The "anything is possible" brigade

[Arkarians]

Anything is possible with enough hard work! Does anyone else find this phrase annoying as fuck?

You can become a billionaire like Elon Musk apparently, if you just simply work as hard as him.

Anyones child can excel in school, get top marks on all of their GCSEs and get into Oxbridge, if they bothered to work hard enough.

Anyone can achieve a high-flying career as a lawyer or doctor, if they just work hard enough.

The implication is that people who aren't massively successful lawyers, doctors, business owners, CEOs, etc are lazy fucks who couldn't be bothered to put the effort in? Not to mention how your background and/or current circumstances are a massive factor in success too.

Surely it doesn't matter how 'hard' you work, you could work 12 hours a day until the day you die and still never achieve Elon Musk level success. If you don't have the creativity, the right ideas, the luck and all the physical capacities for it, it will never happen.

Is there something Un-PC about acknowledging that people have different abilities, circumstances, levels of intelligence, etc, and not everyone is built for huge success?

Yanbu.

I think the converse is also true though.

If you are prepared to work hard, you are much more likely to go down the toilet of life.

So aspirations are worthwhile, because you don't get opportunities if you do nothing.

Those opportunities may not be as amazing as the promise nor as frequent. The point is you have to create opportunities, identify opportunities if they do come along and be willing to take those opportunities rather than let them pass by.

Working hard in education is an opportunity you shouldn't let slip if you have the means to take it.

I don't believe that anything is possible. I do believe you have to be 'in it to win it' in terms of mentality. Being a doctor can be achieved if you are from a poorer background. It's not easy and you may not be able to take a direct and conventional route to it, but it can be done if you are single minded enough.

Thing is, more people aren't that single minded or selfish...

So it's not 'hard work' then.

It's 'stepping out of your lane'.

The availability of a fall-back option is the key here. How many people 'step out of their lane' when there is no fall-back option, e.g. family who can bail you out; high-earning partner who can support you if necessary?

@Katsufatsu

You sure don't understand

As I clearly put intelligence plays a large part in success

Not success is dependent on intelligence

Although you might have helped prove my point

Well things have changed now. You could work really hard and earn 80k and still not be able to afford a decent house let alone send your kids to private school. I know drs in this situation.

Being a doctor can be achieved if you are from a poorer background.

It can, but there is also a level of intelligence needed to become a doctor that some people wouldn't meet no matter what their background. And the poorer your background, the higher the level of innate intelligence you would need to get there, so the odds are stacked against you.

😆Very true.

Being from a poorer background can also make it difficult if you’re not encouraged to say, be a doctor. Or if you’re the first to go to university. Breaking the mould can often be hard.

No idea if I’ve used the right spelling of mould there.

That’s why it’s called ‘risk’ taking. It’s not a risk if there is no probability of failure without fallback option.

I think it also depends how you define success. Sure, Elon Musk is very rich but he is in no way a team player or community-minded. Look how he behaved in the Thai cave rescue - trying to make it all about him and his novelty rescue toys, instead of accepting that the best thing for those boys was to let the (volunteer) experts carry on with the tried and tested rescue methods. We need all sorts of people in the world, and they definitely shouldn't all be like Elon Musk.

People who attribute success to hard work alone are often blind to privilege

They're often insecure about their success so the idea that it wasn't entirely down to their own hard work is offensive to them

The fact billions of people don't ever make it out of abject poverty despite doing actual back breaking hard work every day is just ignored.

Money gets you a long way.

Even as a teenager... a 16yo working 20hrs at Asda alongside A levels has less study time than a student with a tutor and no need for a job.

Same at University... choosing the expensive city which is renowned for a course rather than living at home, increasing the hours worked in that minimum wage job etc.

Taking the unpaid internship.

Start up money for your own business.

You need luck, skill and support.

Everything is possible though. Some people are less cautious , take more risks and say yes to opportunities

Risks are easier when you’ve got your parent’s money to fall back on if things don’t work out.

But it's not

I see it all the time on here

Cathy who works 8 hours a week as a carer being told to just learn to code and get into tech

It's not nice but 9/10 there will be a reason why Cathy is a carer

Everything is not possible for everyone

That's just rubbish.

For example, I see lots of people tell nursing assistants they should be qualified nurses. There's pretty much always a reason they're not.

They couldn't get the qualification.

Agreed

Graham Norton said on the radio the other week “have you ever noticed, the people saying you can achieve any dream if you want it enough are always the people who have achieved their dream.”

And they never mention luck, talent, connections, hard work. Just “if you want it enough”. It’s annoying and ridiculous.

@Maddy68 - sorry but my body didn't get the "Everything is possible" memo. However hard I work there are a million things that are still not possible for me.

YANBU

I run a project helping people get closer to the job market - often very vulnerable people.

Barriers include historical family joblessness, childcare, education, mental health etc

I see on here so many times people scorning at 'minimum wage jobs' and how people should strive for better. For a lot of people that minimum wage job is a real achievement for them and realistically that may be their capability level - and there's nothing wrong or to be ashamed at with that - we need people to do those jobs.

Whereas I have no problem with people earning well for high level jobs with lots of responsibility/skill etc what I do have a problem with is those on the 'bottom wrung' as it were not being paid enough to even achieve a basic standard of living. Everyone - working or not should be able to access the basics food, heat, somewhere decent to live etc and these claims that people are suffering because they don't 'work hard enough' is a really dangerous way to go.

That’s the sort of crap I’m talking about. Everything isn’t possible. I mean I was never going to make it as a doctor or a footballer or an opera singer or pop star no matter how much I worked, tried, wanted it. That’s just setting people up for failure and disappointment.

The other side of this “everything is possible” coin is that people are only poor because they’re lazy and don’t work hard enough. And that’s just as stupid as assumption as the “reach for the stars” muddle headed thinking.

There are two sides to anything is possible:

• anything is possible. There's no excuse for not being a neurosurgeon, you didn't work hard enough

And

• anything is possible. You might be depressed now, but things can turn around

Nobody lies the first type, but most people are in the second category

A good way for very bright working class children to flourish was the 11 plus and state grammar school system, until it was largely abolished. Another was the polytechnic system whereby those who didn't quite make university grades, or didn't want to go to uni, could study for useful qualifications
It pains me now to see so many youngsters entering the university system and ending up with a pointless degree and years of debt
Some of the youngsters I have worked with in recent years who have gone on to university seem to be barely able to string a sentence together and their writing and spelling is atrocious!!

So what term should we use now to define working very long hours in physically and/or mentally taxing occupations, sometimes at the expense of our health, often for such a low wage that we need to do a second job or back to back shifts; now you've appropriated 'hard work' to mean something that suits you better?