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?

They have had help to get a start but- they have also turned up to work every day and made a huge effort. These days, anyone can get a degree using loans/working a couple of jobs etc (many do). I think 1) coming from a life of privilege is not related to 2) working hard for years. I know many privileged people with degrees who have not succeeded in business. You have a point that taking the privilege for granted us wrong though.

We call all try to out trump each other with deprivation in our lives or other disadvantages but at the end of the day as I think it was ssd said above it is luck and other facts which together decide how we end up. It is not one or the other. Hard work definitely comes into play and if people choose to believe that is not a factor they are only damaging themselves and their children and will not get on in life. If they accept it makes a different and get on with it they are more likely to do better. If you sit back and think I have no agency over things, I am floating on the sea like flotsam and jetsam and can do nothing to help myself you tend to make no progress. Change your mind set to think no matter how bad the hand I was dealt there will be some things I can change and it helps. I am not of course saying someone with no legs can play football for England.

I am not of course saying someone with no legs can play football for England.

Actually they can, @Xenia

thewfa.org.uk/national-team/

What a crass ‘example’ on your part.

@Xenia

We call all try to out trump each other with deprivation in our lives or other disadvantages but at the end of the day as I think it was ssd said above it is luck and other facts which together decide how we end up. It is not one or the other. Hard work definitely comes into play and if people choose to believe that is not a factor they are only damaging themselves and their children and will not get on in life. If they accept it makes a different and get on with it they are more likely to do better. If you sit back and think I have no agency over things, I am floating on the sea like flotsam and jetsam and can do nothing to help myself you tend to make no progress. Change your mind set to think no matter how bad the hand I was dealt there will be some things I can change and it helps. I am not of course saying someone with no legs can play football for England.

Actually, it’s about recognising that luck does have a huge part to play (or, maybe a better way of phrasing it is circumstances out of your control) - and because some have better luck than others, we would do well to try and encourage a society where there’s a bit more “luck” available for more people who would make the most of it.

@xenia, it is also important to understand the first and very important step is to realise that you want agency. Witness the affect not having prioritised agency has had on your life. Then encourage working towards agency. Luck DOES play in to it of course. I wanted agency long before I was able to be independent. I had sat down with calculators and childcare costs and utilities and I had to make the decision to postpone agency which was hard. Reading xenia's posts on mumsnet circa 2005 used to feel like a last kick in the head. But I got there and I understand that circumstances are a huge factor. Mindset is huge but circumstances cannot just be dismissed as unimportant.

we would do well to try and encourage a society where there’s a bit more “luck” available for more people who would make the most of it

If everything is just luck and no one can possibly create their own luck and it doesn't matter what you do, how hard you work etc. etc. how can we possibly create a society where more 'luck' is available?

Total and utter nonsense spouted on this thread by a bunch of very bitter people.

You can't always create luck. I suffered the weight of this belief too sensitively when I did not have the earning power to earn enough to pay for childcare for two plus run a household on my own. DC2 had autism and there were a lot of appointments and he was a difficult child to leave with any babysitter of any description. For a few years, just surviving was all I could manage but there's this school of thought that you can always do it. Maybe sometimes you need to accept that not right now you can't.

I didn't make my own luck. Time passed. My children grew up. My circumstances changed and then I ''made my own luck'' and got a job and so on.

@Usual2usual

we would do well to try and encourage a society where there’s a bit more “luck” available for more people who would make the most of it

If everything is just luck and no one can possibly create their own luck and it doesn't matter what you do, how hard you work etc. etc. how can we possibly create a society where more 'luck' is available?

Total and utter nonsense spouted on this thread by a bunch of very bitter people.

Well, childcare for all would go a long way.

It' s not bitter to want a more level playing field.

If everything is just luck and no one can possibly create their own luck and it doesn't matter what you do, how hard you work etc. etc. how can we possibly create a society where more 'luck' is available?

Presumably in this sense, more 'luck' becomes available by having government and infrastructures which help people in a variety of ways to escape poverty - access to equal educational opportunities, affordable childcare, more support for children from difficult family backgrounds etc.

Also, don't assume that all posters saying YANBU are 'bitter'. I'm one of the privileged, lucky ones who took my early advantages for granted at the time. I am comfortable, always have been, probably always will be, and tbh haven't worked particularly hard. But I do not find it at all difficult to see how unfair it is to imply that anyone can be rich and successful if they work hard enough.

It's not just on government. The people need to stop with the class bullshit. It just leads to self fulfilling prophecies and totally unnecessary resentment. Never heard anyone goimg on about how they are working clasa and x and y wasn't available to the, back where I am from. In here the class seems to be part of a person. Almost like you would think a personality

If luck/upbringing were that critical then siblings should fare equally, right?

If luck/upbringing were that critical then siblings should fare equally, right?

Not utterly reliably, no. We are talking in general terms. There are always going to be examples where one sibling gets a lucky break, or one sibling falls in with the wrong crowd or suffers some kind of trauma and ends up with MH issues or drug problems or whatever. Plus of course, one sibling might just be significantly brighter than another. None of that means that being born into a loving, comfortably-off family which values education and cultural capital isn't almost always a massive advantage though. I can't really imagine why anyone would think otherwise.

[quote LipstickLou]@Cornettoninja
Interesting observation. My sister turned down an assisted place for her son at a private school. She also turned down the job they offered her. Her reason? Snobs apparently. She is a bitter and twisted individual. She has no mortgage, 4 holidays a year and within the last four years her son got the degree he should have got 10 years ago. Her reasoning, she didn't believe in him. He wasn't clever enough blah blah. All turned out to be bollocks! Her relationship with him? Strained. His wife, too posh for him. She hated me as child for being an achiever, taller, thinner, whatever. My children have been privileged because if we had it, they could have it. I am wearing a 22 year old linen shirt as I type. My husband home from a 14 hour shift. key worker and son of a Windrush family. Safe loving home, yes. Food is what you get but a household of books and learning.[/quote]
Some people are their own worst enemies and then blame it all on luck and circumstance.

