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?

YANBU

A lot of "success" is down to being the right person in the right place at the right time.

Of course, often people have worked their arses off to get to the point where they are the right person in the right place at the right time so they assume that work was the reason for their success, forgetting that, in many cases, there were others that did the same, only they didn't get the contract, the job, the promotion etc because the successful person did.

I've known a lot of people that have worked their arses off, made sacrifices, applied themselves and got nowhere. I've also known people that have messed about, spent years staggering around pissed, never bothered with anything and have ended up with six figure salaries.

Some of the most intelligent and entrepreneurial people I know have ended up with the stuffing knocked out of them, despite making smart decision after smart decision. Some of the most block-headed people I know, with less common sense than they were born with, now live lives of luxury.

It is totally bizarre and there is no rhyme or reason to it. I used to try and work it out, but now I just see it as part of the extraordinary chaos of life, the universe and everything.

Some prodigies have nervous breakdowns in their 20s; some geniuses who have spent their lives working in their field are never recognised and earn no money from their discoveries.

The only thing you can do is work hard, work smart, and hope that sways the hand of destiny in your direction, while also remembering that fate is a fickle mistress.

That said, I do think that our culture does not make it clear how much work and effort can be required to put yourself in the running for being the right person in the right place at the right time.

I am involved in a field that interests many people. And I am always very supportive of their early work, but the thing is ... very few of them last more than two or three years. It's a field where you really need a good fifteen years of experience before you know what you are doing and start to produce good work, and you have to pick yourself up from fuck-up after fuck-up during those years -- and just keep trucking.

But people don't realise this. They tend to think somehow they won't need to do the same, and then they get disheartened and angry when their early work doesn't make the grade -- so they give up.

And even I am guilty of it in other areas. I was reading a competitive swimming thread on MN yesterday and had no idea the level of commitment to training young competitive swimmers were expected to do.

Is it me? I feel like I asked want2b how they take their tea and got the answer my favourite colour is purple

The crucial job interview?

It's not you bacon.

O good! I mean I know I'm certified but I didn't think I was THAT bad

Being under 40 doesn't automatically make your opinion incorrect, Mango.

Alis, I didn't say that and I didn't imply that.
I said:

I wonder how many of the posters saying 'it's ALL hard work, no luck involved at all' are relatively young (under 40).

I was musing.

I think it's quite a relevant thing too.
Whilst you're young and full of energy and sheer grit, determination and hard work overcomes all, it's easy to think that that strategy will work for ever.

As you get older, and realise that the battles never stop coming I think people may become more open to the idea that 'putting your shoulder to the wheel' can only hold for so long before something gives.

bacon site keeps crashing so my earlier reply didn't post.

There was never a crucial job interview. He applied for over 70 jobs and had 3 offers. He picked what he thought was the best offer long term. It was the lowest paid of the three. If he had gone with the accounting firm (big4) or the supermarket chain he would have still been successful.

So if someone comes from a desperately poor and abusive family, is thick as pigshit (no luck of brains), didn't even get to go to school, lived on the streets but then somehow on a minimum wage job... no LESS than minimum wage job.. actually, never any job at all. But then bought a house at the top of the house price market in an extremely expensive area. And became mortgage free. As you do.

They didn't have any luck. They got ahead in life only because of their own hard work.

The rest of us should STFU in thinking we ever worked hard for what we had, because actually we obviously had some "good luck" along the way.

Pah. Who cares, anyway!?

Most of us agreeing that's it's a mixture of hard work and luck and that luck includes the luck to be born with the ability never to give up and to be a positive thinker or have good genes.

It doesn't do most people much good to think that things in life all come form luck and they have no say in their life and no control. That just keeps them down. I am certain that believing you have control over your destiny makes you do better in life (it's why many immigrants do better in life too and is why many more English Asians are lawyers for example than their % in the general poplulation - they don't sit there syaing women or non whites can't be lawyers and will be discriminated against so I won't bother; instead they say right I'll be a lawyer and they work very hard indeed to pass the exams and are now rightly enjoying a higher percentage of jobs in law than the number of Asians in the general population).

