Working hard is (virtually) necessary, but not sufficient. If you work hard and become proficient at something, you're in with a chance of having those skills

Working hard is (virtually) necessary, but not sufficient. If you work hard and become proficient at something, you're in with a chance of having those skills rewarded. If you don't have useful skills, and it's unlikely you'll come by any without working hard, you'll find it very tricky to persuade people to reward you for anything you can actually do. Note that hard work is not a guarantee of reward. It helps to have the right skills in the right place at the right time. There's not much call for buggy-whip mfrs these days, so if that's your passion and you learn to excel at it, you still might find it hard to connect with anyone who's in a position to appreciate your work and pay you for it. And even with the right skills in the right place at the right time, the vast uncaring universe can still deal you the shittiest beats you never saw coming and clean you out in the blink of an eye. Or you could win the lottery. If you want to bet on the lottery, go right ahead. On the other hand, working hard at the right things is a good way of massively stacking the odds in your favour for keeping food on the table, a roof over your table, and shiny tech doodads in your pocket in the interim, while you wait for those numbers to come up.