[sollawen]

When I was young, I always thought that success was due to my own efforts, while failure was the result of poor planning or wrong decisions.

But many years later, I realized that all successes and failures are actually determined by genetic factors.

Almost all of our decisions and choices are, in the end, determined by our genes. In other words, genes determine our choices, and our choices determine whether things will be successful or fail.

[beardyw]

You are assuming the luck is in our decisions, but most things are outside our control. If you were born 100 years ago, your options would be completely different.

[sollawen]

I agree that the circumstances we are born into are largely outside our control.

I may not have expressed my own point clearly: I’m not saying that luck lies in our decisions. I’m saying that our decisions themselves are not entirely under our conscious control. Our genetic makeup influences our dispositions and choices, and we often don’t even understand why we are inclined to choose one thing over another.

So my broader point is that luck is not the result of anything we consciously choose to do, including whether or not we work hard. Whether an outcome turns out to be fortunate or unfortunate is not something we can choose or change through conscious effort.

Maybe I'm being a bit too pessimistic here?