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?

It isn't about working hard for loads of money it's about working hard to always make the best choices.

I thought the whole issue was lots of people don't have choices? So you're saying social mobility is getting worse because people just aren't making the right choices?

I had a pretty woeful upbringing and people can be shocked when I talk about it, which isn’t often.

I’ve ended up in a good place, decent very well paid job, went to uni, have a nice house etc etc.

It really jars when people talk about how they’ve worked hard as if no one else around them deserves any credit for the support they have.

I know people who’ve had emotional and financial support through university. For example a good friend ran up thousands of pounds of debt. Daddy paid it off. When things got hard, they had their parents second home to go to. People wanting to buy a house, ring up parents for tens of thousands of pounds of help. A place to stay when they’re between jobs. The list is endless.

I had none of that. None. Foster care doesn’t really give that.

However, I am so grateful for the support I did get from the state and I don’t think for one second it was just down to me. There was luck thrown in - I got sent to a half decent secondary school, I had some really nice teachers, I was helped with A level choices and got lucky when it came to getting into university.

The world would be better if people weren’t so narrow minded and thought they were the only ones in charge of their destiny. It would also make them more likely to help others.

How can someone have made a better choice to avoid wage stagnation or less favourable pension schemes or expensive house prices?

I didn't go to uni, didn't have financial help, didn't come from a wealthy background. But I do well at work and bought a house (me and DH are not high earners but we saved). I say I worked hard for it. You don't have to be a high earner to be proud of your achievements that you've worked for.

Wow, really !

I didn't have a wealthy upbringing, I didn't go to Uni, I got a full time job and studied in the evenings to learn more and get more qualifications to reach where I wanted to be (all self funded)

I have worked so hard to get where I am, I have taken huge risks, I have not be handed anything on a plate, I have worked hard for every single penny of what I have today

So have I been LUCKY, no !!!

@Iggly I agree with you, the security of a safety net & support has a huge impact on mental health as well as financial.
I think some of the responses on this thread are quite surprising. I worked hard & would have achieved things without help but the fact I was helped meant Ive achieved a lot more.

I thought the whole issue was lots of people don't have choices? So you're saying social mobility is getting worse because people just aren't making the right choices?

Sometimes, yes. The big one is unstable home life. Multiple kids in constantly blended families causing financial and housing difficulties. Also knowing there is a comfortable benefits safety net.

I dint think the majority have multiple dc these days & Ive been fortunate to never receive any benefit but I wouldn't say life is comfortable on them for the majority

Shocking & pejorative post. Children don’t chose or want unstable home life
Many adults have instability because of poverty,poor health,lack of opportunities
Multiple kids in blended families What like Boris? Like Matt Hancock?
Benefits are not comfortable they’re purposefully austere

I worked very hard for what I have.

My mum died when I was young. I had very little support and went to a really awful school. I had three jobs when I was at school and studied hard to fib to college - where again I had 3 jobs and failed one subject as a result so had to re-sit.

Went to a crap institute where again I had numerous jobs and didn't get a great degree. Moved to London and worked full time and studied post grad course part time (and had to get into debt to pay for it). No breaks and lived in shitty bedsits. Continued to work hard and finally made a name for myself in my profession - but it took very hard work and luck (nepotism or old school network) was not on my side.

So yes, I worked hard to get where I am today. If I hadn't, I wouldn't be here or have what I have. If I had luck on my side who knows where I could have gone. But I'm happy (more than happy) with what I've achieved.

but it took very hard work and luck (nepotism or old school network) was not on my side ⬅️this has essentially nailed it. It is well known well researched that coming from a modest background adds additional barriers to progression. Plus one encounters casual and routine discrimination and nepotism

Im ik now but for me working hard meant coping with having been fired, sacked, relocated, dumped ignored, excluded....
just so hard to even "show up" and survive as they say. My family raised me to have no perspective of my own so i take my hat off toe whose imvalidating parents spurred them on to thrive. How does that happen!?

I have witnessed in friends the desire to help high status people who are very briefly out of luck. I saw it at the school gates. I was open about job hunting. Im a single parent. I had an admin background. Plenty of experience with well known companies.
But when a much more glamorous high status (married) woman list her job, they were all tripping over themselves to help her. Asking their husbands, inviting her to use their scanner, frwding her cv to their former hr manager.

None of them had ever done any of this for me. It was eye opening.

If you vervalise your observations you're bitter and resentful though.

Im not. I am interesting in psychology and behavior and i like to avoid pushing water uphill

My parents always told me that success was 'just luck'. Didn't matter how hard you tried it all came down to who you know and how lucky you are

So I listened, didn't try particularly hard in school, left with ok grades and got ok jobs which I worked hard in but didn't fly up any work ladders because it was just luck, wasn't it.

Thankfully in my early twenties after being made redundant it hit me that actually a lot of the time we make our own luck. Sitting about and waiting for luck to come along and give me what I wanted wasn't going to work so I applied to university and worked my arse off, got a first (who knew I was capable of that - not my parents, or teachers, or me!) went out and found good jobs, worked my arse off, applied for promotions and the rest is history.

I am not some super high flier but I am far more successful than I, or anyone else ever thought. Live in a house that only 'posh bastards' live in (accordingn to my Mum growing up) and don't have to worry about money.

Of course there may be elemenets of luck - but if I hadn't decided to change my direction and decided that I was going to be successful then I never would have been.

So don't tell me it's all just luck.

@Iggly what a lovely post. Hats off to you for what you’ve achieved and having the self awareness to acknowledge support you did get. I think you’re right-people would be more prepared to help others if they acknowledged support they had.

