AIBU about people who say ‘they worked hard to get to where they are’?

[MessyMissyMe]

Generally these are highly paid people who were able to go to University (support from parents/inherited intellect/confidence and self belief built up by secure, happy childhood) or had the resources to start their own business and were lucky enough to get remunerated by employment that they enjoyed and were good at, didn’t have outside influences or stressors that made things harder/took up time they needed to study or build a career.

They basically are just LUCKY and don’t deserve their success anymore than a cleaner or a care worker living hand to mouth in social housing deserves their lack of.

AIBU to get annoyed at people who say this?

@Comedycook

Also the risk everything mindset will depend on your social capital...if you did lose everything,do you have friends and family who you could stay with temporarily or would you literally be on the street. If it's the latter, I doubt you'd be so daring

I would add access to credit to that which is a fairly dangerous trap to fall into.

If you had to exhaust all your lines of credit to take a risk the potential to rebuild if it all goes belly up becomes a much bigger stake in the gamble. I suppose that’s why people invest so much in property prices staying high. I suspect a crash would be a lot of peoples Achilles heel financially.

There's so much more than luck. And they're all choices.

Self belief/courage
Surrounding influences
Commitments (family/kids)
Education (self learning/courses)

I'm not saying luck has no part, as it is not a level playing field. Everyone has choices though, and if you have the ambition to do well, financially at least, the opportunity is out there.

YABU. I am from a poor background and took massive risks to get to where I am today, worked 7 days a week and have tried my absolute hardest all the way through school as well. I was living on high APR credit cards and two long hour jobs to support myself through uni with no family help, handwashing everything in the bath as I couldn't afford the launderette, while my extended family sat on their backsides claiming benefits to spend on takeaways and tattoos. When I say I worked hard to get to where I am, it's because of the sheer spite and envy I receive from them because I earn a good salary now and cam afford to treat myself to things. YABU to think people in that position were all privileged, far from it.

I too am interested in the risk aspect. As to me a risk is something that might not pay out even if you work hard. Eg we worked hard to afford our house but risked that we would be able to get planning permission for an extension. The risk paid off but planning might have been refused so our hard work wouldnt have been as rewarding or covid could have struck and put costs up so we could no longer afford the work.

@mim321 On the whole, there must be some sort of correlation between working hard at school and earnings potential.

For some, yes, but even if you don't do well at school, you can rectify that later. I was a straight A* pupil upon leaving primary, but ended up without a single O level to my name upon leaving the crap comp where I suffered daily bullying and assaults.

I was determined not to let the crap comp experience dictate my life so I self-studied O and A levels in the evenings/weekends around a full time very low paid menial job. I got what I needed to get a training job at a local crap accountancy practice, and there I spent a further 5 years studying evenings and weekends for my accountancy exams, alongside another low paid crap job.

All that took about 8 years of evening and weekend study and using my annual leave to take exams etc. None of that was luck, it was sheer hard work. But, it was hard work with a specific goal in mind, i.e. taking a crap job in a crap accountancy practice to get a foot in the door of the profession.

Badbadbunny completely agree. My sister did her ACCA at night school over quite a long period and worked her butt off while working full time. I had it easier for my ACA as my firm paid for the training plus three months of study leave for the three years for all the graduates. There is definitely more than one route to the same place.

I left school at 16 with 5 O levels at grades B and C. My parents worked hard but were not wealthy, for most of my life we lived in a small two bed flat and I shared a room with my sister.

By the age of 32 my salary was in six figures and I was a director of a London Bank. Please don't suggest it was down to my background or just luck. I worked hard, studied at night and worked my way up. It was hard work and I am not sure I would do it again but I made it through sheer determination.

YABU and bitter and jealous of your friend.

It wasn't luck how you are where you are.

It was your choices.
You left at 18 to work in a hotel. You didn't say what you did in the 7 years between then and going to uni.
Hotel work is a low paid job. You could have started uni part time while working the hotel job.
You had children for some reason. Another choice.
You mention being married. Another choice. Is he also in a low paying job?
You found out one of your DC has a disability and decided to drop out of the work force. Again your choice.

At any point here you could have turned things around for yourself. You still could if you wanted to.

It's almost always a mix of luck and hard work. Merely being born in the UK in modern times puts us fairly far up the grand scale of luck.

I am from a single parent on benefits household, grew up poor as can be in a house with no heating etc but now I am firmly middle class and doing quite nicely. Part of that was hard work but I also had the luck to be born with the genetics of a tall, relatively attractive and highly intelligent white man. Getting where I am from where I started would have been more difficult or impossible without that luck.

@Noluckinvolved

I left school at 16 with 5 O levels at grades B and C. My parents worked hard but were not wealthy, for most of my life we lived in a small two bed flat and I shared a room with my sister.

