Role of luck in life success

[pacergal]

I've always believed that hard work, determination, having goals, and yes, a little bit of luck along the way (and recognizing the opportunity presents) is a part of success.

 

[COcheesehead]

What about the other kids who lived next to that university?

As I said up thread, what you do with the randomness matters. Your comment makes it seem that I am attributing it all to luck, I am not.

 

[Offgrid Organic Farmer]

success is often described as luck.

I served on Active Duty for 20 years and I got a pension. I can not tell you how many times people have told me that I am 'lucky' to have served for 20 years and gotten a pension.

When I think of my career, I am reminded of the hardships and disappointments. But to many civilians, I am compared to a lottery winner.

 

[Fermion]

One of the stories from Outliers is about Bill Gates. As a teenager he had written more code than almost anybody in the country at that time. Why? His parents happened to live next to one of the few universities that had a computer and he got a job there. Yes HE coded till his hands hurt I am sure, but would the opportunity even existed had his parents chose to live somewhere else? Lots of stories like these in Outliers and you begin to see how randomness plays a role.

Didn't he rather lie to Altair to get $16,000 from them to start Microsoft or something?

 

[marko]

As I said up thread, what you do with the randomness matters. Your comment makes it seem that I am attributing it all to luck, I am not.

No no! Just the opposite! I'm saying that the other kids lived next to the same university and while Bill was working his butt off they were out playing baseball, dating, watching TV or whatever.

My comment up thread was "Life isn't fair. Your job is to go where it isn't fair in your favor"

 

[easysurfer]

My gut feeling is about 95% of what you get out of life is due to choice. About 5% is good or bad luck.

As for wishing on luck, be careful what you wish for. Think of all the lottery winners that ended up having a tragic life afterwards.

Even the lottery winner (or loser) made the choice to purchase the ticket. So, the result was not pure luck.

 

[CaptTom]

Of course, whenever there's a deep, philosophical question like this, Rush has already summed it up in a song:

Well, you can stake that claim --
Good work is the key to good fortune
Winners take that praise
Losers seldom take that blame
If they don't take that game
And sometimes the winner takes nothing
We draw our own designs
But fortune has to make that frame

We go out in the world and take our chances
Fate is just the weight of circumstances
That's the way that lady luck dances
Roll the bones

- Roll the Bones

 

[albireo13]

I've always believed to a large extent one makes their own luck, good or bad.

Bull ****

 

[Gumby]

Perhaps we could find a way to disagree without being obnoxious.

 

[NW-Bound]

... Some is smart choice, part is my effort, the rest is good fortune - in my humble opinion.

Yes, we need a bit of everything.

Recognizing that, what one needs to do is to focus on what he can control. He cannot sit on his butt all day waiting for his luck to turn.

Put in some effort, and try to make the right choice. If Mr. Luck does not show up, he will not get rich, but is likely not going to be hungry.

 

[daylatedollarshort]

I made some of my own luck but also had some fortunate circumstances, like being born in the U.S. and having parents willing to hep with college. I also wasn't born a crack baby or with brain damage from lead poisoning. In some countries just by being female I might have been a child bride and not been able to go to college. I find it hard to see how luck could not play a role in circumstances like birth country or being born healthy or disabled.

 

[robnplunder]

Luck? Who me? I think I had my share of luck for my success. OTOH, I had my share of bad luck that set me back. "Luck" has way of evening things out.

I am now working full time in my retirement to reduce bad luck.

 

[Badger]

I was lucky to be issued the parents I had. My father may have thought I wasn't listening but it must have been one of those subliminal things because I observed how he conducted himself and his personal finances all my life. Now I realize I have been following his example to get where I am. Without my parent's guidance by example and support I may never have gone to college and discovered my career path with help from my mentor (lucky again). Even so I still had to bust my buns my entire life to get to where we are. I also consider it extremely lucky to have met my wife when I was about 40 who had a much different upbringing but had the same work ethic.



Cheers!

 

[Car-Guy]

I've always believed to a large extent one makes their own luck, good or bad.

I don't call it luck but for things under someones control, I'd agree with your line of thinking.

 

[frayne]

Have a feeling that many people, maybe even a few on this forum, would not score very high on an empathy quiz.

You might be surprised. I think many here understand the playing field is not level nor does everyone leave the gate at the same starting blocks. Again with that said and all things being equal, I do believe to a large extent you can make your luck (good or bad) by the life decisions you make. On the other side of the coin, how one does in the birth lottery to a large degree will define how you will end up making those good/bad life decisions. And that is a matter of luck or cosmic karma.

