[rdgthree]

Personally, I agree with you - my will to live is certainly predicated on theoretically being able to be directly responsible for significant accomplishment. The attitude that everything is set in stone and you can't change anything about your circumstances has always seemed a bit silly to me.

What the parent comment said is probably true for the majority of cases - most people will succeed or fail due to external factors outside of their control. But you'd have to perform some impressive mental gymnastics to assert that Elon Musk just keeps getting lucky because of his environment, and not because of his own actions.

That being said, I think at some point you have to decide who you want to be. Elon Musk is an insane outlier in every way, and his life is the extreme opposite of stability and peace. I don't think that reality is unrelated to his success. So the parent has a point - accomplishment/self-improvement/growth aren't going to make everyone happy. Some people prefer stability over learning new things.

It doesn't make sense for me, but I can understand why some people want to live their life that way.