You say it’s luck, I say you’re lazy
August 17th, 2009 at 7:39 pm by JadisMy husband has a very old basketball t-shirt he can’t bear to part with. It says “You say it’s luck, I say you’re lazy.” I thought he just loved the colour and shirt but I’m beginning to believe it has more to do with his (and i suppose my own) attitude.
We’ve had friends in the past say things like “You’re so lucky because you met her/him” or “You’re so lucky you own your own home” etc etc. Sure, we made some crap choices in pour lifetime but ultimately we made more good choices than bad. And, sometimes we sacrificed in the short run for the long run benefit.
I’m sure some here will think I was born with a silver spoon and all that but I really wasn’t. My parents did ok. I think I had a pretty standard upbringing filled with public schooling, both parents working, and supportive parents who read to me at night and all that stuff. Later, I was thrown out of school for suspected drug use, my parents divorced, some other family stuff, and I married a man that was a T-Coll drop-out turned receptionist. I did go to university. I did pretty well and I did get pretty good jobs – and for the record so did my husband. He worked his way up a corporate, got an MBA and now owns his own businesses.
My point is that I just don’t believe in luck. When a person realises that they are in charge of their life and they are the one that gets to make the choices and decisions; then that is the moment that that person becomes powerful (in their own right). How do we teach that? And, before anyone accuses me of beneficiary bashing I’m talking about so many people. Being the victim, “luck did this to me” is alive and well in New Zealand. Take some responsibility people. To get ahead everyone has to work hard and yes, some do have to work harder than others.
So, next time you think you have to make a decision and you think there’s only one choice to make, look again, there might be a better one (it just might be a harder road).
No tag for this post.
August 17th, 2009 at 7:50 pm
Luck is the opportunity to show your ability.
Vote:August 17th, 2009 at 7:59 pm
Jadis,
Love your posts. They are refreshing. Look the place that needs them though is over at The Standard. What a bunch of sorry for themselves, right is bad, left is good losers. Go on, see if you can get a guest post – brighten the world!
Vote:August 17th, 2009 at 8:00 pm
Yes… and no. reality is that, surely, it’s a mixture of both?
For instance I’ve worked for several businesses that were, it turned out, managed by fools. They collapsed leaving me, and others, out of work. I guess you could say I should have done some sort of due diligence, demanded to interview the directors (these were all privately held companies, so no annual reports etc to check) but one tends not to do these things and it’s generally accepted one shouldn’t have to – thus penalties in law for people who recklessly bankrupt their businesses. But too late for the staff by then.
Where working harder and standing on your own feet comes into it is after luck has dealt you a bad hand. You can either whine and bludge indefinitely or pick yourself up, accept help for as long as your strictly need it, and rebuild your life.
But having had to drain my savings numerous times to live on while undertaking that rebuilding, I at one point had to give up a house I’d paid a mortgage on and on other occasions unable to afford to do anything other than rent.
If bad luck hits you repeatedly you can do well in comparison to others in a similar position but never as well as those for whom life has provided a smoother ride.
I’d argue therefore that, assuming I work as hard as you do, your owning your own home while I don’t, for instance, is partly attributable to luck.
It’s just that you’ll never achieve those things without also adding hard work, determination and resilience into the mix and many people do indeed lack those qualities — or have been conditioned to believe they’re unnecessary by years of state welfarism — whereas you do not and (hopefully) neither do I.
edit: And razork sums it up in a nutshell. Is that an original, Razork? Because if so I’d like your permission to shamelessly plagiarise you sometime
Vote:August 17th, 2009 at 8:09 pm
You make your own luck; you put yourself in a situation where you can take advantage of an opportunity and then grasp it. That is called luck.
Vote:If you review your past life you are likely to find that most decisions are made for you, in the sense that we tend to follow a course of action that is already mapped out; to deviate (like change occupation to something completely new) is radical and unusual. I find that people differ most in how far they plan ahead. The present generation seems to live from day to day, in contrast with the past mantra, ‘look to the future’.
August 17th, 2009 at 8:10 pm
Rex and Razork. I actually do agree with you both. You are right Rex, you can’t always see what’s coming and it is how you deal with it that makes your future.