 

[Closet_Gamer]

When my wife was pregnant, we read lots of books on becoming parents. I recall one book had something called "The Best Odds Diet" (or something similar.)

It basically said that no diet or behavior could guarantee that a child would be born healthy. But that there seems to be a dietary approach to the creating the best odds for a good outcome.

I think there are "best odds" approaches to life. There are no guarantees, but there are pretty reliable, highly repeatable approaches that tend to lift ones station in life over time. Hard work, thrift, risk taking, and grit seem to be pretty consistent ingredients and also have a high correlation to "making ones own luck" and to overcoming bad luck.

There is catastrophic bad luck that no amount of best odds behaviors can overcome. As the "shirt sleeves-to-shirt sleeves in three generations" point makes, there does not appear to be a level of good luck that cannot be destroyed pretty quickly.

Edit to add: But, yes, my sig does somewhat sum how I think one should approach life.

And, IMHO, the kid who lifts themselves out of poverty and into a stable, middle class life with where s/he can give their kids a better starting point, is a lot more impressive than Bill Gates.

Edit to add: Yes, however, my sig line does pretty well sum up how I think one should approach the concept of "luck" in how we conduct ourselves.

 

[Sojourner]

One of the stories from Outliers is about Bill Gates. As a teenager he had written more code than almost anybody in the country at that time. Why? His parents happened to live next to one of the few universities that had a computer and he got a job there. Yes HE coded till his hands hurt I am sure, but would the opportunity even existed had his parents chose to live somewhere else?

What about the other kids who lived next to that university?

Those other kids weren't lucky enough to have been born into a situation that provided just the right ingredients and influences to lead Bill Gates down the specific path he followed to success. For example, they weren't born to smart, wealthy, caring, nurturing parents who cultivated an intense interest in science, mathematics, and computers at an early age.

And before you say "But some of those other kids were born to smart, wealthy, caring parents", yes of course they were. But they lacked Bill's specific genetics that made his brain work just as it did (luck), and they lacked the specific influences of his friends and family and teachers that shaped and motivated his interests all along the way (luck), and so on. When you really look at it, luck is essentially the whole story.

 

[ckelly78z]

I was born lucky into a steady 2 parent home in suburbia, being white, male, and middle income. My Dad had a good job for 41 years, while my Mom stayed home. They are both still alive, and active at 78 years old.

My life has not been lucky with being shy around girls when young (now married 31 years), having major health issues throughout, and being the innocent victim of 2 bad car accidents. I have tended to rebound nicely after all of these issues, using work ethic, and determination, but it has given me a bad attitude, and less empathy for others.

 

[marko]

Those other kids weren't lucky enough to have been born into a situation that provided just the right ingredients and influences to lead Bill Gates down the specific path he followed to success. For example, they weren't born to smart, wealthy, caring, nurturing parents who cultivated an intense interest in science, mathematics, and computers at an early age.

And before you say "But some of those other kids were born to smart, wealthy, caring parents", yes of course they were. But they lacked Bill's specific genetics that made his brain work just as it did (luck), and they lacked the specific influences of his friends and family and teachers that shaped and motivated his interests all along the way (luck), and so on. When you really look at it, luck is essentially the whole story.

All good points but Bill still had to put in the effort. He could have chosen an easier path and be an office drone or work in a bank.

My aforementioned classmates were born white, wealthy and to motivating families. One of them is now a surgeon, his brother is near homeless; they had identical influences, opportunities and close genes. The brother chose to be a playboy and fritter his opportunities until dad cut off the spigot (bad luck maybe?), the surgeon chose to go to med school.

 

[Sojourner]

My aforementioned classmates were born white, wealthy and to motivating families. One of them is now a surgeon, his brother is near homeless; they had identical influences, opportunities and close genes. The brother chose to be a playboy and fritter his opportunities until dad cut off the spigot (bad luck maybe?), the surgeon chose to go to med school.

Unless they were identical twin brothers, they had similar genes but not identical, and their influences, friends, and experiences were also fairly similar but definitely not exactly the same. Studies have shown that parents tend to pay different amounts of attention and to interact differently with their children, even identical twins, which leads to marked differences in their interests and skills, etc. My point is simply that everything that makes up a person comes down to either genetics (nature) or environment (nurture), and that neither of those is something a person chooses. Luck is the root cause of all of it. Getting back to Bill Gates, you said that he could have chosen an easier path and been an office drone, as did some of his very similar peers. Yes, he could have, but he didn't, because of the very specific luck-based factors that shaped him as a person (e.g., his genes, his parents, his specific friends, family, teachers, influences, etc.). Those things all made him what he turned out to be, but (IMHO) he didn't really "choose" any of that.

