[citilife]

If you sit on the couch all day doing nothing, you wont get lucky. Sure, we can identify "luck" as a path to success, but honestly that seems more like survivor bias....

There are a nearly infinite number of events that had to take place for everything to exist in its current state. We can call it "luck" or "randomness" which then leads to specific actions leading to success. However, in reality we are designed to recognize patterns.

If we recognize a pattern and make an attempt to improve our situation, it's not "luck" or "randomness" its a probability of success. Combine that over a life time and persistence will lead to success, not just one random event. It's a series of events that lead to success, each one moving you one way or the other. It's typically your "choice" which path you take.

I think these articles rub me the wrong way, because it leads a lot of people to think - "If it's all luck, why bother doing anything?" When in reality it's only you that can get anywhere.

[jellicle]

On the contrary, the largest factors of luck, such as being born a white male in a first-world country to wealthy parents, can all be achieved while you are playing Xbox and won't disappear even if you do spend your days on the couch.

"Combine that over a life time and persistence will lead to success, not just one random event."

Will lead to success? This statement of results simply isn't true. What leads to success in the USA, more so than many other countries, is being born lucky, not hard work. That's your best bet. Many many many people will work very hard for their entire lives - harder than you - and never earn more than a subsistence living, because they had the wrong kind of birth luck.

[jartelt]

It's not ALL luck. It's just that luck can push you over the edge towards success. If you and an equally qualified person interview for the same position, the person that gets the position may just be the person who happened to go to the same college as the interviewer or that has the same hobby as the interviewer (so they really hit it off and have a great conversation). In that case, one person was lucky and the other was unlucky. They were both equally qualified, but one person just had something extra to talk about with the interviewer and made a good connection.

[empath75]

> If we recognize a pattern and make an attempt to improve our situation, it's not "luck" or "randomness" its a probability of success. Combine that over a life time and persistence will lead to success, not just one random event. It's a series of events that lead to success, each one moving you one way or the other. It's typically your "choice" which path you take.

What's success? Often all it takes to improve your situation is a change of perception. Some of the happiest people I've ever met were living in what Americans would consider to be absolute poverty. And some of the most miserable people I've met were the most 'successful'. Sometimes persistence at failure isn't the answer, but rather learning to appreciate what you have in front of you. My dad spent 40 years checking groceries. Most people here wouldn't consider that being a 'success', but he raised two kids and retired and now he's living in Florida and working on his 66 Chevy Malibu convertible, and he's as happy as I've seen him.

On the other hand, you have Trump, who is a billionaire and the president of the US and from all outside appearances seems to be living in a hell of his own creation.

[chongli]

You're already lucky if you have a couch to sit on. Plenty of people have no house, let alone couch to sit on.

Who you are is substantially a matter of luck, too. Somebody who has two driven parents that spend enormous amounts of time and effort raising them is far more likely to be driven and competitive than a person whose parents lay around smoking weed all day.

[balabaster]

What if one parent was never to be found and the other was always at work to ensure you had a roof over your head and as such you were frequently a feral kid?

Your genetic makeup is a product of the genetic histories of two people that (perhaps, but not necessarily) fell in love and had a baby. If they were genetically predisposed to large amounts of self discipline, then perhaps you will be too, perhaps not. I'd say this can count as lucky... or unlucky(?) beyond that, all you've got is your own toil, sweat, tears and guile.

"Your choices are half chance, so are everybody else's"

[homonculus1]

>I'd say this can count as lucky... or unlucky(?) beyond that, all you've got is your own toil, sweat, tears and guile.

No, luck does not end at birth.

[balabaster]

Realistically though, is it luck? If you identify that you are exactly where you are today by happenstance, then sure. You are exactly where you are today because of 1,000 decisions you made, or not made; opportunities you've exploited, people you've met.

But just because one turn of "fate" if you want to call it that meant that one of those pieces may not have lined up and you'd been somewhere else doesn't make you a different person entirely... you could've exploited some other opportunity and ended up somewhere else, that doesn't mean you wouldn't have been equally or even more successful at it. Where one door closes, another opens... if the first door had opened, you probably wouldn't have opened the second door, but you might have. Who knows?

I think your success is a matter of hard work, discipline, paying attention, being what you need to be in the moment to exploit the opportunities in front of you and having the tenacity to turn them into something useful.

Would you call any of that luck? The specifics may be, sure, but the overall pattern of success is not.