Just don't take it too seriously. Use it to give yourself a little mental space once in while but otherwise try not to burn too many calories pondering it.