Vote:August 17th, 2009 at 8:16 pm
As Gary Player said: The harder I work, the luckier I get
Vote:August 17th, 2009 at 8:24 pm
I’ll go with a bit of both. All the luck in the world is generally useless if you don’t take advantage of it. How many kids born with a silver spoon etc, pissed it all away before 25 years old. Conversely, all the talent in the world is useless if you have consistent bad luck. I always feel a little that those with a lot of bad luck must be making some bad decisions in there somewhere, but I’ll accept that it is possible to be a good and hard working person, and it just doesn’t work out and not your fault.
I’ll agree with Rex as well that someone with excruciatingly bad luck who works hard will still do better than someone with thta same bad luck who does nothing for themselves.
Vote:August 17th, 2009 at 8:27 pm
I don’t believe in luck. Successful outcomes are more about what you expect to gain from a venture or initiative, and less about what others might expect you to gain. If you benchmark your success on the criteria held dear by others then you fail from the outset.
So what is ‘success’?
For me success is close to 99% concerned happiness. Wealth, fame, prestige and all second class aspirations compared to happiness. Happiness, from my experience, is closely related to contentedness – a state of being that billions of advertising dollars are trying to banish from our lives.
Success is also closely tied to ambition for me. I’m ambitious, but I’m also content with what I have. These concepts are not mutually exclusive.
Her ends getstaffed’s philosophical rant
Vote:August 17th, 2009 at 8:29 pm
I heart Jadis. A woman after my own soul.
Vote:August 17th, 2009 at 8:31 pm
Here is my saying:
Just because you worked hard doesnt mean you didnt get lucky.
Life isnt like golf. There are many more variables that determine your path through life than there are variables that determine a golf balls path to the green. And there is less control over the life variables than technology and science has given a player over the golf ball. In golf the best players are obvious; there is an obvious difference in skill between them and poor players. It isnt the same in life.
Life is more like poker. All you can do is put yourself into a position to have positive expected value and let the cards fall where they may. You may make the right choices and still lose on the river. You may make the wrong choices but hit a lucky back-door draw. In the end, it is only over many hands/tournaments, lives or lifetimes that the benefit of +EV play shows through.
At least at the poker table humility is the norm. When a champion takes down a tournament they are just as likely to claim that they had a great run of cards as they are to boast of skill. Just because they got lucky, doesnt mean they arent great poker players. But just because they won, doesnt mean they didnt get lucky.
Vote:August 17th, 2009 at 8:33 pm
“I heart Jadis. A woman after my own soul.”
Jadis is Lucifer?
Vote:August 17th, 2009 at 8:48 pm
“Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.”
Lucius Annaeus Seneca (often known simply as Seneca, or Seneca the Younger)
Vote:August 17th, 2009 at 8:52 pm
I put my success down to the fact that I was too stupid to realise I was never supposed to succeed.
Vote:August 17th, 2009 at 8:57 pm
ahhh kimble. you are not down with the kids, clearly. it’s the lingo these days….
Vote:August 17th, 2009 at 9:06 pm
i must say i’m a big fan of nassim nicholas taleb. A lot of things are down to luck, i quite like his CEO examples in the black swan book. http://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/. Hard work yes, but most opportunities come to most people in ways that can only really be explained as coincidence. Putting it down to personal hardwork can sometimes be nothing more than pure arrogance (or sometimes be completely justified, however)
Vote:August 17th, 2009 at 9:22 pm
A couple of quotes that give two sides of the picture on luck and one that well….
Fortune brings in some boats that are not steered. ~William Shakespeare
Depend on the rabbit’s foot if you will, but remember it didn’t work for the rabbit. ~R.E. Shay
Work is the curse of the drinking classes. — Oscar Wilde.
Vote:August 17th, 2009 at 9:42 pm
@somewhatthoughtful, more Nassim Nicholas Taleb.
THE FOURTH QUADRANT: A MAP OF THE LIMITS OF STATISTICS
edit, sorry about the caps
Vote:August 17th, 2009 at 9:44 pm
It’s all about timing.
Timing is everything in comedy, and timing is crucial in business.
Think about it. Luck happens. Ability has to be constantly honed.
And as regards planning, all plans disappear on contact with the enemy.
Vote:August 17th, 2009 at 9:51 pm
‘somewhatthoughtful’ – I was just about to quote Taleb myself. Fully agree with him – I think once your in a certain position in life, you don’t get ahead by working hard, but rather by not fucking the opportunities which by chance come knocking. The phrase ‘its not what you know its who you know’ comes to mind – surround yourself with the right kind of people (maybe take up golf) and voila, opportunities come knocking provided you’ve got some networking skills. If you still think hard work = success go away and read ‘Fooled by Randomness’ and ‘The Black Swan’, both by Taleb, it certainly changed my thinking on the subject.