The majority of people who are doing well for themselves had a big dose of luck to start with, but not everyone. I’m from a working class background, grandad a miner, brought up by my single dad who was always always working, I had to raise my siblings and moved out at 16 because I was sick of it. Worked all hours in a fast food restaurant to keep a roof over my head while I did A levels. My attendance at college was about 20% and I narrowly avoided getting kicked out each term, but still came out with As across the board.

Everything changed when I went to Uni. I finally had a playing field not too dissimilar from other young people in the UK and I totally blossomed. Never took it for granted for a second. Now I have a professional job that has taken me around the world, lots of freedom and flexibility in it, a wonderful husband and lovely home in a national park.

I was lucky in that I had my health and I was born in a country with educational opportunities. The rest was me to be honest. And when I see the people I went to school with stacking shelves and raising kids they can’t afford, I’m so glad I put the graft in. They may work hard, but they certainly didn’t work smart.

YANBU I agree with you, it annoys me when people won't acknowledge that at least some of their success in most cases is down to luck, yes maybe people work hard too, but for everyone successful person that worked hard, there are 10 people who worked hard who didn't 'make it'. Even in terms of myself, and I'm by no means rich, but I'm in the process of buying a flat in London with my bf, we both have decent jobs and went to uni, yes we worked hard but we also both come from great families who support us, we were able to grow up in nice places and went to decent state schools, I havnt had to work as hard to get to my position as some other people would have to work. And then ofcourse there's also things like race, sex, disability etc etc that comes into play as well

Success is a mixture of opportunity, hard work, resilience and luck. It's just the amounts that each that differ.

@repog

It isn't about working hard for loads of money it's about working hard to always make the best choices.

I thought the whole issue was lots of people don't have choices? So you're saying social mobility is getting worse because people just aren't making the right choices?

In a lot of ways yes, we seem to have become a blame culture, where if someone does not succeed they are always willing and able to blame someone else, some external factor, rather than looking at what they themselves need to do differently.

Having children young is a choice, in most cases a financially costly one as it often impacts careers for example. A lot of people poor financial choices which whilst individually might not seem much, over a year add up to thousands. They often take short term rewards rather than delay gratification for longer term success (see the Marshmallow test).

The compounding effect of multiple poor or sub-optimal choices is huge, one of the impacts that has on social mobility is because success tends to breed success. Successful people tend to have successful children, they lead by example, that is not to say normal parents can not have successful children, many do, but not at the same rate as previously successful generations.

@PearlyRising

I have witnessed in friends the desire to help high status people who are very briefly out of luck. I saw it at the school gates. I was open about job hunting. Im a single parent. I had an admin background. Plenty of experience with well known companies. But when a much more glamorous high status (married) woman list her job, they were all tripping over themselves to help her. Asking their husbands, inviting her to use their scanner, frwding her cv to their former hr manager.

None of them had ever done any of this for me. It was eye opening.

If you vervalise your observations you're bitter and resentful though.

Im not. I am interesting in psychology and behavior and i like to avoid pushing water uphill

There are two kinds of help people offer, the first is to friends and family, this is assistance because they genuinely care about the person or people involved, this is a mostly selfless form of help.

The second kind of help is the kind offered for social cachet. This comes in two form, the first is the charity kind, being seen to do good, the second is from association with success, which either might bring reward indirectly, or from the direct benefits of associating with successful people, this is a somewhat more selfish kind, but no less valid.

I do not agree that you cannot verbalise your observation, but it would very much be about how you put your observations across. They may sound bitter and/or resentful if not properly worded.

Successful people tend to have successful children, they lead by example, that is not to say normal parents can not have successful children, many do, but not at the same rate as previously successful generations.

I think this is true. Partly due to having opportunities that other children don't have but also the types of role models amongst our group of friends. We're fortunate to be well-off, as are most of our friends, and the kids see the type of jobs that fund those lifestyles and have made their target career choices accordingly. Not necessarily a good thing as my kids are aiming at professional services types jobs, rather than pursuing their passions. Money doesn't necessarily bring happiness and I worry that they might regret their choices down the line.

Successful people tend to have successful children, they lead by example, that is not to say normal parents can not have successful children, many do, but not at the same rate as previously successful generations.

This is so so true and undervalued. It’s having an understanding of money, how to manage it and make it work. How to take risks knowing there’s a safety net of a roof over your head if it goes wrong. As well as the surrounding friends and family with additional links and advice. That support and advice is utterly invaluable in shaping a future.

Some people have a lot of adversity in childhood and no-one to really support them through it. It's these children who will struggle with overwhelm, recognising an opportunity and managing emotions to enable them to reach for it. Plus a lack of all the social modelling that others have mentioned. Plus challenges that prevent them from making sense of what successful people do that is helpful. Re working hard- There's hard work that feels like pushing the hamster wheel as much as you're expected to (and more). There's also having resilience and self esteem to step beyond the hamster wheel (the work or way if living that you know). It's quite possible to take a resilient person add adversity and undermine their resilience. Then increase support and reduce adversity and they could spring back. It's not the same with someone who had the childhood that I described. They are far less likely to become resilient and able to grab 'lucky' opportunities. This isn't a simple thing.

I think it's a combination of luck and hard work and a little bit of making good judgement calls at critical moments. The amount of each of those varies from person to person. I do think it's unreasonable to say all successful people are just lucky, some of them are but others have worked really hard. Calling it luck implies every successful person is just passive and doesnt try for things which I dont think is true. You sound a little bit bitter and I'm guessing luck hasnt favoured you. Things might not be great now but that might change.

On the luck topic, I don't think it is often down to being specifically "lucky". Sometimes it just suffices not to be unlucky.
I am not super successful, but doing OK overall.
So many people who started from the same position as I did (quite modest) and were smarter, more hardworking, passionate and more deserving overall. But then illnesses happened, elderly parents happened, disabled children happened to them, while I sailed through with no major setbacks.