To dislike it when people take too much credit for their excellent life choices

[colourdilemma]

And are judgemental of those whose don't come up to scratch by their standards?

I don't think there are actually many of us who can claim huge credit for things that have gone well. More, I think those who are okay, settled, financially stable should be thanking their lucky stars that they had any of the flowing leg ups that made them able to make choices in life that worked out well:

1. parents who valued education
2. living in an area the had good schools
3. having parents who were emotionally stable enough to give them confidence and support
4. having a parentsl household income in childhood/early adulthood that let them take risks and or stay in education
5. having good enough physical and mental health to get through school/training/education
6. having academic/emotional ability and aptitudes for so called "good" jobs
7. meeting the right friends/partners
8. not having anything go disastrously wrong job wise/financially
9. having a crystal ball
10. a lot of luck

I could go on. Personally, I have a degree, financial security, a stable family now and a job that I can earn well in. But if I track my "success" back I would be better to describe it as a very precariously balanced, sometimes nearly disastrous series of part chosen, part chose me events. Isn't everyone pretty much the same?

This strikes me as why the tax credits debate is so horrible and why I dislike the phrase "hard working families" so very much.

And please forgive me if describing my position in the way I have sounds smug in any way; I do not remotely feel like that. I have long term mental health issues, my parents are a mess and I struggle hugely with parenting my three kids. So how b**y unfair is it that I seem to get away with it scot free because of some earning potential and financial independence?

Somebody famous like Newton once said "I am standing on the shoulders of giants" about the research and scientists that went before him and, even without getting into what a screwed up way this society chooses to judge success, I think anyone who has this "success" should think carefully about where it came from. Hard work, absolutely, but others work hard and don't enjoy the fruits so much.

Lorela- I suppose it depends on ones definition of 'luck'.
Some may argue that M and N were'lucky' to escape their horrendous background , as presumably there are others who have had a similar experience but for whatever reason have not succeeded. However, this does not negate the hardwork and resilience of M and N , I am just trying to explain that the definition of 'luck' is open to interpretation

I find their hard work and resilience humbling and I think describing them as lucky belittles their achievements

Yes, this. While I loathe listening to the likes.of fucking Cameron and Osborne chuffing on about 'not getting something for nothing' (purleeeease!), I also loathe listening to people dismiss the success of some people as 'luck'.

Lorela- I suppose it depends on ones definition of 'luck'.
Some may argue that M and N were'lucky' to escape their horrendous background , as presumably there are others who have had a similar experience but for whatever reason have not succeeded. However, this does not negate the hardwork and resilience of M and N , I am just trying to explain that the definition of 'luck' is open to interpretation

Well yes, but not depends how far you want to take the word 'luck' really. I mean, you could take someone really poor, who has had a shit life and no prospects in this country and say 'oh well they were lucky - they could have been born in Africa in the middle.of a famine, had absolutely no access to schools, and died of malaria at the age of 4. They didn't use the opportunities they had by living in this country'

Or take it further and say 'the person in Africa was lucky that they were born as a human and not as a bacteria that feeds on shit, they didn't use the opportunities they had by being born human'.

I think its fairly safe to attriubte the success of M and N to their hard work and resilience. Maybe you could say it's just 'luck' that they were born with those attributes, rather than crediting them for their choices, but then what would be the point of rewarding anyone for anything?

YANBU.
So much is down to luck, I think the only time we can credit it ourselves is when we manage to achieve things despite adversity- the children growing up in poverty who achieve good exam grades, things like that.

Was Malala Yousafzai lucky?

I think we should give her a lot of credit for what she has achieved.

the children growing up in poverty who achieve good exam grades, things like that.

Why? Growing up poor doesn't mean I lacked intelligence. And the ease of access to universities in this country meant that, as soon as I felt I wanted to, I was able to get a degree. I don't even begrudge having had to pay back a student loan that only 2 years earlier would not have existed. That wasn't bad luck, poor timing etc, it was just what was at the time I accessed it.

YANBU

What you are BU about is failing to call this what it is: class distinction.

