| Do you agree? Personally, I could not agree more. And five years ago, I think if you'd asked that question on this site, and overwhelming majority of respondents would have said that this is a no-brainer, where the answer is clearly "yes". Now? The dominant clique here now will laugh at you for saying this, and accuse you of believing in Horatio Alger stories, and will tell you that all success is good luck, and that you can claim no credit for your work and any resulting success. Work ethic, dedication, passion, sacrifice - these things are verboten now. Now everything is luck, "white privilege", "male privilege", "western privilege", or some other excuse to disparage the individual and encourage a feeling of helplessness. As for me? I say "you make your own luck". An interesting thread on this topic from a few years back is here:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6083826 My comment (well one of them) is here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6086079 And just for encouragement: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search/?query=Horatio+Alger |