AIBU to think that although we may be lucky, it hasn't all been down to just luck

[Litchick]

Have a friend staying at the moment and she has told DC that our very comfortable existence is all a matter of luck.
Luck that we were born in the west. Luck to be clever. Luck to have reasonable parents etc.

I know she's right, and yet I want to impress upon DC that it hasn't been like winning the lottery. We have had to work our arses off and still do.

AIBU, or should I just leave it that indeed we are incredibly lucky?

I tend to find the "you're so lucky" line used against me by people who have worked far less hard than me.

Sure I am lucky and I accept that, born in the UK, good intelligence, decent health and nothing truly terrible has ever happened to me. But I realised quite early on that hard work and determination was my way out of a difficult background. And that is in many cases what has made the difference between me and many people who were in a similar place.

So whilst many of my peers were out every night I slogged away and got into Cambridge, worked really hard there, learnt the rules of getting ahead, got a good job and then spent my 20s and early 30s working really really hard. I wanted to be reasonably secure financially (by which I mean not having to worry about how to pay the gas bill rather than never having to work again) and have made careful choices and sacrificed to get there.

So yes, when someone comes around to my house and tells me how "lucky" I am to have it, my car or my foreign holidays I'll smile sweetly but internally curse them.

Granted LeQueen. But what would you say to my factory worker? He has worked hard and has been promoted as far as he was ever going to be in the position he was in. But he won't be rich. Ever. Which was he? Unfortunate or lazy?

lequeen - my DH is the same. His ambition and resilience are blistering.

His Mum says he was like it from birth - though his family see it as a bad thing and treat him like the black sheep lol.

sorry that was in answer to your penultimate post.
Though I have to say also that my DH finds it very hard to believe that others can't do as well as he given he is from humble stock and as far as he's concerned 'nothing special'.

Well yes I would. The point is that the majority of people who do well in life and that come from 'lucky' backgrounds don't have the personal drive and ambition that your DH clearly does. Not many people I know do - perhaps 3 or 4. But they do OK because they start further up the ladder.

So no background doesn't always hold you back but you have to work harder to get somewhere.

And some people truly, honestly don't give a toss. As long as they dodge along, have a decent enough place to live with decent schools, camp out for holidays in summer, etc. they're honestly not fussed.

I find workaholics extremely tiresome. I was once the mistress of one, and I was in it for the money entirely.

I found his fixation with work ultimately extremely dull.

You can escape your background - I certainly did...but it's hard.

That's why I get so pissed off with the independent v state school threads that go 'a bright child will do well anywhere'.
No they won't.
A bright child, with extremely interested and motivated parents and the ability not to be swayed by peer pressure and a thick enough skin not to be ground down...well they might be okay 'anywhere'.

expat - I think it's fine that some people are content to dodge along, as you say. In many ways I'm envious becuase these folk are content, whereas I'm always on the lookout for something new. DH is the same.
I guess we fit quite nicely.

That's funny leq. 2 of the people I know who are extremely driven and ambitious - who have started several businesses from scratch and made buckets of money each time - are non-university educated 'school-of-real-life' graduates. But not deprived in any real sense. They are married to each other so no-one else has to put up with them

I don't think luck comes into it - we all end up with the lives that we deserve, one way or another.

I am like morrisszapp and have no drive or ambition.
mind you i know plenty of accountants and they earn relatively low/totally medium salarys. your freind is the exception. they too would be bog standard accountant , if they hadn't made it happen and chose things thta led them in the path to a fortune. that isn't luck.

i am the person who expat describes. happy bobbing along with my 4 camping holidays each year. i want for nothing.

we were working approx 50hrs a week each setting up our business (plus I kept up my church commitments) and we had DS2 at home all day still as he hadn't started school or nursery yet.

Our business failed 5yrs ago....there's no way we could have even thought about trying again even now - despite using working opposite shifts in actually money earning jobs, even if we'd stayed at those there's no way we'd have been "clear" enough to have tried again. There was nothing (and still isn't) anything left to "gamble" with.

We didn't get lucky - although ironically last year when we briefly got back together we did meet someone that was pretty much "the" contact we needed 4yrs prior to that......had we met that women in 2005 our fortunes may well have been different as she would have been able to secure what we couldn't as she had some excelletn contacts.