YANBU. I also think the days of being able to be massively socially mobile are over.

My DGrandparents all left school before 14. My DNan never went to school & taught herself to read and write.

My DParents were the first and only in each respective family to go to university. My DDad had to leave school at 16 to support the family because his father was seriously ill. He later went back as a mature student and became one of the leaders in his field.

Both of them came from very working class, deprived backgrounds - DMum comes from an "immigrant" family and knows what it's like to go without food and heat in a bad winter. Now they are lightyears from where my DGrandparents found themselves.

They have worked damn hard but also had the opportunity to move themselves up a class, to buy their own property, to pay for us to go through university, to have end of service pension payouts. Something which I am not sure I will be able to do without making huge sacrifices - like living thousands of kms away from my family for work. I am hugely privileged though, to be able to have the choice to do this.

I think a lot of it has to do with having a role model or seeing someone like you go on and achieve - almost like a trailblazer. Where I am from, lots of kids don't believe that they can go to university or become a doctor, teacher, accountant for example, because they don't think it's for people "like them" and they will fail. Others take that risk and go on to achieve.

It's always a combination of hard work and luck that gets someone to the top. The proportion of each factor just varies. I had every single one of the ten factors listed, so very lucky, and now run a susscessful small business. My husband had 1,3,6 and 7 and that was enough for him to achieve his goals professionally and he earns a higher salary than me. He would still say he was lucky, but I definitely had an easier time. At the end of the day, I'm not too bothered about whether people think I'm lucky or hard working, they are simply projecting their beilefs onto me and it doesn't affect my life.

I don't get why being told that you are lucky means that people are belittling your hard work. You normally have to have done something for the luck to work with. We are often told that we are lucky and I always agree.

However I don't understand the obsession with having to be seen as the hardest working person in the room.

Certainly Malala is an inspiration because of her bravery and determination.

However her life is a good illustration of luck and advantage. She was born into a family who owned a chain of schools and where girls education was encouraged, she was chosen by the BBC to be a blogger about her life. Because of her profile she was airlifted to receive the best possible treatment after he was shot, and her connections with the media meant her plight was publicised and she was brought to the UK for further treatment at a hospital specialising in traumas. Her family were willing to join her and were unusually permitted to settle in the UK, an exclusive private school kindly offered to educate her for free.

I do not wish to detract from her remarkable example, but she has had many advantages that the average girl in Pakistan could not even dream about.

She was also lucky to have not been killed in the assassination attempt.

I don't get why being told that you are lucky means that people are belittling your hard work.

Sometimes it is because of the inappropriateness of the comment. We have put hours of work into our new house. Stripping out shoddy workmanship, having the kitchen floor dug up to fix a leak, spending thousands on getting the roof fixed, carefully taking apart sash windows, renovating them and putting them back in again, etc.

SILs first comment? Oh you are so lucky to have such lovely decoration. No, we are not. We worked damned hard to get that done.

Her comments disregarded our efforts, reduced them to mere chance, and implied we didn't deserve something so nice.

I usually could give a monkeys. SIL has been out of our lives for 15 years. But a momentary lapse of reason on our behalf gave her entry.

It won't happen again! But surely you can see why, sometimes such comments can be utterly misplaced?

I don’t see why we need to create this dichotomy – luck vs good choices. It’s like everything in life. It’s a bit of both. Most people start out with a hand of cards that life has dealt them. That’s luck – did they get born with the genetic advantages of Charlie Faumuina, or the intellectual curiosity of a Stephen Hawking, or the looks of Kate Moss? Because no matter how hard I worked or how many good choices I made, I can pretty much guarantee that I wouldn’t be playing rugby for New Zealand, or teaching physics at Cambridge, or modelling for…well…anyone.

And then they play their cards. And much like most card games, some people will win a hand even if they’ve only got one decent card to play, and some people will completely throw away an amazing hand out of stupidity, but most people do better if they have a better collection of cards in their hand.

If it boils down to luck does that been that all those people posting on fb that they are 'blessed' to have x, x and x are right?

