How much has luck got to do with how your life turns turns out. l

bleg

battle_hardend wrote: »

probability is neither good luck or bad luck , its the likely average outcome , if im driving home at night , the likely outcome ( probablity ) is that i reach my destination , bad luck would be to encounter a drunk driver who crashed straight into me and rendered me paralysed , if i travel to new york , probability is that i will endure mildly uncomfortable seats for seven hours and lousy food , good luck is that i get an upgrade to business class and dine beside denis o brien , a minority of people encounter extremley good luck or bad luck in thier lives

Yup, it all evens out like a Bell curve.

I suppose you could argue that good and bad luck are the labels we put on extremes at either end of the spectrum but good and bad luck do not exist.

RichieC

No doubt about it.

We are all lucky though, being born in reletively stable and progressive part of the world. Not as lucky as the jobs or the Zuckerbergs, obviously.

Thoie

"Chance" might be a better word than "luck".

Dedication, determination and hard work will get you to a certain level.

Let's say there are two jobs going that look comparable. Both of them require a lot of experience and being good at what you do. It takes hard work and effort to be eligible for them. There is an element of chance to which one of the jobs you accept/are accepted for.

Now, 10 years down the line, you're still in the company, have progressed in your career and are pretty senior there. Where chance comes in is that one of the companies invented something that became very popular. The other company invented something similar at the same time, that sells well, but didn't become that popular. The invention had nothing to do with your area - it was chance that you were working in the company when it happened. One of the companies is paying 3 times as much as the other for the role you're currently in.

Some people might consider the person being paid 3 times more to be "better" or more successful, however both employees are equally qualified and have worked equally hard - by chance one of them ended up in the right place at the right time.

K.Flyer

Seachmall wrote: »

I firmly believe that at least to some extent you do create your own luck.


As in, who's more likely to get lucky and be successful,

• Person A, who sits at home playing games all day.

Or

• Person B, who goes mixers to meet like-minded business people.

If Person B meets someone who invests in his business you could say it was lucky that he had that chance encounter, and it was, but he made himself available to get lucky.

I go along with this theory as well, although there can be other aspects as well. Being capable, willing and able to do your work well everytime. Having a positive mental attitude towards your work, your life and other people.
But in a very simple term you have to get up off your Arse and make it happen.
"Good Luck" does play a part in it as well but without some of the above you wont have much of it.
Regarding "Bad Luck"
As an 84 year old woman once said to me "... its not how you fall down in this life, its how you pick yourself back up"
We can all have good or bad luck it depends on how you deal with it.

battle_hardend

bleg wrote: »

Yup, it all evens out like a Bell curve.

I suppose you could argue that good and bad luck are the labels we put on extremes at either end of the spectrum but good and bad luck do not exist.

i presume you mean it evens out for the worlds population because many individuals encounter a disproportionate level of bad luck and good luck

good and bad luck most certainly exist , to suggest otherwise is not only silly , its outright callous

battle_hardend

Thoie wrote: »

"Chance" might be a better word than "luck".

Dedication, determination and hard work will get you to a certain level.

Let's say there are two jobs going that look comparable. Both of them require a lot of experience and being good at what you do. It takes hard work and effort to be eligible for them. There is an element of chance to which one of the jobs you accept/are accepted for.

Now, 10 years down the line, you're still in the company, have progressed in your career and are pretty senior there. Where chance comes in is that one of the companies invented something that became very popular. The other company invented something similar at the same time, that sells well, but didn't become that popular. The invention had nothing to do with your area - it was chance that you were working in the company when it happened. One of the companies is paying 3 times as much as the other for the role you're currently in.

Some people might consider the person being paid 3 times more to be "better" or more successful, however both employees are equally qualified and have worked equally hard - by chance one of them ended up in the right place at the right time.

only one or a small number of people get the credit for major achievment , like i said earlier , for every ten fantastically talented musicans , only one will manage to achieve fame and fortune , in nearly all cases , they managed to be in the right place when someone with connections spotted them , to think that all those people who excel in thier field to a high degree are uniquely talented is plain wrong , thier are any amount of people who could do what company CEO,s , tv presenters and leaders of countrys do

superstoner90

Well if lady luck was good to you, you could win the lotto. So its the difference between a million air and broke.