Vote:August 17th, 2009 at 9:55 pm
The average person in NZ can make a go of it in NZ but he must work hard and save his money.
Vote:August 17th, 2009 at 9:56 pm
I think life is mostly luck, and the best kind of luck you can have is to be born into the right country, the right race, the right class – even at the right time of year: the majority of successful athletes are born early in the year, which means they’re slightly older and larger than the other children they compete against in their age group. Most of the people commenting on this blog were lucky enough to be born in one of the richest countries in the world – how would ‘taking responsibility’ have worked out if you’d been born in sub-saharan Africa? It’s all luck – the best we can do is share some of our good fortune with those who don’t have as much.
Vote:August 17th, 2009 at 10:01 pm
“how would ‘taking responsibility’ have worked out if you’d been born in sub-saharan Africa?”
It worked out fine for Robert Mugabe
Vote:August 17th, 2009 at 10:05 pm
“the best we can do is share some of our good fortune with those who don’t have as much.”
True words. And weirdly, quite likely to lead to more good fortune for yourself if you subscribe to Karma or the Christian principle of casting bread.
Vote:August 17th, 2009 at 10:06 pm
This is just Calvinism rewritten – people are poor, sick etc because they are
SINNERSLAZY.Like all dangerous ideas there is an element of truth in it – Millie Elder has stuffed up and it is her responsibility alone but anybody can be struck down by bad luck anytime which includes you.
And some people get a rotten deal from the day they are born – Nia Glassie springs to immediately mind.
As the old saying goes “Bad things happen to good people”.
Vote:August 17th, 2009 at 10:08 pm
I am glad there are still people like Jadis around.
Vote:I don’t think “luck” really has much to do with success in life on the whole, my own experience would suggest our attitudes determine our ability to first see opportunity and then to take it. Opportunity seems to come around far more frequently than most people realize, perhaps those who talk about perpetual bad luck are just more blind than normal to opportunity.
Its all about attitude.
August 17th, 2009 at 10:14 pm
“As the old saying goes “Bad things happen to good people”.”
But they don’t happen often enough to determine the fate of the masses, and bad things often lead to opportunity anyway. It is our attitude after bad things happen that is the determining issue.
Vote:August 17th, 2009 at 10:27 pm
“My point is that I just don’t believe in luck. “
how utterly bland;
do you wear impossible
is nothing t-shirts?
somebody needs to
read the black swan by nassim
nicholas taleb
either that or have a
Vote:loved one die in a blazing
plane crash inferno
August 17th, 2009 at 11:14 pm
Dim – you think life is mostly luck? I find that many left wingers think that way. If you believe that those who have more income or wealth got it mostly through luck, then you are much more likely to think it appropriate to take some of that income or wealth off them and give it to those less lucky.
If you think that people with more wealth or income by and large got it through hard work, then it would seem rather churlish to take it off them and give it to someone who worked less hard.
And there is one of the big differences between the left and the right. It also, to me, explains why some wealthy people who didn’t really work for their money are left wing – lots of “celebrities” and the like. And those who did really work for it tend to be much more likely to be right wing. (note my broad generalisations with no facts to back them up).
Vote:August 18th, 2009 at 12:02 am
I’m pretty sure those upper incomed middle class successful people in the World Trade Center working hard that morning, didn’t count themselves as lazy.
And they sucked out in the luck stakes didn’t they?
Life’s a lot about luck. While yes you can create your own luck by being hard working, most people’s hard work just ain’t enough and they are stuck on a treadmill of life being average.
Vote:August 18th, 2009 at 12:25 am
“I think life is mostly luck, and the best kind of luck you can have is to be born into the right country, the right race, the right class – even at the right time of year: the majority of successful athletes are born early in the year, which means they’re slightly older and larger than the other children they compete against in their age group. Most of the people commenting on this blog were lucky enough to be born in one of the richest countries in the world – how would ‘taking responsibility’ have worked out if you’d been born in sub-saharan Africa? It’s all luck – the best we can do is share some of our good fortune with those who don’t have as much.”
What a load of shit.
Where and when you were born is not luck, it is just where and when you were born. Everybody considers themselves lucky until they encounter something different.
It is philosophical wank that modest intellects can’t see beyond, and should lead to you comparing yourself to the luck of beeing born a worm and having a dog shit on your head. If you think that’s going to help you in any way with your real life choices then go ahead.