I'm curious about this, because most people on this thread have opposed "pure good luck" with "hard work", "personal attributes" and "making good choices". But where do the ability to do hard work, the right personal attributes, and the wherewithal to make good choices come from?

For example, I guess I see "hard work" as something which you need to learn to do too, something which would be facilitated by having parents with strong work ethics, good mental and physical health, resilience, education about the importance of perseverence, etc.

And so these traits which seem to come from our own agency can ALSO be traced back to a particular kind of upbringing, education, family background, can't they?

Argh no those fb idiots should be ignored as usual!

There is a lot of truth in this but i find that on MN sometimes this view is taken to an extreme with some posters dismissing any and all achievement as "luck" and seemingly insisting that nobody is ever struggling because of choices they have made. Likewise you get some who are oblivious enough to think everyone just needs to pull themselves up by their bootstraps... They tend to be extremes and I think each can be as bad as the other.

We continually make choices throughout our lives and I know some people who actually have had many of the advantages the Op listed, (certainly a lot more than I had growing up in a large working class family with very little money or aspiration)yet they have made and continue to make choices which actually take them closer towards real poverty. I certainly won't be sneering at them if that happens but I also hope they won't look at me and DH and insist that we just got lucky and have no idea how hard it is for some because we really, really do know!

Please no! Don't say that, Fairenuff.

Annwfyn or it is just life? I dislike the luck thing because I don't like the idea that everything I have done is down to capriciousness. If that were true then I could have sat on my arse and still ended up where I am now! I have worked with enough people who do that, moaning all the time they spend their energy and money on unnecessary items, that they just aren't lucky and someone else has had it easy.

I dislike the passiveness of that. I prefer to work towards achieving something and knowing that I have done that! I wouldn't be daft enough to want to be a rugby international, but wouldn't assign anyone elses success to luck. Genetics isn't luck...

Been thinking about this some more.

I am not really that engaged with whether it is luck, hard work or excellent life choices.

My real problem is with those who are so self-righteous they want to punish or diminish those who find themselves less well rewarded by life for whatever reason.

I've always felt lucky to have had a loving and sufficiently attentive family. I look at friends who have had for example alcoholic parents and I don't know how they've gone on to be good parents themselves. I give them vast amounts of credit for acting consciously to break the cycle.

So I have been blessed by the previous generations of my family. And the welfare state which gave us ok housing, education and excellent healthcare growing up.

FaIRENUFF: Oh dear was my "blessed" a bit too much! Sorry!

Apparently not Bet, you have been blessed with luck and are right to acknowledge it.

Likewise, as there is always someone worse off in the world, we are all blessed with luck it would seem.

I have friends who are the same age as me and have a very comfortable life-style. He is in his early 50s and semi-retired. She still works but only so she can put money away for her children. Their mortgage is paid off. They have several holidays a year and oodles in the bank. They have made a lot of sensible decisions and never been careless with money and they deserve all they have. BUT they haven't worked any 'harder' than anyone else - in fact she worked part-time for years when her children were small.

A few years ago we were chatting about general stuff and DH made an unguarded comment about how lucky they were to be able so something or other - it wasn't a dig but she leapt down his throat in affronted anger. They weren't lucky -they had worked hard and sacrificed a lot. DH apologised and explained and her feathers unruffled but looking back they have been lucky - bought a house at the right time so they had a tiny mortgage on a property now worth a small fortune. He was fortunate to get in on the ground floor of a small local company that grew and grew until he was taking home megabucks - the sort of job that aren't exactly common outside of a city. He never had to take risks with his career and stayed in the same place most of his working life. No doubt they worked hard but right place at right time plays a big part. Nowt wrong with acknowledging that.

I dislike the luck thing because I don't like the idea that everything I have done is down to capriciousness.

It's scary isn't it? I think resilience and emotional stability has a lot to do with it as well.

I often think about the way 'providence' has buffeted me through life. For example, If I had chosen a different University, I would never have met my husband, who has been a rock to me - very supportive, great father, and is now a high earner.

I absolutely think genetics is luck.