 

[kgtest]

Agree you can't predict a company's success. But even the 23 year old me had a mental checklist of what I expected from a company in compensation/benefits and growth opportunity for what I could do for them. Maybe naive at the time but I had little patience for places that just wanted me to be a drone and where the guy sitting next to me was 56 years old and doing the same mind-numbing job for 25 years.

I just bounced from job to job until I found a place that what I thought best fit that list. I'd often drive through office parking lots a lunch checking out how new the employees' cars were just to get a feel for how well they might pay.

I found that company on my fifth try but I would have kept searching until I found it.

I once attended a focus group studying 'Success'. They asked, how do you know if opportunity and success exist at your employer... to which I replied "Look at the parking lot". Seemed reasonable.

 

[Mdlerth]

Serendipity is in the eye of the beholder

It's clear the luck vs decisions debate, which I've seen here in earlier threads, will be resolved to unanimous agreement at about the same time as the one regarding when to claim SS.

Luck comprises the stuff that's outside of our control. Of course, luck comes in two forms: good and bad. It's strange, but a single external event could take either form, depending on other circumstances. For example, I am being laid off at the end of the year, along with some unknown number of my colleagues.

If I were 41, it would be very bad luck. I'd have kids starting college, and own my house in a town dominated by the Megacorp with whom I'd spent the prior 20 years. I would have to find w*rk somewhere else, sell my house in a buyer's market, uproot my family, lose the seniority-based benefits which were just about to reach the "nice" level. COBRA is hideously expensive. After two decades, my skill set would have become narrowly specialized to the business which employed me, making it difficult to find a drop-in replacement j*b. I had not yet been focused on accumulating any savings. This lone event would be almost guaranteed to push retirement out by many years.

But at 61, it's a lottery win. Our children's college costs are behind us, we've already bought our retirement house, and I now qualify for retiree health insurance. Between the severance package and the simultaneous pension, I'm essentially still at full pay & benefits for about 4 years. FIRECalc gives me 100% plus a comfortable margin, so I don't need to bother looking for another j*b. Goodbye, OMY; hello, retirement.

Same event, totally different outcome.

 

[Chuckanut]

When I was still a young college student earning maybe $2.10 an hour, Larry, an acquaintance of mine, received a $50,000 inheritance from his grandfather. That is the equivalent of over $300,000 today. He also married a gal named LaNelle who was an intelligent, charming, beauty to say the least.

5 years later.....

Larry had blown through his inheritance - several very nice cars including a Porsche, a luxury apartment, 5* travel, and general high living. LaNelle now referred to him as '"that little s!%t" and it was not said with affection.

So, yes, luck certainly can bless us all with good opportunities. But, we still have to be able to take advantage of them.

 

[GravitySucks]

I once attended a focus group studying 'Success'. They asked, how do you know if opportunity and success exist at your employer... to which I replied "Look at the parking lot". Seemed reasonable.

I once did contractor work a few days at a private college. Talking with one of the office staffers I mentioned how they must pay well with all the BMWs in the parking lot. She pointed to the parking lot full of Corollas and Ford's and told me that's the employee lot. The Bimmers are in the student lot.
Did luck get the BMW and hard work the Corolla?

 

[marko]

Unless they were identical twin brothers, they had similar genes but not identical, and their influences, friends, and experiences were also fairly similar but definitely not exactly the same. Studies have shown that parents tend to pay different amounts of attention and to interact differently with their children, even identical twins, which leads to marked differences in their interests and skills, etc. My point is simply that everything that makes up a person comes down to either genetics (nature) or environment (nurture), and that neither of those is something a person chooses. Luck is the root cause of all of it. Getting back to Bill Gates, you said that he could have chosen an easier path and been an office drone, as did some of his very similar peers. Yes, he could have, but he didn't, because of the very specific luck-based factors that shaped him as a person (e.g., his genes, his parents, his specific friends, family, teachers, influences, etc.). Those things all made him what he turned out to be, but (IMHO) he didn't really "choose" any of that.

Interesting insights.

But aren't you suggesting that we all have some sort of post-birth 'predestination'? That what we are/become, successful/failure, rich/poor, good/bad person are all a matter of things out of our control and more about thousands of inputs and influences as we live?

In that case, the billionaire doesn't deserve praise and the murderer doesn't deserve blame as we are all driven by these lifetimes of influences. We essentially have no choice because, as you say like Bill Gates, "he really didn't choose any of that" and it is a function of our genes and influences that shape our decisions. No?