Teyla Emmagan

The home you are born into is the greatest piece of good or bad luck that can happen to a human being I think. No matter what potential you have yourself, how, where and who you are raised by will have the biggest influence on your life. It's like the caste system in India, nothing but blind luck what one you are born into, but it will determine your entire life.

battle_hardend

Teyla Emmagan wrote: »

The home you are born into is the greatest piece of good or bad luck that can happen to a human being I think. No matter what potential you have yourself, how, where and who you are raised by will have the biggest influence on your life. It's like the caste system in India, nothing but blind luck what one you are born into, but it will determine your entire life.

under the caste system in india or under the recent aparthied system in south africa , it doesnt matter how hard you work , how dedicated you are or how possitive an attitude you possess , you can only get so far

Mr.Biscuits

Luck / Chance plays more a role in our lives than we would like to acknowledge as believing everything happens for a reason gives (some of) us comfort and a sense of security.

The truth is that the most trivial of instances can alter your life forever or even end it.

pragmatic1

Luck plays a huge part. A friend had an interview with a company I wanted to work in and got the job. On the off chance I asked him for the number of the HR department in the pub. I normally don't answer my mobile if I don't recognize the number. Got home and checked the number on my phone and it turned out they were trying to get through to me weeks earlier. Rang them up and by luck the HR managers were visiting and I got another interview. Got the job on the spot.

xflyer

People seem to confuse luck and hard work. You make your own luck etc. Now it is true to some extent. When the golfer Lee Trevino was told he was lucky once, he wryly commented that the 'more I practice the luckier I get'. While he was right. He ignored the essential point that he was lucky to have a talent for golf in the first place. I could practice forever and I would never be a successful golfer.

The same is true of anyone who succeeds in life. Even with gambling you'll never be lucky enough to win the lottery unless you buy a ticket.

Where Steve Jobs was lucky was in that he was born with the innate talent for what he ultimately succeeded in doing. After that luck wasn't really a factor, if he was unlucky enough to miss an opportunity he would make sure he didn't miss the next one. Same with any successful person.

Bad or good luck can kick in anytime. No matter how good your are, if you're standing in the wrong place at the wrong time the proverbial piano can land on your head.

saa

Ah luck is almost inevitable if you take a lot of chances not luck as in you become a mega rich super star but that things go alright as long as you're sensible, there is more rejection and hard work in my life so far, I got a lucky break which means I am still poor yet secure so lets hope there is a lucky break with my career.

Jim_Kiy

Being born in the right country is a massive determination of how successful your life will be and I thank my lucky stars I was born in Ireland and not Iraq.

'You make your own luck' is a really stupid thing to say, IMO. Of course you don't make your own bloody luck. You can work hard and do well, but this saying conveniently ignores the fact that a lot of the time, you have absolutely no control over your life. It ignores the fact that some people are simply in the right place at the right time and vice versa.

You can work your arse off for years and get nowhere, or you can bump into the right person at a party and make a connection which brings you an enormous amount of success and wealth. You can walk to the bus stop after a night out and be perfectly fine, or you can be dragged off the street and murdered. This is luck. All the hard work or lack thereof won't make any difference at all if fate has other plans for you.

battle_hardend

Estrella Aggressive Yard wrote: »

'You make your own luck' is a really stupid thing to say, IMO. Of course you don't make your own bloody luck. You can work hard and do well, but this saying conveniently ignores the fact that a lot of the time, you have absolutely no control over your life. It ignores the fact that some people are simply in the right place at the right time and vice versa.