I think there is a third factor in all of this, which may make some people uncomfortable to admit. And this is capability or intelligence or IQ or simply being naturally clever. Natural ability definitely plays a part. Some people are naturally better at absorbing facts, have sound judgement, analyse a situation very fast and have great recall. They pick up news skills quickly, have a naturally inquisitive mind and generally create better output.

Luck is right place, right time. Hard work is the inclination to take the tougher route and make a bigger effort than the minimum required. Intelligence is that innate capability. The lost successful have all three.

@sst1234

I think there is a third factor in all of this, which may make some people uncomfortable to admit. And this is capability or intelligence or IQ or simply being naturally clever. Natural ability definitely plays a part. Some people are naturally better at absorbing facts, have sound judgement, analyse a situation very fast and have great recall. They pick up news skills quickly, have a naturally inquisitive mind and generally create better output.

Luck is right place, right time. Hard work is the inclination to take the tougher route and make a bigger effort than the minimum required. Intelligence is that innate capability. The lost successful have all three.

I would argue that intelligence or innate capability is also a matter of luck.

My brother and I have the same parents so I believe we share some genes in common and we had exactly the same upbringing. Same with DH and his siblings.

Today DH and I are extremely well off, way more than they are (some of them struggle) and we often get told we are lucky, which we obviously hate as we believe we were ALL lucky, we were all given the same opportunities but they were really short sighted at the time, preferring to enjoy the present whilst DH and I were working bloody hard and went out of our comfort zone to find a job abroad which is really what started our career. Siblings could have done the same, we even found them internships and jobs but they preferred to stay in their home country next to friends and family.
My MIL even told me once I was lucky with my genes as I was so resilient and didn’t need much sleep, unlike my SIL

So YABU. Yes we are lucky, but so were our siblings. Yet it is ambition, risk taking, resilience and above all hard work which has made the difference.

Very true, I have a very average IQ and what some of these triumph over adversity victors have achieved is just not possible for me

And that's OK! I'm not bitter, I'm not feeling sorry for myself or the victim of my own lack of intelligence, but it is strange that people (intelligent people!) don't get this. If you get 625 points in your leaving cert and you get in to Law or Medicine, do you honestly think everybody could have done that if they'd just worked harder? Do intelligent people think that less intelligent people just need to work harder? Is that their blind spot?

Health, beauty, intelligence all have a genetic component - the luck of the draw. Takes some humility to recognise this though. This is in no way saying that shard work is not important.

I agree with xenia actually because yes luck does come into it but you have too have the will and mind set to match.

Case in points some lottery winners who spend all the money and end up broke m

@Sagaz of course intelligence is key, I don’t think anyone is denying it. But my exemple above serves to highlight the fact that siblings with the same intelligence can achieve very differently. In our situation what has made the difference is the risks we have taken initially (doing internships and starting work abroad) and then the very hard work.
My brother in law and his wife are super clever (I wouldn’t be surprised if their IQ is higher than ours) but they have favoured quality of life initially and both had a career change. They’re not unhappy but they struggle sometimes, need a lot of support from my in laws and they are the ones being a bit bitter, telling us we are lucky etc

@sst1234

I think there is a third factor in all of this, which may make some people uncomfortable to admit. And this is capability or intelligence or IQ or simply being naturally clever. Natural ability definitely plays a part. Some people are naturally better at absorbing facts, have sound judgement, analyse a situation very fast and have great recall. They pick up news skills quickly, have a naturally inquisitive mind and generally create better output.

Luck is right place, right time. Hard work is the inclination to take the tougher route and make a bigger effort than the minimum required. Intelligence is that innate capability. The lost successful have all three.

In fact, it's far less clear than you would think that intelligence is innate. Genetic factors certainly play a part but the prevailing view seems to be that environment is at least as important. And environment (including who we associate with, and whether we spend hours in the library or knocking round the bike sheds/in the Students' Union/down the pub) is something we certainly have some influence over.

Does then just move the argument back one step: are some people innately hard-working, or disposed to make good choices? It's not impossible, but I'm not aware of any evidence for the proposition. And at this point we really are in danger of saying 'everything anyone ever achieves is down to blind luck' and I think we all know that can't be right (apart, perhaps, from the OP).

@InTheNameOfAllThatIsHonest

If luck/upbringing were that critical then siblings should fare equally, right?

It's not always that simple.

Both me and my brother experienced a very traumatic event but it had a very different effect on each of us.

Our mum died suddenly in very traumatic circumstances. I was married, owned a house and had a job which allowed me time off when needed and allowed me to work flexibly. I had an excellent support system around me which meant the longer term impact was minimal.

My brother on the other hand was living with my mum at the time, he was 6 years younger and was single and working in a job which didn't allow time off or flexibility. He couldn't afford to carry on renting the house he'd lived in with my mum so had to leave his job to go and live with my dad miles away. He didn't have the same stability or support system in place and his live fell apart.

While some of that can be attributed to hard work and better decisions on my part ( he is lazy and left school with no real qualifications) you can't deny the impact of luck - he was younger, has a less established career, no partner to offer support etc.

@FarDownTheRiver

Health, beauty, intelligence all have a genetic component - the luck of the draw. Takes some humility to recognise this though. This is in no way saying that shard work is not important.

the most reliably transmitted inheritable characteristic is wealth.

We can all agree that Lord Johnson of Marylebone achieved his success solely through his own hard work.

nothing at all to do with being the old-Etonian brother of the Prime Minister.