For many of us, our "luck" was to be born in the USA. In general, educational opportunities are available for those willing to take advantage of them. Obviously, "lucky" people have parents that help guided them as children. And if all else fails, where else can you be considered "poor" with a smart phone, hi def TV, a roof over your head and a statistical likelihood of being obese.
Most of what people call "luck" in being able to RE is planning, commitment and the comprehension necessary to take advantage of opportunities.
I was really "lucky" when I spent hours banging my head through calculus and various engineering courses instead of smoking dope all day.
Agree 100%! We cannot choose the place or the time in history in which we are born, we cannot choose our parents. This is where pure luck comes into play. But we do choose almost everything else. I am so thankful for being born here and with opportunities presented by having parents that instilled in me the value of morality, good education and hard work. This was my luck. I made a lot of mistakes along the way, but as you I am so thankful that I appreciated and took advantage of some of the many opportunities that were presented by the fortune of my birth.
One time when I worked as a programmer at the University of California we had a program that hired disadvantaged kids for summer jobs. It was no cost for us, so we hired a few. For any kid that had the desire, it was a tremendous opportunity to learn new things, make contacts, and participate in some very interesting and amazing projects. It was the beginning of the microprocessor era, and we had them working there, not junk work, but potentially really interesting stuff. I recall how surprised I was that to a person, they had absolutely NO interest in anything except getting paid, and spending all their money on the latest records, clothes, expensive frivolities for their car, etc.
I contrasted this with some kids of the professors. When they came it, we could not get them off the computers, they were interested in everything. Both of these kids had access to some amazing possibilities, but only one group could see it.
I always wondered what happened to those kids we hired so long ago, they probably did get what they wanted to get. Buying the latest fad music, and shiny things for their cars. I wonder if they ever got anything more.
It was so sad for me to see at the time. I guess I had optimistic images of the big effect we would have on these kids future. Was the beginning of my conversion to cynicism. These kids just didn't have a chance, they were born in the US, had access to education, but unfortunately were not born to parents who would encourage their curiosity and industriousness.
Being born to the right parents is the luckiest part of life. I don't mean parents with money, mine didn't have much, but parents who were optimistic about their child's future. and valued hard work, education and morality.