2 ms·

> All success is largely dependent on luck and culture. All success? > Where you are born, who your parents are, etc. This is only true up to a certain point

by n3rdy 14y ago

> All success is largely dependent on luck and culture. All success? > Where you are born, who your parents are, etc. This is only true up to a certain point. Obviously if you were born in the ocean and your parents are dolphins, you're going to have a hard time starting and running a coal mine. Every time I hear someone talking about the role luck has with success, they are usually giving examples of how bad luck makes success impossible. Nobody here insisting that there is more to success than luck is trying to say something like "people in North Korea just need to tough it out". We're talking about the millions of people who have every opportunity to be successful, but don't do so, because they are unwilling to commit to what they perceive to be too risky, and too difficult. The attitude you and the parent stress is the attitude that keeps so many people lower than they should be. Successful people usually are not successful on their first try either, how many times do they have to fail before you would attribute their success to their efforts and not that "well, 3,847th time is always a charm"?

scotch_drinker 14y ago
Yup, all success. It's a combination of luck and hard work. Rarely are there success stories that involve either no luck at all or no hard work at all. But the work almost always follows the luck, i.e. if you are born an inner city black child in say the poorest parts of Baltimore, no amount of hard work may make a difference. And it may in fact be that being born into that scenario renders you unable to see that hard work enables success because your culture doesn't teach you. I'm not saying that successful people were only successful because of luck. But they were successful because they were born in correct circumstances and cultures that allowed them to become successful. I don't disagree that lots of people have every opportunity to be successful and choose not to. But I'm talking about the ones who are actually successful and how luck and circumstances are very important.

by n3rdy 14y ago

scotch_drinker 14y ago

Yup, all success. It's a combination of luck and hard work. Rarely are there success stories that involve either no luck at all or no hard work at all. But the work almost always follows the luck, i.e. if you are born an inner city black child in say the poorest parts of Baltimore, no amount of hard work may make a difference. And it may in fact be that being born into that scenario renders you unable to see that hard work enables success because your culture doesn't teach you. I'm not saying that successful people were only successful because of luck. But they were successful because they were born in correct circumstances and cultures that allowed them to become successful. I don't disagree that lots of people have every opportunity to be successful and choose not to. But I'm talking about the ones who are actually successful and how luck and circumstances are very important.