You should only compare yourself to your peers. For me, thats middle & working class westerners, I don’t compare my circumstances to the NZ underclass or vastly different societies.
Or should I be cursing my luck that I wasn’t born in the year 94,572 on the planet Woopwoop with telekinetic abilities and a real cushy job. And at the same time, feel really guilty that I wasn’t born a Nubian sex slave with leprosy thousands of years ago?
Life has nothing to do with what people deserve, never will be, and was never meant to be.
Vote:August 18th, 2009 at 1:18 am
You don’t understand the concepts and have warped expectations. ‘Hard work’ v ‘Good luck’ may be the wrong description of determinism v fatalism. If two boats are sitting in the middle of the atlantic trying to get to america, hard work is like putting up a sail, once you do, the wind of opportunity that is everpresent in the world will move you and the person who thought to put their sail up will get there first while the one who doesn’t will sit there wondering why the same ocean is taking him nowhere. Results will always be on a bell curve, and expecting everybody to sit on a throne of gold becuase one person does, is not proof of luck, it is proof of statistics.
Even the supposed people who got lucky like Bill Gates, Donald Trump, and Sergey Brin, missed 99% of the opportunities they have had, they just made themselves available for one or two of them.
Determining your outcomes doesn’t always look like slaving over hot-coals, they can sometimes be working dumb. Usually it is just turning up, being polite, and sticking in the game, and that is character not luck.
Because you’re gullible and simple-minded.
He appears to me to be another academic using screeds of writing to appear smart and justify his position when explaining a simple one line idea, that is infact a rehash of decades old chaos theory.
You can’t control a complex system, you can only observe, react and expect unforeseen consequences.
Vote:August 18th, 2009 at 1:31 am
The modern Olympics have run for over a hundred years. If results are luck, world records would be established randomly over this period and last for an average of 50 years or something. Instead they last for an average of 5 to 10 years because of expectation and technique, not because of the randomness of the gene pool.
Vote:August 18th, 2009 at 1:35 am
I would talk to the planes designers, pilot, and maintainence engineers about that Dave.
It’s happened to me and it isn’t luck. I reacted pretty good though I think.
Vote:August 18th, 2009 at 2:01 am
Bollocks Tara, lifes the easiest thing you’ll ever do. Opportunity shines like the sun every day. Every endeavour of humanity is desperate for good people to help it along.
Those planes were actually deliberately flown into the WTC, and it is a measure of the terrorists hard work and success they did.
If their targets hadn’t voted in Bill Clinton, then maybe they would have had a President that wouldn’t chicken out when he had the opportunity to take out Osama before then.
Vote:August 18th, 2009 at 3:19 am
I don’t see any author identification when viewing the site in Firefox. I think I do on my Blackberry. What gives?
Update: Nevermind. It’s because I always go direct to article (not via homepage) using an active bookmark. DPF – perhaps make sure the article template also shows the author?
Vote:August 18th, 2009 at 6:36 am
Indeed. We’re presented with opportunity at every turn. It’s simply up to us if we want to be open to that opportunity, and again up to us if we want to seize it with both hands.
Unfortunately, we’re conditioned to do just the opposite. And most of us will only ever realise a fraction of our potential.
Vote:August 18th, 2009 at 7:03 am
And there is one of the big differences between the left and the right. It also, to me, explains why some wealthy people who didn’t really work for their money are left wing – lots of “celebrities” and the like. And those who did really work for it tend to be much more likely to be right wing.
Depends on the industry: the owner of a successful small business is likely to be (very, very) right wing, a successful doctor is more likely to be left wing. As for celebrities . . . a friend of mine is a keyboard player in a fairly successful band, he’s worked a lot harder to get there than any of the multi-millionaires I met when I worked in the banking industry.
It’s true that a lot of the rich guys I met in banking worked hard, but almost all of them were white males born into wealthy families; none of them ‘deserved’ to be born into one of the most privileged demographics in human history, they just got lucky. And that seems to be how wealth works – it’s like an attractor in a chaotic spectrum – there’s no morality or reward system at work behind it.
Vote:August 18th, 2009 at 7:08 am
How do you explain clogs to clogs in 3 Generations then?
For success to continue generationally, each successive set of offspring have to accomplish more.
In fact this rarely happens. Many third generation offspring like nothing better than a cash fest.
Vote:August 18th, 2009 at 7:20 am
It’s not hard work vs. laziness at all. Nor is it about luck.