On the 40+ point I havebn't changed my views. I've worked full time for over 30 years without a break and I haven't got cynical and realised there is no point trying, quite the converse. The older I get the more I see it's more about trying even if things fail and just plodding on trying all kinds of opportunities whenever they present themselves.

It doesn't do most people much good to think that things in life all come form luck and they have no say in their life and no control. That just keeps them down. I am certain that believing you have control over your destiny makes you do better in life

I agree. The thought that everything is down to luck provides comfort for people who aren't successful, and it can be taken too far. Is being lazy somebody's fault, or is it just their bad luck?

That's not to say all unsuccessful people are lazy, of course.

wait till all hit 50 and the cancer and the divorces kick in I say . luck, shmuck

Definitely a combination of the two, I had two jobs from 18 -24 and would be mortgage free if it wasn't for a cheating scumbag that I married. Now some would say that was my choice, a bad one and yes I take responsibility for it but gee there's no accounting for it eh ?

Yup.
It was the health blindside & the cheating scumbag that did it for me too.

I was the woman who had everything until 3 yrs ago - worked hard, made sacrifices, difficult choices etc.

Now I'm a chronically sick mentalist who's starting life's challenges all over again at 41.

I'll succeed all over again, but I'm under no illusion that it's just hard work that gets you there.

I measure my success far differently now to what I did in my 30s, different again to my 20s and different again before then.
In my 50s and beyond there will be a whole different version of success again, I've no doubt.

My definition of sucess is no longer the 4 bed semi with Luara Ashley room settings, tbh I'll probably blow the lot on a trip around the world with my kids next time,can't take it with you and if you haven't got it some arsehole can't demand 50% of it either !!!

It's definitely a combination of both.

If I hadn't worked hard at school to get good grades, worked hard at uni to get my degree, I would never have got a good graduate job. On the other hand, I only got such a good graduate job due to a combination of right location, right recruiters, right time in the company's history. If I'd graduated a year or two later the company introduced a policy to only hire very techincally skilled people, so I would never have got the job as they started testing programming skills etc.

We did inherit enough money to get a deposit on our house. So that got us on the property ladder a couple of years earlier and in a nicer property than we could have afforded without it.

My parents both work much harder than I do and they're on low incomes, I work 21 hours a week in a desk job and earn more anually than my dad does working 40 hours a week working hard in a builders' merchants.

Lets face it, nearly all of of us are lucky to have been born in a 'developed' country and not a war-torn or impoverished nation. That part is pure luck and nothing to do with working hard.

It's both, but I think there's more luck involved than many people think.

I've had successful times and unsuccessful times. Some of the success has been down to hard work, but only because the circumstances were also good. Sometimes I've worked equally hard and have reaped little or no reward for it. Other times I've been unable to achieve what I wanted due to circumstances beyond my control, i.e. bad luck.

If you work hard and have good luck, that's when it works out really well!

I think working hard helps from an early age

Initially. working hard at school, college and achieving good grades should open up more job opportunities
Once in work, you may be offered opportunities to progress and continue to train and progress

I have worked 2 and 3 jobs at the same time and saved
I have been offered opportunities to progress and have taken them
I have completed training and utilized knowledge
I think sometimes I "have been in the right place at the right time"
I have gradually improved my life, but there have been ups and downs
I am generally a decisive person at work and home

In life we all have decisions that we need to make like; do we work, what we spend our money on etc

I consider myself to be lucky, because I am employed and am healthy, happy and to have family and friends
At the moment, I have a good work/life balance

Some people I know are not in such a secure position as myself. I sometimes wonder if this is due to some of the poor decisions that they have made or just bad luck or a combination !

So I guess the question works both ways

There is a component of luck, of course. But frankly, I tend to think that being born in a first world country is in itself lucky enough. (I do know that there is poverty in first world countries. But I also know that being poor in Britain is not, as a rule, remotely the same as being poor in Burundi).

