To say your good fortune is down to luck....

[Shallowstreams]

On threads here I keep reading people saying how they've 'worked hard' and as such can pay off their entire mortgage by mid thirties or similar.

But most people work hard and that's a distant dream. It's only achievable to get and pay off a decent sized mortgage if you've had the luck in whatever shape or form to get an extremely high paying job or a very low mortgage perhaps because of family help or inheritance.

I work very hard and earn very well as does my husband yet our mortgage won't be paid off for many many years, and I'm almost 40.

It just annoys me that people seem to think they've managed to achieve this as they've worked harder than others and are not acknowledging the good fortune that has put them in this position

AIBU?

Also whois taking it back to basics we should all be doing marvellously well what with living in one of the world's richest nations with access to both education and healthcare that is free at the point of use.

Well yes indeed. We are all doing v well compared to many countries. Most people in the Uk are very lucky to be born into a country not at war, with free at the point of service healthcare and education. And a decent enough social security system.

I just think that it's all very well saying how hard I've worked and that my success is down to me - when the truth of it is I'm intelligent, nice enough looking, have a fairly outgoing personality, with good parents who instilled a good work ethic, I'm healthy and I have no MH issues. I have no caring responsibilities for older or younger generations.

Hence I've always done well at school and uni and in job interviews and at work.

I have worked hard. I do work hard. But I've had no major barriers to success that I've had to overcome either. So my success has been easier won than a hell of a lot of people's.

I'm with Philo. I'm not that successful, but what success I do have is mainly down to luck, and to suggest otherwise is arrogant. It's tantamount to saying that those who don't succeed, however you classify it, are lazy and useless, which would be appalling and totally wrong.

someone up thread said we are all born equal, but we're not even in the womb some have a better start than others (maternal health and nutrition).
someone said; meeting husband, getting job etc. was luck well no you are healthy, you are clever, you are educated, you have a resume you did things to put yourself in the situation to have positive things happen to you.
not all work is equal sadly; in an 8 hour day some people clean poop all day (not great definitely hard work), some people assume responsibility for other peoples lives (engineer building a bridge, hard work) some people think of what life could be like in the future and invent or invest in what some day may make your life easier (sleepless nights, using the family home as collateral, finding investors while working on the project for no pay). so not all work is of the same value.
luck to me is a combination of hard work and positioning myself to have positive things come about (SAHM, distance ed, while working on call to upgrade my diploma to a degree to be in a position to apply for better jobs). got the better job, used the money wisely paid off debt etc.

I do wonder though if you do think it's all down to hardworking you probably get on better in life because you're not looking for an excuse or a reason for why it hasn't gone right you just get on with trying to get what you want.

This is a mass generalisation btw and I'm really just musing about the impact of someone's perception of luck can have on their how they measure success. If you think it all comes down to luck is there a part of you that just doesn't want to try as hard?

Philoslothy Luck is a funny old thing isn't it. I occassionally wonder about whether my eyesight makes me ridiculously lucky or ridiculously unlucky....

I have similar thought about my childhood. I dealt with addiction, violence, prostitition, parents in and out of prison etc growing up. That has been the cause of much bad luck for my siblings. However I was lucky to be born with a personality type that could see all of that as a driver to do better rather than something that hold me back. Growing up I had a hunger and a drive that my children just don't have because of their fortunate upbringing. I also suspect that I would not have got into the university I did if I had been from a more stable background. People took pity on me and I enabled them to tick lots of diversity boxes.

If you think it all comes down to luck is there a part of you that just doesn't want to try as hard?

Oh I def don't think it is all down to luck.

But to think that your successful life is entirely of your making is exceedingly arrogant I think.

Maybe I'm projecting. My partners father likes to rant about how people complaining the steal works are closing - they should just move, get s better job, retrain, do something or economically valuable with their lives. Without understanding the difficulties other people face. He is v intelligent and healthy and was born into a good home life. He is exceedingly driven and has worked exceedingly hard and made sacrifices at key times to ensure long term gains.

However he doesn't understand how life would have been so different if, for example, he had a long term health problem like ME.

My partners father likes to rant about how people complaining the steal works are closing - they should just move, get s better job, retrain, do something or economically valuable with their lives.

I used to say similar things about loggers. Then my sister worked in a tiny country town, which had quite a few illiterate people. As children they had constantly been pulled out of school growing up, because the livestock needed handling; they got further and further behind and just never caught up.
How do you retrain when you can't read and write? How hard is it going to be to overcome that?

It's interesting. Some people probably do genuinely accomplish great things in life purely through hard work. Others will be through pure luck.

I'm a combination of the two. My parents didn't have two pennies to rub together but my mums adopted mum paid for me to go to private school.

My private school education got me a job in a law firm (my boss told me it was why I was hired). A combination of hard work and luck meant they paid for me to do my law degree. Hard bloody graft got me through working full time and doing my degree.

My hard work got me where I am in my career now. Met my DH ten years ago when we were both earning minimum wage; again through a combination of luck and hard work I've ended up with a good career and he has a business that's expanded significantly. We're now comfortable for the first time in our lives.

However our house is paid for partly by our jobs and partly by inheritance. I'm reluctant to say that's "good luck" but it put us in a better financial position than most people our age.

Life's a lottery I guess. I often think of the inheritances that we are lucky to have that start in life, but it doesn't make up for what we had to lose to get it.