If it wasn’t for laziness, there’d be no innovation. After all, who doesn’t want to find an easier way to get stuff done?
And hard work is obviously over-rated amongst the commentors here. You can work really hard all your life, banging your head against a wall, and get nothing but a sore head.
The two biggest things that determine success as I see it are 1) thinking differently, and 2) your network of friends.
If you think like everyone else, you’ll be just like everyone else. Thinking innovatively wil get you much further than plain old hard work.
And “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know” is so much truer than you’d think. Making friends with knowledgable and influencial people is actually easier than you think, if you use a bit of innovation.
Vote:August 18th, 2009 at 7:23 am
Tara – it is just that some people’s “avereage” is more ambitious than other’s. I consider myself an average person. Middle class, decent income, good kids, family that I like, no violence or bludgers in any part of my family. You probably consider me rich. Michael Cullen certainly did.
I remember him and Anderton talking about rich people on the radio while I was cleaning a filthy toilet in a flat. Rich people don’t clean toilets – their own let alone someone elses. They eat at fancy restuarants and don’t have takeaways once a fortnight as a treat.
Vote:August 18th, 2009 at 7:42 am
No such thing as luck. It’s all up to personal management and good planing. A bit of money in the bank or insurance when things turn to shit. Upgrading assets when affordable. Paying bills on time or early. Every dollar saved is a dollar that someone else does not get off you for nothing.
Vote:August 18th, 2009 at 8:11 am
This is because society doesn’t really need or want many keyboard players. Whereas we use banks in everything we do.
Making smart career choices is the same as working hard.
In NZ, Westpac is probably more popular than the Rolling Stones.
Vote:August 18th, 2009 at 8:36 am
Ditto on what Brian Smaller said – I also consider myself ‘average’. And, yes, we would be considered ‘rich’ by a certain sector of society. But our rich is also a treat of fortnightly takeaways, Broadband (instead of Sky), 10yr old cars and insurance! Rich is like luck – all about perception.
I have got to where I am as a result of many thousands of decisions I (& my husband) have made. If we wanted to torture ourselves, we could discuss how we could be so much better/worse off than we are currently.
But we made certain decisions that have resulted in where we are now – and I put it down more to timing than ‘luck’. Timing that also ties into our way of thinking. If I had been faced with some of the decisions of the past 10 years, 20 years ago, I would’ve made completely different choices, and have no idea where I would be now, nor do I care.
Vote:August 18th, 2009 at 10:27 am
What’s all this talk about being rich?
Being rich does not necessarily mean you’ve been, are currently, or will be successful. Nor does it mean you’re happy. Nor does it mean you’re making a difference within your sphere of influence.
Vote:August 18th, 2009 at 10:37 am
Ditto for Razork and same for many of you.
For me
“When preparartion meets opportunity”
Just some times a lot of preparation may be undertaken and things change, but at least you are moving, out and about, finding knowledge, ideas, learning, skills, contacts, mentors, honing your abillities etc.
“Happiness is in Your Head”
Vote:August 18th, 2009 at 11:29 am
“Results will always be on a bell curve, and expecting everybody to sit on a throne of gold becuase one person does, is not proof of luck, it is proof of statistics.”
Read Taleb. Results wont always be on a bell curve.
Vote:August 18th, 2009 at 3:52 pm
As many have suggested above, I too think it’s a combination. But I think the best line I ever heard was when one of my supervisors when I was at uni got a letter from a colleague saying that there was a position open, and did he know of anyone either (a) very, very bright or (b) very, very lucky. Since then, I have had an amazing amount of luck, BUT as razork said right at the top, it was an opportunity to show what I could do.
Vote:August 18th, 2009 at 4:15 pm
I SUCKED A LOT OF COCK TO GET WHERE I AM
(Regurgitator)
I sucked a lot of cock to get where i am
i only want to be the best that i can
my mouth is stained i can’t complain
i keep on rinsing it again and again
take a look at me
tell me what do you see?
i’ve got all i want
i’m on top of the heap
now they suck up to me
i sucked more cock
you can get what you need
just get down on your knees
you’ve sucked a lot of cock to get where you are
Vote:your smile is stretching but you’re gonna go far
your life is pain you can’t complain
you keep on rinsing it again and again
August 19th, 2009 at 2:52 pm
Regurgitator have an excellent website: http://www.regurgitator.net/regOS.swf
Vote: