Why do some people always seem to land on their feet…?

[Farmhouse1234]

Been pondering this lately, as I’ve a few friends who this seems to apply to.
Whilst I’m sure there’s an element of luck involved, do you think there are other factors? For the people I know I think it maybe also be linked to - confidence, an expectation that things will generally go in one’s favour, and being a generally positive person (or perhaps that’s a circular argument!).

You sound like a professional victim.

Yes, tell us about your friends who started you off on this train of large language model thought.

This of it this way. 100 to 1 chances happen 100% of the time. To one person out of 100. Someone is getting the good outcome every time.

Add social and financial capital to that. Friends, family and money, essentially.

Add innate factors. I'm naturally happy with a little risk, typically look on the bight side, have decent health, no pain, fast-approach to problems, and am basically content. Most of those have some level of heredity to them. FFS job satisfaction is partially genetic!

If you have luck, social capital, and good genes, you will end up on your feet all the time.

Think of it, rather!

The woman I know who always lands on her feet is I think a sociopath. Hugely charismatic and great fun. Makes friends and gets partners very easily. Then proceeds to use them for what she can get. She has moved all around the UK, and each time quickly gets a lot of friends who are all happy to help her.

And you sound like a tw@t who comes on here to attack others commenting rather than responding to the OP's post. Get a life.

I’m one that gets called lucky. I’m really not, I think my friends are lucky and have amazing things and people in their lives.

People that know me well understand the disaster I’ve left behind. They don’t call me lucky, they tell me I turned it around.

What looks like luck from the outside is often incredibly hard work that is just not discussed.

I spent 18 months trying to secure a job overseas in a competitive industry, only mentioning the hard work and stress to a handful of people at work who I'm close with and who understand. Virtually everyone I've told outside of this small group has said "lucky you!", like I've just 'landed' this job out of the blue. They mean well and I don't correct them to say it wasn't luck. But it's interesting how people over-estimate the role luck plays sometimes.

I'm lucky.
Lucky to be born to decent parents who've left me relatively issue-free.
Lucky to be born in the late 20th century
Lucky to find school easy- which led to uni and job
Lucky to have enough self esteem to get out of shit relationships (eventually)
Lucky to meet dh, who's an equal partner
Lucky to work with mainly decent people and to have had opportunities in my career.

Stitching the luck together are the unlucky bits:
The auadd
The shit eyesight
The horrible, horrible relationship I was in once upon a time
Being born too late for uni grants
Not really knowing anyone to give good career advice after uni
Buying a house at peak house prices
Buying another house which was a money pit
Issues with dc
Various car crashes etc
Broken bones

Aren't we all always somewhere on Fortune's wheel? Currently I'm up, but I'm in my 40s so it could turn again at any point.

That's true, but also some of the lucky people often have a good network around them to help them.

What was the hard work?

Is he popular with the bosses?
I notice it's a he and not a she.

I know someone like this! Well, knew, in the past tense. I hope never to cross her path again. The reason she's moved a lot is that she runs out of good will when she's shafted one too many people in each place. She is actually insane; I don't think it can be an easy or happy way to live.

I do think that the majority of life and life circumstances are down to luck and being at the right place at the right time as well as being hard working and having a positive attitude.

Could be fear. I've known a few people like this - and, yes, the worst were men - in big workplaces. I eventually realised they were all 'problem' employees who could be extremely embarrassing to the company. One, for instance, had allegedly raped a couple of female colleagues. After due process, he was not legally guilty so couldn't be fired for that. But he was a weird creep; it was likely he had done it.

From when the allegations were made, he'd been separated from women at work - there were a lot of us, so this effectively meant he got his own office at the end of a corridor, with a non-job role. By the time the police stuff had completed, this situation was established and the entire female workforce had been told to avoid him. Apparently the company couldn't get rid of him without being sued for all kinds of mistreatment and having its reputation smeared for exposing the women to a probable aggressor.

I assume he had a very good lawyer.

Love this! What a brilliant description!

Agree. I admit to finding it annoying when people refuse to acknowledge the luck element. Apart from the lack of humility/gratitude, it makes them repulsively contemptuous of others who are less favoured by fortune.

Exactly. You can make your own bad luck by being careless or lazy or any number of things, but your good luck is more dependent on external factors IMO.

I've been incredibly lucky - and my main three sources of good luck have been a) the family I was born into, b) there being an economic boom just as I began looking for jobs, and c) there being an economic crash just when I wanted out, resulting in a good redundancy deal. Nothing to do with me.

I've been unlucky with some of my jobs, but lucky in that I have never taken long to find another one.

I am good at interviewing. Less good at holding a job down. Although I am closing in on five years in my current one - it's just taken me a long time to find something I am good at! I have managed five years plus in a couple of other jobs as well but a couple of others have been 6-12 months.

I have been reasonably lucky in that I am financially secure - that's partly the luck of always being in a job but also that DH and I are careful, never overextended ourselves when we bought a house - we paid off the mortgage with an inheritance but would have been mortgage-free by now anyway. Also we don't see the need for an SUV as a status symbol and generally live within our means.

Where we are very very lucky is health. We've both had the odd thing, DH more than me, but generally have been very lucky so far. If you have good health you can manage most things.

Some people seem to get everything falling at their feet i agree

You were just lucky pet.

You might have built on that, but you were lucky. Lucky to be born without a disability; lucky to be born in a society with enough stability to thrive and not be shut out of the workforce just because you're female; lucky to have a reasonable education and not to get mistreated or develop a life-limiting condition.

People who work hard tend think that they deserve everything they worked for and are probably right, but almost none of them seem to be aware that they are living a fragile existence. Things can change in a moment and sometimes they do.

Luck and a good attitude: positive and hard working.

Yes, this is true.

Attitude, confidence, optimism, and the willingness to dust yourself off and take some action all make a huge difference.

Also, I've noticed that some people will talk a lot about the bad things that have happened to them (in a self pitying or borderline obsessive way), whereas others will barely mention setbacks and just get on with their life. This can give the false impression that the latter group have nothing to complain about.

What others have said is very true re: luck. A large amount of what happens to us is random chance, nothing to do with hard work or effort.

But there is also the fact that different people respond to adverse circumstances or setbacks in very different ways.

When I think of people who have had bad luck that has affected their lives, it is never about dealing with the ordinary things most of us experience. So amongst the people I know - being hit by a car while they were on a pedestrian crossing and left legally blind and with mobility difficulties and a child to take care of as a lone parent. Having a difficult birth whose complications left her infertile, her son died at age 6 from an unavoidable illness, followed by divorce and her having serious cancer that may yet kill her.
I find people who say they have a cheerful attitude to life have very rarely had a terrible time. I used to think I was incredibly optimistic. I have been worn down a bit by cumulative negative things happening that I could have done nothing about.