Good luck is usually just another word for priviledge.

I am often told it's both but it's always felt like luck to me.

I spent my mid twenties to about thirty living a pretty charmed existence. I wasn't working insanely hard. Things just seemed to work. I got my first job in a film company with zero experience because I'd been at uni with a guy who worked in the industry who had a word and got me an internship where I did well. I did that for a few years, then got frustrated at the long hours and poor pay so took off around the world, and while travelling applied for a PhD program and got funding. I worked doing my PhD sure enough, but a lot of people worked harder but I got a really good job in a related field when I came out because I sent in my CV on spec and someone met me and liked the look of me. Everything just fell into place.

Then in my thirties I had about three years where it all went wrong. A contract I was working on finished and I couldn't get a new one. My OH had an affair (and a nervous breakdown) and I had to move out of my house. I was sleeping in my car for a bit, then had to move in with my dad in a bit of the country where there were no jobs in my industry. I got back together with OH but could only get an admin job at half my previous salary. My mental health went into decline and I got sectioned. My CPN said I'd never work again. Aged 36, I thought I was done. Hadn't stopped working hard. It just all went wrong.

Then, randomly, two years ago it all perked up again. OH got an amazing new job at the other end of the country. Asked me if I wanted a fresh start. We moved, got a much nicer house, I somehow got a really good job in a related field to my old one (which is both bloody rare up here and I shouldn't have got) and I've not had an episode since.

At no point have I worked harder or stopped working. Just sometimes life seems to work and sometimes it doesn't.

"DH was able to start his business because he has worked for his employer since he was 17." Want2b that was what I was responding to. You've also not considered if your dh had become ill/disabled and unable to work.

It's both.

I don't know that I agree. I would consider luck to be inheritance of a successful business, moneyor property. Everyone else has to work hard but some people have better paid jobs than others. That is often not down to luck but to good choices in subjects studied, the acquisition of good grades and hard work in landing a job then working the way up. Dh and I both have middle earning jobs but have moved abroad to work for a bit while our kids are still young. This will mean we have a large chunk of money when we return to throw at our mortgage and then should pay it off by mid forties. This isn't lucky - we are working hard and living far away from friends and family to work hard and earn that extra money.

bacon starting his business wasn't luck. Also while he hasn't been ill we have both continued to work even though we could afford for me to stay home. It's these strategic choices that help us survive when unexpected things happen.

I am over 50 (just) and have had a divorce but I am in a nice house with a good inc ome because of the earlier hard work and life choices (and yes I had to pay a huge amount of money to my ex which was not fun but one reason the children and I stayed in the house was because of my earlier hard work and ability to take on a £1m+ mortgage). Other women are cast out without a house any more when they divorce because they weren't earning enough to pay out their husband on the divorce and keep the house. So I don't put this down to luck that I kept the house but hard work and wise earlier choices. I was really good at singing (and I am not showing off there and making it up, have 4 grade 8s in music, perfect pitch, paid to sing at weddings etc etc etc etc) but I chose law because of the pay and music has been a lovely hobby - that was a choice based on sense).

As for cancer - yes it might hit me. I do eat paleo and only drink water and have never smoked and I don't drink and every single doctor in the land will tell you that many many cancers are caused by life style so I think I do things which reduce cancer risk (and I appreciate someone will now come on here and give one example of a cancer they got not caused by lifestyle but that does not remove the statistics that on average most cancer is caused by lifestyle; even in yesterday's papers was the new that if men have a thin waist measurement rather than the usual fat beer gut so many get over 40 silly them then they hugely reduce prostate cancer risk).

"Yabu, some people really do work harder than others and sacrifice more."

Ppie - yes, but they're not necessarily the well-off ones.

"but I chose law because of the pay"

Yes, but user, most people can't choose law, because most people wouldn't be accepted onto a law course. Can't you see that you're lucky to be intelligent???