By the age of 32 my salary was in six figures and I was a director of a London Bank. Please don't suggest it was down to my background or just luck. I worked hard, studied at night and worked my way up. It was hard work and I am not sure I would do it again but I made it through sheer determination.

No-one is saying it's 'just' luck!!

The fact you were able to study at night while you were working in a demanding industry means you were healthy enough to be able to do it, so luckier than at least 80% of the population! If your parents were good role models (working hard), that's also lucky. If they were supportive of your career, that's also lucky.

It's not just about money or privilege!

Very strange post OP. I worked hard, coming from a poor background, and I had lots of knocks along the way which I have had to overcome. I am proud that I made me- no one else. And with limited support from anyone else. Some of the people I work with had very good support, most had to work quite hard. I am sorry if life has dealt you some hard blows, from experience it is your resilience in getting past these that counts.

Success looks different for different people though.
I think success is based a combination of hard work & luck to be honest.

I have a serious mental illness so I can only work a part time min wage job.
But I work hard when I'm there; & I'm very conscientious.
Because of my illness, success to me is actually getting to work on time with a clean ironed uniform & getting through the day.
Success is a good appraisal & keeping my job. This is down to my own hard work, looking after myself to stay well (taking meds) plus basically pure luck that my illness doesn't worsen.

Success is me being a functional member of the community with close family & friends who literally don't realise how much I struggle to appear 'normal'.

I worked dead end jobs after school but did a degree as a 25 yr old student surviving on a free bursary, student overdraft & part time wages; in my subsequent career (which I lost when I became ill) I earned enough to get a mortgage on a house.
A close family friend without children sadly died & kindly left me enough money for a sizeable deposit on my house so I'm lucky now as I have only a small mortgage which is all I can afford on my min wage.

So both luck & hard work got me a nice home... hard work & luck means that I get to keep my job & home despite illness, and I'm lucky that I still get some PIP to top up my part time wage which is extremely hard to get.

@Hekatestorch

Op sounds bitter because she says ita all down to luck and that people don't deserve their success.

Its very rarely down to pure luck. It does often have some luck, involved. But that's not always as clear cut as luck or hard work.

Saying your work hard doesn't mean yiu think other people don't. 'I have worked hard for this' isn't inferring anything about anyone else. It's a statement about themselves. No one else.

I worked hard to lose 3 stone last year. That doesn't mean people who wanted to lose weight but lost, 2 didn't work hard. It's just a statement about me.

If someone decided to get offended because they lost 2 so were thinking I was saying they didn't work hard, that's down to them.

That's why it comes across as bitter.

When you put it like this, it does make the OP sound a bit silly. If you're catching subliminal messages from someone talking purely about themselves, there may be some internal issues you need to work out.

@Hothammock

Yabu

In contrast to my siblings, I didn't party or spend my youth and money on holidays. I didn't prioritise sneaking out with boyfriends over keeping my parents curfew. Instead i worked hard at low paid jobs, climbed my way up.

Now my siblings are paying the price of their decades of not working hard, are on paid sick leave from work, living in council housing and have no spare cash to fulfil their or their children's dreams, whereas I have a well paid job, own house, car and can travel and give my children opportunities. It's because I worked hard. No one handed this stuff to me on a platter. There was no luck involved in taking the initiative to apply for jobs and getting up and ready for 1.5 hour commutes everyday, organising childcare and lunches and finances and hopping from one deal to another to save wherever possible.

I work hard every day for my lifestyle. I observe my siblings moan about their bad luck, like many on Mumsnet, and continue to get nowhere and bumble from one financial disaster to another. Fortunately they are lucky that due to my ongoing hard work, they get bailed out now and then or some help sorting things they need. No such luck for me...

Maybe they were lucky in the way they were actually nice people unlike your fine self

You're generalising too much about people.

I worked hard to get to where I am. I did not have a happy, secure childhood or come from a rich family, and my University education was paid for completely by a loan which I paid back in full.

I didn't have resources to start my own business but I started it anyway. At one point I was in £70k worth of consumer debt to make it happen. I paid it all off several years ago.

I also did it all while suffering from a mental illness.

@BasicDad

There's so much more than luck. And they're all choices.

Self belief/courage
Surrounding influences
Commitments (family/kids)
Education (self learning/courses)

I'm not saying luck has no part, as it is not a level playing field. Everyone has choices though, and if you have the ambition to do well, financially at least, the opportunity is out there.

All of those things are - at least in part - dependent on luck

I think it implies that anyone not successful (and what each person deems as successful will differ, but I think most people probably mean from a financial point of view) hasn't bothered to work hard. Those that earn very little just haven't bothered to try harder. Which absolutely isn't the case, loads of minimum wage workers work very hard, potentially much harder than some on huge salaries!

