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?

Yes, and there are hundreds of thousands of Cathys who are prepared to put up with the shit wages and conditions in order to do a thankless job that so many look down their noses at. Who would look after the frail, elderly, disabled and those with dementia otherwise, if it weren't for the Cathys of this world?

@AnnaFri
Thats exactly the point I was making; you can’t have a good job just because you really want it and you are prepared to work hard.
You however seem to suggest you do know about Nat West, are you the CEO? If so can I DM you as no one is answering the phones.

Its not obvious to me. Your examples 1, 2 & 4 differ from 3 fundamentally. 1 (to an extent), 2 & 4 do not involve competition with others. The success of your diet is unaffected by whether John down the road is also on a diet. You will be no less fit if Jane is fitter. Stick with the program and you obtain your goal. Outside of jobs with guaranteed career pathways (do any even exist now?) the same is not true of your efforts in the hope of promotion.

YANBU. But I think it is possible not to have 4 children and then complain that life is now stupidly expensive. Most British women have control over their fertility unlike the less fortunate.

If so can I DM you as no one is answering the phones

Well, 'anything is possible' so Natwest probably has 5000 CEOs now and one person working in the call-centre because it happened to be their lifelong ambition!

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?
That's not the indication at all. Not everyone aspire to these stressful careers. It doesn't mean you are lazy.

I don't think it is so much as hard work but dedication, devotion, strong will, sacrifices and pushing yourself will in more likelihood take you higher than taking things as they come.

At least that's what I've always ever experienced and witnessed.

@Tabbouleh

Most British women don't have 4 kids

there a group of people on mn who claim luck or privilege is the only thing that brings success and that those in lower paid jobs are the only ones who work hard. I think it’s maybe to excuse their own lack of achievement in life.

ultimately hard work is an important factor in success. Not the only one but an important factor.

@MsPincher

I've never seen anyone say only luck or privilege bring success.

I've only seen people say that its hard work alone.

Absolutely

But as well as this I think the idea that being exceptional is the only way to be valuable is wrong, ridiculous and impossible. Someone needs to build houses, process passports, and look after kids in a crèche.

Society needs people to do these jobs as well as entrepreneurs.

There are no unskilled jobs.

YANBU

Yeah, Elon makes 1000000000 times more that an average worker, because he works 1000000000 times harder😁(the number of zeros I used was random)
Anyone could do it if they tried hard enough!

@vivainsomnia

Totally agree with you

None of that is going to make you a fast runner though, is it?

That is what we are talking about. All the ambition in the world, all the determination, the drive, the sacrifices. If you're not good enough, then you're not. Other people will be faster and better than you.

'Anything' is not possible. Not unless you have either the talent or the brains as well as the ambition. Most people don't have that combination, or at least enough of it.

I'd also agree with this

Tends to be 2 types of people 'you can achieve anything' and 'anyone who achieved anything is lucky and or had privilege in life'

I've achieved success in my career/life.

It was a combination of hard work and privilege/luck.

I dont get why thats so hard to acknowledge?

I do agree but I also think that many people think that people are in more menial jobs because they’re less intelligent. Intelligence only gets you so far and it has been shown that success and intelligence only correlate up to a certain level of intelligence. So I’ll use IQ even though this obviously only measures a certain type of intelligence. If your IQ is over 125 then the the things that make the difference are personality, motivation, hard work and luck.

My IQ is over 125 and I’m autistic. I’ve only ever worked as a secretary/cleaner/massage therapist. I’m autistic and used to be painfully shy and socially awkward. My ex husband is a relatively high earner and he’s no more intelligent than me but he’s confident (many have said arrogant) and motivated.

Anyway, not sure where I’m going with this….I’ve also always been lazy😆

This is basically the point I made in my post. It's a combination. You can't say the circumstances you're born into are irrelevant but nor can you say "it's not about hard work". Of bloody course it is!

It's about both of these factors interacting that creates the success. That's certainly true for me.

YANBU

One of my mum's favourite sayings is

"luck is where opportunity meets preparation"

And it's quite true. You can have all the opportunity but you need to be prepared to make the most of it and you can do all the preparation, but without the opportunity you're screwed.

The risk taking that pp are talking about, I guess is going to be the putting yourself out there to take the opportunities and do the preparation which is much harder if you have other people in your life.

I guess in Cathy the carer's case, people would say she should network with the audience she has, so chatting to her patients, their families, finding out special things about them and someone might be in a position to offer her a better paid role.
The difficulty with a role like that is that it is likely to already be over worked and she simply wouldn't have the time to do it, especially if she has caring responsibility of her own, so it really isn't as easy as people think, especially for working mums.

I worked in a shop when I was 16, and at uni (oh no, the privilege of taking out loans to attend a poly) and then I opened the paper and applied for a customer service role at a call centre dealing in Insurance.

Once in there, there were legal and compliance teams who would pay for you to take exams. There was fraud detection. Underwriting. Management. Finance. Company legal. HR. And all the exams paid for. And all the entry workers encouraged to apply and move up the ladder.

Just look what happens these days if you tell someone that. "Well, I'd never work in a call centre", they say, as if sitting in a bright, clean office chatting to customers all day is arduous. "And even if I did I don't like exams. Even free ones. I don't want training. I bet I'd never move up anyway. They'd never pick me." And on.

High paid white collar jobs literally there for the taking. Companies eager to recruit internally. Eager for people with good attitudes.

@maddy68

You are missing the point of the thread.

The OP is talking about the fact that not everyone can be a super well paid entrepreneur / doctor / hedge fund manager, with all the lifestyle trimmings that entails.

She is right because a) these jobs are competitive and we don’t all start from the same block b) they involve having specific talents / types of intelligence not everyone has c) we also need people to build houses and clean hospitals so someone has to do those jobs too.

Her point is that people who do more humdrum jobs should be appreciated for what they do, and not looked down on or seen as failures for not doing ‘better’

Your point that if you are into drama you can always do am dram if you can’t do it professionally is of course true, but in no way does it support the idea that anything is possible. Your point that para Olympians have achieved a lot against the odds is of course true, but it also doesn’t prove that anything is possible.

And by the way, as any disability activist will tell you, in order for people with disabilities to have a better chance in life (right now having a disability reduces your life chances dramatically) what they need is more support in the workplace and society, rather than be applauded because a few of them ‘run with no feet’.

Many people in menial jobs will be less intelligent though

It doesn't mean intelligent people aren't doing these roles too, but those who aren't intelligent are more likely to be in a low paid menial job over a highly paid professional role. Mainly due to the latter requiring qualifications on the most part

I don't know where to start with the post

Fuck me it must be nice to live in such a bubble.

I love this quote from Madmen, said in a French accent.

Not every little girl gets to do what they want. The world cannot support that many ballerinas

@Topgub I didn't say they did. My point was that not everything is out of your control. Some things are.