Luck is not something you can mention in the presence of self-made men.

Wise words.

YANBU

I work with someone (who is the same age as me, and does exactly the same job as me) who told me she has got where she is today through sheer hard work.

So I can only conclude I have been very lucky. Luckier than my colleague anyway as I am a lazy fucker, and do the job I do because it's easy, close to home, is convenient hours for my family.

I do love my job, buy I haven't worked hard to have it, and know I could earn 3X more if I didn't chose to work around my DC.

DH and I have also had "bad luck"/certain life choices. It we hadn't dealt with those issues as we chose to our mortgage would have been paid off three years ago.

I have no regrets.

But to think that your successful life is entirely of your making is exceedingly arrogant I think

Completely agree with this.

Although I think to an extent perceptions of luck may change as you get older, I can kind of understand how once you've retired the rose tinted glasses come out as you review the working life you've just lived and want to give yourself a pat on the back or just think things that make seem all worthwhile.

Your FIL does sound like annoying though!!

An annoying twat that should read.

Most people even in the "hard work" camp don't think it's all down to hard work. That would be silly. However luck and hard work both matter.

I also think we damage people's prospects if we tell them it's alway sjust down to luck so no point in the likes of you thinking you can make anything of yourself as you'll just be unlucky so why bother tying? I suspect that luck ethos is why white working class boys do so very very badly at school and Chinese and Indian children ( whose families sensibly realise if you get your finger out and work hard you'll do better) do a lot better even if financially from a less well off background.

So I agree with this:

" Donatellalymanmoss Tue 31-May-16 21:51:56
I do wonder though if you do think it's all down to hardworking you probably get on better in life because you're not looking for an excuse or a reason for why it hasn't gone right you just get on with trying to get what you want. "

Husband has done well for himself, a lot of it is working hard (good grades at uni, driving round making notes of local companies to ask for internships before that was a real "thing", spending his own time learning new skills and work related stuff to keep his skills current) and half of it is luck, (being in the right place in the right time, making the right connections and his hard work being recognised/rewarded.)

Calling the work and hours he puts in "luck" is demeaning to his hard working nature. Likewise, calling his success a result of his hard work doesn't recognise the lucky breaks he's had- for eg getting into uni despite being affected by the A level downgrading scandal, getting a great internship, meeting a person who had the vision to start a new company and pull husband with him. But then he'd say that he wouldn't have had the last bit if he hadn't worked his nuts off and impressed the person in question.

It's too multifaceted to call one way or another. I think there's definitely a case for making your own luck.

I worked a lot harder when I was on a lot less money.

I can put as much effort as I like into training to run a marathon but I can barely walk, let alone run, due to a sudden onset of a rare disease that has attacked various systems in my body. Yet, I still see myself as lucky. I get decent treatment that is free (at the point of use) which enables me to be healthy enough to get out of bed to sit in a chair or wheelchair and go to work. I work damn hard; to wash my own hair, to dress my top half, to make simple meals, to wash the dishes, to parent my kids, to work 30 hours a week and to be a decent member of society. I'm lucky that I have the opportunity to be alive to do so.

I think there's an element of both and some other factors as well. One of the most underestimated qualities when it comes to success is sheer perseverance. If you're the sort of personality that isn't very resilient, that immediately means the odds are stacked against you. Yet isn't resilience something that is set in childhood - meaning that if you are a resilient adult that is luck, being dependent as it is on something you have no control over (be that genes if you believe in nature, or your upbringing if you believe in nurture, or more probably a mixture of the two).

Where I think luck really comes into it is bad luck. I can think of many, many people I know who are talented, hardworking, resilient - and yet still live in reduced circumstances through no fault of their own - disabled child, bereavement, divorce, never being able to afford to go to university and so follow the career of their choice... there's a myriad of reasons why things can go wrong, even if luck doesn't apply in cases where it has gone right.

Anyone who can say "we" (and be in a healthy relationship) is lucky. Money, notwithstanding, they have someone who stands shoulder to shoulder with them.

Many women (and men) can try very hard to find that for themselves, yet never have that luck, no matter how much they wish it.

Pouding the Street husband here just made the same comment, most of what is good luck is actually the absence of bad luck - none of these possible negative things happened.

No matter how hard you work, or how sensible your decisions, it's still a matter of luck that you haven't been casually swept out of existence, or into dependence, by the arm of fate.

Life is complicated, and some people suffer more than others - regardless of work ethic, frugality or good decision making. And on a global scale, we're all fairly lucky here...

" I bought my first house, I could have rented it out when I met Dh, but u sold it for twice what I bought it for."

And there was no luck involved there?! Such as a rising property market, just for instance?!

This is a really interesting thread. How do you define 'luck'. Take away any material advantage either way, some people are lucky to have confidence, drive and ambition.

Some people are less lucky in that they are less able to cope with the world.

Both groups may be good people. Material advantage matters massively, but it doesn't change who you are. And that's just luck.

Well for me it was bad luck that meant I had bereavement in the family and got an inheritance early which meant I was able to buy a house with a low mortgage that I'm aiming to pay off by the time I'm 40. Not good luck tho. Would rather have the person with me. They were young when they passed. It was also bad luck that meant my husband had to change his career path due to injury but it is paying off and we are better off for it

I own my house outright because my mum died.

Lucky fucking me.

Some people have bereavements with no inheritance.

The death isn't lucky but the money surely is?