I do agree that luck definitely plays a big part. Having wealthy parents, supportive parents, living in the catchment area for a great school, no health issues etc.

Maybe they were lucky in the way they were actually nice people unlike your fine self

What's nice got to do with it? @hothammock sounds like they have had a similar experience to me, and it's hard when family and friends aren't supportive of success because of envy. We don't have to be nice to people who were given similar opportunities but wasted them and think we should have done the same - I'm already paying for some of family's poor choices (including multiple children with deadbeats) in my tax bill.

@Chocaholic9 that's good for you; but everyone's mental illnesses are different.

personally I have Schizoaffective disorder on very high dose anti psychotics but still have paranoia, delusions & some hallucinations which are worse when tired & stressed; however hard I try to work the symptoms get in the way.

So even managing to work part time hours again is success for me.

Hopefully one day there I will find meds that combat the paranoid thoughts better as those are what get in the way of working well with my (actually really quite nice) colleagues.
Meanwhile I will soon be working hard with a psychologist to try to fight the paranoia with psychological therapy if appropriate.

I hope when / if it's all under control I can then work more hours.
And maybe even get a job more suited to my degree.

However I also think success is about being happy & enjoying life whatever you do.
You don't need to be a company director to enjoy life.

[quote SommerTen]@Chocaholic9 that's good for you; but everyone's mental illnesses are different.

personally I have Schizoaffective disorder on very high dose anti psychotics but still have paranoia, delusions & some hallucinations which are worse when tired & stressed; however hard I try to work the symptoms get in the way.

So even managing to work part time hours again is success for me.

Hopefully one day there I will find meds that combat the paranoid thoughts better as those are what get in the way of working well with my (actually really quite nice) colleagues.
Meanwhile I will soon be working hard with a psychologist to try to fight the paranoia with psychological therapy if appropriate.

I hope when / if it's all under control I can then work more hours.
And maybe even get a job more suited to my degree.

However I also think success is about being happy & enjoying life whatever you do.
You don't need to be a company director to enjoy life.[/quote]
Good luck & hope your gets better soon.

These days I can only work part time, too, due to my illness, but luckily I can make it work.

Thanks

@SommerTen Your posts demonstrate that success is often a mix of hard work and luck, and how much the definition of "success" varies from one person to another. I think your particular mental illness is very hard to cope with, as often the drugs that keep the symptoms at bay can also numb other emotions, including happiness, and make people feel that the "cure" is worse than the disease. I worked as a medical secretary on a MH unit years ago, and from typing up case notes I learned of many cases where people with your condition had come off their meds, either because they felt better and "didn't need them anymore", or couldn't tolerate the side effects, then suffered a severe relapse and ended up being sectioned. I think you've done really well to cope with the difficult hand of cards that life has dealt you, and should be proud of that. Having "normal" mental health (whatever that is), is something that many people take for granted, in the same way that many able bodied people take their mobility for granted, until something changes it.

I didnt go to university, dropped out of college and am now part way through a professional degree and have the career path to show for it

YABVVVU I have worked my ass off to get to where I am, you are being fucking judgmental

@MessyMissyMe

Generally these are highly paid people who were able to go to University (support from parents/inherited intellect/confidence and self belief built up by secure, happy childhood) or had the resources to start their own business and were lucky enough to get remunerated by employment that they enjoyed and were good at, didn’t have outside influences or stressors that made things harder/took up time they needed to study or build a career.

They basically are just LUCKY and don’t deserve their success anymore than a cleaner or a care worker living hand to mouth in social housing deserves their lack of.

AIBU to get annoyed at people who say this?

The most highly paid and/or successful people I know all earned it. Supreme intellect only goes so far, a reasonably high intelligence but huge drive will most people further than being a genius with little motivation. The most important thing is drive, that is down to the individual, as some people have it from good parents, others from bad parents, others from never having known their parents.

My husband got no help from his parents when he set up his business (or before), my brother was in reality messed up by the way our parents treated him and lacks a lot of self belief. He hated education and left school at 16 with only GCSEs but now runs his own company and earns well into six figures. Both my husband and brother worked 60-80 hour a week to get the funds to start their own businesses and then similar amounts to get them going and pay the bills when they started. My brother when he started his own business would work 07:00-17:30 for his own business, then 18:00-00:00 Mon to Thu, 18:00-02:00 Fri in a bar and usually do 11:00-23:00 on a Saturday. My husband worked 12-14 hours a day when he set his up.

The major area where people get lucky is with health. Neither my husband nor brother would have been able to put the hours in like they did if they were not in good health, they do take care of themselves, but they are lucky in the sense that they have no medical conditions.