You can work your arse off for years and get nowhere, or you can bump into the right person at a party and make a connection which brings you an enormous amount of success and wealth. You can walk to the bus stop after a night out and be perfectly fine, or you can be dragged off the street and murdered. This is luck. All the hard work or lack thereof won't make any difference at all if fate has other plans for you.

some people trot out the " you make your own luck " line in an unthinking cliched way , other people use it as a smug snide way of saying , im a great success and your not because im simply super talented and your not

if you made your own luck , it wouldnt be luck , merley good descision making , luck is a possitive ( or negative ) outcome which you played no part in instigating , whether someone takes full advantage of a lucky break is another story

Teyla Emmagan

battle_hardend wrote: »

under the caste system in india or under the recent aparthied system in south africa , it doesnt matter how hard you work , how dedicated you are or how possitive an attitude you possess , you can only get so far

There but for the grace of God go I.

battle_hardend

Littlehorny wrote: »

Luck has alot to do with timing aswell, being in the right place at the right time is a factor that can change your life. I took a pretty low paid job when i was fresh out of college bout 19 yrs ago just for the experience it offered and i met the woman who is now my wife of 12yrs with 2 lovely kids and all because i said yes over the phone to a ****ty job!

how was that timing ? , sounds completley accidental , presumabley , you didnt take on the low paid job as a way of finding your princess

NakedNNettles

mariaalice wrote: »

At the moment I am reading Steve Jobs' Biography and it struck me how luck played a huge part in his life, for example being brought up in the area of California where he lived as a child, the kind of adoptive parents he had, the friends he had, the school he went to basically the kind of culture he was formed in led him to become what he was. IMO Luck is the biggest influence on how your life turns out.

What a crock!

The guy suffered with pancreatic cancer for years, it's a terminal illness, he died in his mid 50's, where's the luck in all that?

NakedNNettles

Littlehorny wrote: »

Luck has alot to do with timing aswell, being in the right place at the right time is a factor that can change your life. I took a pretty low paid job when i was fresh out of college bout 19 yrs ago just for the experience it offered and i met the woman who is now my wife of 12yrs with 2 lovely kids and all because i said yes over the phone to a ****ty job!

What's your point? Guys meet women in high paid jobs too you know.

Freddie59

foxyboxer wrote: »

Died at 56? Not lucky after all.

Hard to argue with that one. But he did cram an awful lot into those 56 years. I haven't googled it, but wasn't he a dropout? Or am I wrong?

maninasia

Jim_Kiy wrote: »

Being born in the right country is a massive determination of how successful your life will be and I thank my lucky stars I was born in Ireland and not Iraq.

This my friends says it all. If you are born in a mud hut and never went to school you are going to have to create a big auld ocean of luck for yourself.

The person who was able to get a decent education in Ireland, go to college on the cheap and become an engineer..you were lucky. We all were.

battle_hardend

maninasia wrote: »

This my friends says it all. If you are born in a mud hut and never went to school you are going to have to create a big auld ocean of luck for yourself.

The person who was able to get a decent education in Ireland, go to college on the cheap and become an engineer..you were lucky. We all were.

everything is relative , someone in india born into poverty ( by western standards ) doesnt expect to go to trinity or even secondary school , same way an irish person born a century ago didnt expect to go to secondary school let alone college , i dont mean that those people are less deserving , a son of a bus driver in dublin could on paper be said to be unlucky compared to the son of a harvard professor in america but since they exist in completley different worlds , its not really comparing like with like , a person born in a slum in india might end up being luckier than someone born in a middle class family in the west , not everyone in india is miserable regardless of how poor they are by irish standards

Father Damo

NakedNNettles wrote: »

What a crock!

The guy suffered with pancreatic cancer for years, it's a terminal illness, he died in his mid 50's, where's the luck in all that?

He made alot of money and lived a good life in that time.

On the flipside, the overwhelming view of the man seems to be he was a complete cnut of the highest order. He made billions selling frankly shoddy but popular products (I have been through four malfunctioning iPods, and if I had a tenner for every mate of mine who has brought back their iPhone because it calls random people in the middle of the night on its own accord....)

Luck has loads to do with life. Right place, right time, all that.

NakedNNettles

Father Damo wrote: »

He made alot of money and lived a good life in that time.