Unfortunately she was overseas in 2005 so we could never have met her then

Start-up businesses are rather like Oxbridge applicants - in some respects - plenty of people that don't get in had nothing "wrong" with them - there just wasn't enough places for them. Someone will end up losing out - not because they're not worthy but because lucky wasn't on their side.

I went to school with one such person - she left school (a specialist music school so she was there for her music talent) with 10 Scottish Highers, 6 or 7 CSYS's, and 5 A levels - all A's, no "lightweight" subjects - was all sciecnes, maths, languages, music. Cambridge turned her down..........(so Edinburgh took her straight into second year)

She's long since graduated, and done another degree in music, and a PhD, and is persuing a career in music in between lecturing at the Gregor Mendel Institute.

My chosen career path has little value, but if I ever reach the top of it, wow - could be reaching the dizzy heights of 22k a year . But I'll be successful and fulfilled - although totally unvalued by society- but really I don't count my worth on what soceity thinks of me as a whole or views my role.

exH had drive and ambition pushed into him because of where he grew up. It's now turned him into a materialistic prick. Where having things and possessions and being able to do fancy things is more important. If he's not got the things that money can buy he's not happy - more the fool him .

I think it's easy to re-write history when you are successful. Having taken big risks and reaping rewards I can easily look back on my life and think I have made good decisions and see all the good stuff.

Doesn't mean that much really, it's just one path of many.

And I think success is mostly due to talent and passion.

lequeen - I do know what you mean. When I set up a new business or a blog, I absolutely love it when it takes off and people start using it and money comes in. Such a thrill.

It's the same as writing. Creating something new. A fucking real buzz.
I used to get it too when I was a lawyer and won a case.

But still I envy oblomov - because she's trully at peace with things...not searching for more.

But hey ho. I am how I am. DH is the same. We are happy, if forever in forward motion.

I have drive and ambition - I'm going to get back on the degree wagon next year (had to drop out this year - course content would have turned me into a gibbering wreck - farrrrrrrrrrrrr to close to home for comfort). Get back to work next September when DS3 starts school. Probably start off as a "centre based" FSW, and then as I get more of my degree under my belt move on up to be a fully fledged one - ooo err get me .

After faffing around and being miserable as fuck my brother is finally realising his abition of working with kids. Currently in an after school club but he's working towards his outdoors pursuits kiddy thingy whatsit (ok we don't talk very often I can't remember the proper name) - but basically it means he'll be able to take children on activity holidays and stuff, or mountaineering and mad stuff lke that.

I've never known him happier (although when he worked in the post office he earned a LOT more than he does now, or indeed every will.....)

I think too many people see drive and ambition as meaning you have to have this wonderful "well valued", decent paying career.....

My ultimate goal in life is to have a job I love, that's not just something I do to pay the bills.

So many times have I had to start over in the last 10yrs I can't be arsed with all this must have money to do x,y,z stuff anymore. When we had it we were no happier (well exh though we were - nutter) than when we had nothing

I think the most important thing is parents who care. ds1 is only 6. year 1. at a very very good school. all the parents there care. not in a nasty competitive way, but in a nice way. we all read with our children every day.
how can theses children not thrive ? if they decide to be phd/barristers/ or any other job that is not so well paid, then that is their decision.
but thrive ? they must. will. have to.

"But, breaking new ground, making something grow, taking a risk etc is what makes MrQ content."

but - if you lose everything (or near enough do) then you have nothing to risk so can't start over.

You need to have something there to risk to try again......funnily enough we discovered creditors don't like you offering them thin air

As toccata says, a capitalist society needs there to be more people on the bottom than on the top. It perpetuates this with the notion that those at the bottom can simply work their way to the top by doing x, y, z- and can point to numerous examples to prove it.

This ensures that those at the bottom work hard, being assured of success if they do- meanwhile keeping the economy and society ticking over nicely.

The fact is that there is only room for a few to work their way up from the 'bottom of the heap', as society would collapse were everyone to work hard and move up the 'pyramid'. The problem is that these few are held up as a shining example to those who have no chance of upward mobility. The ones who make it are completely random, there is no watertight formula for success.

I am not saying those who have achieved have not worked hard, just that you cannot take the formula of 'working hard' and apply it to everyone, as society would collapse. We all know of somebody who 'worked their way up'- we never hear about those who had passion drive, ambition and worked hard yet achieved little or nothing. There are plenty of them out there, its just that their stories are rarely told.