Kathryn
It was on fire when I laid down on it.
Where are you from? My entire family is from the deep South. Many of my relatives and ancestors made a living picking cotton and working the land.
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Luck and Hard Work
- Thread starter Sunstone
- Start date
Where are you from? My entire family is from the deep South. Many of my relatives and ancestors made a living picking cotton and working the land.
Shadow Wolf
Certified People sTabber & Business Owner
My dad works hard, but ultimately it was luck that got him making $60,000 a year, even more when he works overtime. Often when it comes to landing a good job, luck has more to do than what most people will ever realize. The average psychologists pay is $60,000/year. That means some worked very hard through intensive studies to earn a Doctorates and make far less than that, some had the luck to have an upbringing and location to get them more, and some were even more lucky and make far more than 60 grand a year. It's pretty much the same in any field, along with good fortune that you do not loose everything you have over a number of variables that are simply outside of your control.
And there is the very vicious cycle of poverty, in which if you are born into poverty there is a very strong chance you will NOT make it out. Some do, but many, especially racial minorities, don't even have a dream of ever moving out of poverty. You can work as hard as you possibly can, but if the circumstances and environment aren't right it will not amount to anything. If you are born to a poor family, in a poor community, you already have the odds stacked very heavily against you; and simply because of your inferior education you will probably not get anywhere. But there are environmental factors such as drug abuse, crime, and instability in family/home life that are often present in impoverished communities, and stack the odds even higher against anyone hoping to better themselves.
Really everyone that has made is lucky they weren't born physically or mentally handicapped (save for a very few rare exceptions), they had the resources available to them to make it, a brain that isn't maldeveloped (again except for very rare cases), and for whatever it was in their life that gave them the drive to succeed. Lucky their mom wasn't drinking or on drugs while she was pregnant, and many in our society were lucky to not be born white or in previous decades. Afterall, what great name in history would we have known of if they didn't have exceptional circumstances to work under?
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Kathryn
It was on fire when I laid down on it.
My husband tripled his income this past year. But it wasn't LUCK at all - it was 30 years of hard work, and finally his confidence in his own ability to be a self employed consultant kicked in and he sought out the opportunity. It was his track record on the job, and his references and results of 30 years of back breaking work in the oilfield, as well as his personal confidence, that combined to create his "lucky break."
Averroes
Active Member
Los Angeles. But my family on my dads side is from Texas (Houston) and on my moms side many of the family is from Chicago, Mississippi. I'm a city boy
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Averroes
Active Member
You could say being at the right place and the right time and just having the right opportunity. I guess its a matter of definitions when look at those types of success.
Kathryn
It was on fire when I laid down on it.
Ah.
My mother's family was very poor. In fact, point of interest - she grew up in the same town that Maya Angelou grew up in, in the same era. Maya Angelou was a poor little black girl and my mother was a poor little white girl - at the same time in the same place.
My dad's family was split - his mother's side of the family (my cotton picking grandmother) was very poor and very hard working. His father's side of the family was also hard working, but well off - they had a large working farm and a chair factory and a general store, that sort of thing.
But all of them were rural southerners who worked the dirt to make a living.
Averroes
Active Member
Yeah I see....Struggling in poverty knows no color. It's good that people in all those decades of hardwork can finally reap the benefits. My hats off to your family
Shadow Wolf
Certified People sTabber & Business Owner
So luck was not involved at all in that he had not only the resources available to do so, but that the opportunity presented itself? Our own deliberate manipulations only go so far before things outside of our control take over.
Kathryn
It was on fire when I laid down on it.
I wouldn't call it luck at all. He sought out the opportunity. It didn't land on our front doorstep with a big bow tied around it.
"Fortuna audaces iuvat" (fortune favors the bold)
~Old Latin saying
I think it's a symbiotic relationship: opportunities show up in everyone's life at one point or another, most of them involve some sort of risk. The people who go for it in spite of the risks are the one's that the rest of us wind up pointing at and going "Lucky.....".
Of course, knowing how to take calculated risks doesn't hurt either.
~Old Latin saying
I think it's a symbiotic relationship: opportunities show up in everyone's life at one point or another, most of them involve some sort of risk. The people who go for it in spite of the risks are the one's that the rest of us wind up pointing at and going "Lucky.....".
Of course, knowing how to take calculated risks doesn't hurt either.
waitasec
Veteran Member
i believe one makes their own luck.
be prepared and when opportunity strikes..
there it is.
CaptainXeroid
Following Christ
Three cheesy fortune cookie saying come to mind as I read the OP.
1. Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.
2. Even if you're on the right track, the train will run you over if you just lay there.
3. The harder I work, the luckier I get.
If you are misguided and seem to think that successful people are lucky, then you need to read "The Millionaire Next Door" and "The Millionaire Mind". More than 80% of US millionaires are first generation wealthy. That means they started from virtually nothing and worked hard until they earned their money.
As for the comment about the hedge fund manager...if that guy doesn't do his research and invest wisely, he loses a crap load of money and could have problems finding another financial based job after he gets fired. Also, if he isn't good in the beginning, he never gets the chance to manage the fund.
The real reason people try to prescribe others' success to luck is they are unwilling to admit that people are where they are in life because of the decisions they've made.
Perhaps a better way to think about success is working 'smart'. No one who's thought about it more than a second thinks that hard work is a guarantee.
1. Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.
2. Even if you're on the right track, the train will run you over if you just lay there.
3. The harder I work, the luckier I get.
If you are misguided and seem to think that successful people are lucky, then you need to read "The Millionaire Next Door" and "The Millionaire Mind". More than 80% of US millionaires are first generation wealthy. That means they started from virtually nothing and worked hard until they earned their money.
As for the comment about the hedge fund manager...if that guy doesn't do his research and invest wisely, he loses a crap load of money and could have problems finding another financial based job after he gets fired. Also, if he isn't good in the beginning, he never gets the chance to manage the fund.
The real reason people try to prescribe others' success to luck is they are unwilling to admit that people are where they are in life because of the decisions they've made.
Perhaps a better way to think about success is working 'smart'. No one who's thought about it more than a second thinks that hard work is a guarantee.
Shadow Wolf
Certified People sTabber & Business Owner
That is probably the best way to look at it. No matter what if the opportunity is not available you have nothing. If the opportunity is available but you don't have the means to pursue it you have nothing. And if the opportunity is available and you just don't go after it then you still have nothing. But when opportunity knocks and you go after it is when things fall into place.
But really if you have to have the opportunity or it won't happen. And if we examined the so-called "hard luck" stories or other success stories we would probably find luck had a significant role. Afterall Bill Gates got to where he is not only by his own efforts, but because luck so had there was an operating system in existence for him to redesign and repackage and call it his own. And who would have cared about Abraham Lincoln had the original plan to abolish slavery happened when the Constitution was ratified? Had England not colonized India would we still have known of Gandhi? Probably not because their opportunity to shine would not have been present.
waitasec
Veteran Member
Kathryn
It was on fire when I laid down on it.
then you could say they're the unlucky ones....
Or you could say they consistently make poor choices.
chinu
chinu
Not going so far -- Just see the number of frubals, prizes, or awards given to us by RF.
Many of us think, its just a chance.
_/\_
Chinu