.

For sure he made money but I don't agree about living a good life.

Anyone with terminal cancer knows their days are numbered, where is the peace of mind in knowing how and when you are going to die?

The majority of people want to live to old age and be happy within themselves, money or no money.

EuropeanSon

http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2011/11/three_ways_to_manage_good_or_b.html

One could argue that almost anything is luck, of course. Is someone being particularly talented lucky? Is having a great desire to succeed and a great work ethic something one is "lucky" to have?

I don't agree with luck being a big part of such things. I am not lucky to have achieved whatever I have achieved. I have achieved because I was good enough to do so, and those who haven't, in general, weren't. Equally, if I have failed in some endeavour, it's because I wasn't capable of it, due to failure to prepare adequately or simply not being good enough.

I feel that some (though not all, many are just being excessively modest) of those who claim luck is so important are just trying to excuse their own failings.

battle_hardend

EuropeanSon wrote: »

http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2011/11/three_ways_to_manage_good_or_b.html

One could argue that almost anything is luck, of course. Is someone being particularly talented lucky? Is having a great desire to succeed and a great work ethic something one is "lucky" to have?

I don't agree with luck being a big part of such things. I am not lucky to have achieved whatever I have achieved. I have achieved because I was good enough to do so, and those who haven't, in general, weren't. Equally, if I have failed in some endeavour, it's because I wasn't capable of it, due to failure to prepare adequately or simply not being good enough.

I feel that some (though not all, many are just being excessively modest) of those who claim luck is so important are just trying to excuse their own failings.

by contrast , some might say you are inflating your achievments by completley ruling out the role of any kind of luck in your realising them

battle_hardend

battle_hardend wrote: »

by contrast , some might say you are inflating your achievments by completley ruling out the role of any kind of luck in your realising them

Exactly. I don't like people dismissing my achievements as simply being 'lucky', as I've worked hard and God knows I've had my share of **** happening, bad health, things to hold me back. But it would be ridiculously arrogant to pretend that luck had nothing to do with it. If I'd been born in a poor country, if I'd had a crap education, abusive parents, a disability, I highly doubt I'd have achieved many of the things I did.

battle_hardend

Estrella Aggressive Yard wrote: »

Exactly. I don't like people dismissing my achievements as simply being 'lucky', as I've worked hard and God knows I've had my share of **** happening, bad health, things to hold me back. But it would be ridiculously arrogant to pretend that luck had nothing to do with it. If I'd been born in a poor country, if I'd had a crap education, abusive parents, a disability, I highly doubt I'd have achieved many of the things I did.

you need not even turn to accidents of birth ( born in ireland v the congo ) or troubles with abusive parents , you could grow up in a solid middle class home , excel in school and college through hard work and enter the workforce but find your career goals sabotaged by someone with a malevolent agenda , thier are countless possible outcomes to countless situations and scenarios , most of the time people are blissfully unaware when the experience good fortune , from buying a house in an estate and having decent neighbours instead of neighbours from hell to landing a job at a company where your supervisor is a terrific , possitive and encouraging leader instead of cruella de ville , its impossible to plan for every concievable outcome

EuropeanSon

battle_hardend wrote: »

by contrast , some might say you are inflating your achievments by completley ruling out the role of any kind of luck in your realising them

Is this you saying that? Or are you merely, as your post implies, suggesting that someone else (but not you) might say that? If the former, why not replace the noncommittal "some might say" with "I think".

I want to know exactly what is covered by the definition of luck people keep using (assuming you are all using the same one) before I decide to rule out its influence over my achievements or lack thereof. Is being intelligent or hardworking something that one should consider oneself lucky to be? Is being innately lazy unlucky?

I would certainly accept that I am lucky to have been born in a free and relatively wealthy society, and other accidents of birth, but what is the difference between this and being lucky to have been born academically excellent or hard working/driven (or having formative influences that make you so, if you don't think people are born with such traits) et cetera?

battle_hardend

EuropeanSon wrote: »

Is this you saying that? Or are you merely, as your post implies, suggesting that someone else (but not you) might say that? If the former, why not replace the noncommittal "some might say" with "I think".

