to think a lot of posters here believe the ONLY reason they are in a well paid is because they worked so much harder than anyone else and good luck and favourable circumstances had NO BEARING AT ALL

[ssd]

GOD there are some amount of smug posters here who seem to believe they are so far above the rest of us lowly workers, they can't stop telling us how hard they have worked, how academic they are etc etc and if you're not, well really you probably claim benefits and expect the system to help you out with your crap paid job

well guess what folks, some of us are in crap paid jobs due to unforeseen life events, not because we spent years at school studying and trying hard so we could earn minimum wage and be lectured to by people who don't have to compromise all their bloody lives

It's a lottery? It has nothing to do with hard work? Well I shall out my feet up

Catgirl I for one don't think it is

But it is possible to work your arse off and get not very far at all.

Besides who sets the benchmark for success? If someone from a cre home background, or with a low level SN or whatever manages to get and keep a job at all then comapred to many of their peers they are amazinlgly successful.

Success has many forms, the amount of tax you pay being only one.

No catgirl - as everyone has said again and again it's a mixture of many elements. But luck/fortune/the throw of the dice has a part to play in everyone's lives. Why does it hurt to admit that?

Dr Peachy. it sounds like a good plan. i think when life gets easier you will find your confidence comes back. FYI would love to be Dr The Real Tilly Minto! (must sort capitalisation of my name)

I agree Peachy I really do. I think nurses etc are horribly unerpaid and undervalued. I don't see why actors and footballers earn what they do. I know loads of people who work their arses every day and will never earn fortunes. What I dis-agree with is being judged by the OP on something as unimportant as my wage which I felt the OP was doing. I couldn't give a stuff what anyone earns, where they go on holiday (if they go), where they live or where they get thier clothes from. Being told I am "just lucky" is a bit rude really. I wouldn't look at someone on a lower income and say they were "just lazy". I don't see why the OP thinks its ok to judge higher earners as if we are some homogenous group. If someone has been rude or smug - deal with them as an individual.

Ormirian I have said that in every bloody post I have made.

catgirl I might be compeltely wrong but I have seen SSD on some of the threads where peopl HAVE been happy to say that anyone on a low income (anyone, regradless of circs) must just be lazy and is probably responding to that tbh.

Well I am sorry to hear people are so ignorant and rude. I haven't seen it myself and would let some know how [shocked] I was if I did. But I am not sure reversing the name calling is the ideal way to deal with it.

I said it was a lottery as to who gets the spaces at the top, catgirl- I never said you were 'just lucky'. I am saying that there is someone with a parallel life to you who has had all the same life chances, the same good and bad luck, and has worked just as hard. Yet they have less than you. Or much more than you. This does not reflect on them, or on you, but on the type of society we live in.

It's difficult to have this discussion because any suggestion that success is controlled by extraneous factors is taken as an insult by people who have worked hard.

I'm not saying anything that incendiary.

tethersend - two people, try as hard, same lucky, different outcomes. please can you explain why the difference in outcomes. do you mean choosen different types of careers so get paid differently?

No, I mean that capitalism prohibits too many people from reaching the top, as it requires more at the bottom in order to function effectively. It is indiscriminate in who it allows to reach the top.

No, LeQ, you are missing my point. The other person also took the same risks.

I can sort of see where OP is coming from.

My parents have both worked since they were 14/15 in low paid manual jobs (although my dad is a skilled worker). Never been on any benefits (apart from CB) and, due to redundancy, and my mums mental health issues my dad cannot afford to retire even though he was 65 last week.

They have both worked their fingers to the bone (my mums sometimes working 2 jobs) to provide for me and my siblings.

Life can be unfair at times and it is spurious to assume that, if people just worked harder for longer they would be more successful/better off.

tethersend - do you mean two people take a risk, it works out for one and not the other? so different outcomes for same input?

No, nothing as tangible as that- one will make more, one will make less.

Le Queen, I think we are running similar lives.

Luck plays only a part. In our family, while DH was working 80 hour weeks and driving an old car, his sister was working 9-5 and pissing her money up the wall.
Twenty years later she is in the same one bedroomed flat and whining how unfair it all is.
I have to add, I genuinely know very, very few people who work like DH and some of his colleagues work. It's quite mindboggling just how differently people like that work to those who say that others work really hard. Not putting a downer on them AT ALL but I don't know any cleaners or nurses who get phone calls at 3 am or 5 am or get off a 14 hour flight into a five hour meeting and then another one. These people work frighteningly, incredibly hard. And they can't ever switch off. I can't remember the times meals, outings, dinner parties, holidays etc etc have been interrupted by calls. And you have to live like that if you want the success. if you don;t, absolutely fair play, but you have to suck it up if you want it.
And that's the other bottom line, most people don't want to live like that, or not enough, anyway.

Me and DH have a really good income and yes I do feel smug sometimes.. might be wrong of me but there you go. I think we have made our own luck to be honest. We both come from similar backgrounds, quite poor (council houses as children) and both from parents that had no eduation and worked very very hard - my Dad eventually started working for himself as a builder and DH's Dad was a plant drive (DH's Dad is completely illiterate to an amazing achievement). Both our parents bought their council houses and worked up from there and have got everything they have through blood sweat and tears.

Dh and I both went to uni - we paid for ourselves as our parents were no in a position to help us - he now works in Westminster in a great job on a great salary and I did a lot of cleaning jobs to buy a couple of rental homes which give me a good income now. This was in the day when they leant money to anyone - obviously and I took on a great deal of risks to make it happen. My homes are let to families on benefits because I do believe firmly in giving back - might be a lofty aim but i have been fucking dirt poor when my 1st marriage broke up and nearly lost everything. The only thing that saved me was not being too proud even with a degree to do cleaning/washing up/anything that paid and everything I have is from my own making.

Between us we have a six figure income - something I thought could never ever be achievable - I do have to pinch myself. That said we live modestly, we have a modest home, oldish cars.

On the downside we have two children with serious illnesses and special needs so I do think in the scheme of things we have also had our fair share of bad luck too. I would give all the tea in China to make that go away.

Life is like that, you win some you lose some - but I really do think that hard graft is the secret of winning the war even if you lose a few battles. My DH laid railway tracks at night after his degree to pay for his Masters at UCL - something that makes me very very proud of him. So, if pride in your own achievements makes us smug then we are as smug as fuck because given the odds we would never have what we have today and would never be able to offer our children more to aspire to in the future. It has been hard work that has made all the difference in our lives.

I do think you make your own luck.

I think the reason I am so adverse to placing success at the feet of lady luck, is because it seems so negative as we are mere leaves blowing in the wind.

It smacks of keeping the poor in their place. They don't have the breaks so it's not worth the battle.

For that reason I will always in rl and here on MN try to support and encourage anyone who is trying to change their lot in life. Or at least looking for a way to be more optimistic and proactive.
There is a time and a place for a good old fashioned moan, particularly when life hands you a rough deal...but at some point you have to at least try to look for alternative approaches no?

People often see Xenia as being very smug, but actually she is very encouraging. She wants women to be successful. Sure it is a particular brand of success but at least she wants people, whatever their background, to succeed.

Yeah, and we've also done bar jobs. security work, McDonalds, factories, labouring - we worked every holiday all holiday as students and term time. And DH comes from single other poverty.

"And that's the other bottom line, most people don't want to live like that, or not enough, anyway."

Retro, have you thought how it might work if everybody- or even 60% of people suddenly decided to live like that? Do you honestly think everybody/60% would then be as successful?

...I guess if you measure success in monetary terms, yes.

Really, Beca? So every single person could be as rich?