I want to know exactly what is covered by the definition of luck people keep using (assuming you are all using the same one) before I decide to rule out its influence over my achievements or lack thereof. Is being intelligent or hardworking something that one should consider oneself lucky to be? Is being innately lazy unlucky?

I would certainly accept that I am lucky to have been born in a free and relatively wealthy society, and other accidents of birth, but what is the difference between this and being lucky to have been born academically excellent or hard working/driven (or having formative influences that make you so, if you don't think people are born with such traits) et cetera?

ive observed other people getting infractures for being confrontational so i decided not to be too personal in my reply

i dont tend to focus too much on where a person is born or even how academically gifted a person is when it comes to the issue of luck , two people born in the same affluent town who went to the same prestigious school could encounter various different degrees of luck

no matter how hard working or inteligent a person is , they still cannot put in a place a contingency plan against certain possible outcomes , a harvard graduate who came from a disadvantaged backround could be driving home from basketball practice one evening and run into a drunk driver who cripples him , thus ending his career on several levels but you need not even present as extreme an example , a twenty something could travel to australia with the aim of working in the mines for big bucks only to find themselves answering to a foreman who hates irish people and who makes it thier business to sabotage your plans , because most people escape theese unfortunate and unlikely outcomes , they dont consider themselves lucky when they do well in any given situation or enviroment

EuropeanSon

EuropeanSon wrote: »

Is this you saying that? Or are you merely, as your post implies, suggesting that someone else (but not you) might say that? If the former, why not replace the noncommittal "some might say" with "I think".

I want to know exactly what is covered by the definition of luck people keep using (assuming you are all using the same one) before I decide to rule out its influence over my achievements or lack thereof. Is being intelligent or hardworking something that one should consider oneself lucky to be? Is being innately lazy unlucky?

I would certainly accept that I am lucky to have been born in a free and relatively wealthy society, and other accidents of birth, but what is the difference between this and being lucky to have been born academically excellent or hard working/driven (or having formative influences that make you so, if you don't think people are born with such traits) et cetera?

As battle_hardened said, even ignoring accidents of birth, luck plays a huge part in how your life turns out. Think of all the things that happen (or don't happen) to you that you have absolutely no choice about. I would go as far as to say you have only a limited role in how your life pans out. This has become even more apparent to me in the last few weeks, having lost a close friend who died in a freak accident at the age of 26. She was so ambitious, worked so hard, achieved so much, but ended up dying from something you'd never in a million years have thought was possible. It was bad luck, 100%.

howtomake

"Luck favours the prepared" Edna

What gets my goat sometimes are those that have squandered away opportunities or luck or what have because they are lazy. Nevermind people that actually have some sort of drive. I don't care what path they take and I know its up to the person. I don't know many people like this thankfully (and I do count myself lucky in that matter, that I'm not dragged down). Many folks I know do what they can with what they have.

You also come across people that have a vitality shining within them, no matter what luck throws at them, good or bad. Now those are the rare jewels, to me at least. I guess it depends on what one actually values in life.

battle_hardend

howtomake wrote: »

"Luck favours the prepared" Edna

What gets my goat sometimes are those that have squandered away opportunities or luck or what have because they are lazy. Nevermind people that actually have some sort of drive. I don't care what path they take and I know its up to the person. I don't know many people like this thankfully (and I do count myself lucky in that matter, that I'm not dragged down). Many folks I know do what they can with what they have.

You also come across people that have a vitality shining within them, no matter what luck throws at them, good or bad. Now those are the rare jewels, to me at least. I guess it depends on what one actually values in life.

i accept that thier are indeed lazy people but lazy is a label often hung on people who due to have experienced misfortune and incredible setbacks simply loose thier mojo for life , they turn into someone who merley goes through the motions , turning in a days work but with no real enthusiasm , you might say that its nescessery to bounce back from a major setback , i dont disagree with this and those who do are to be commended but the point of the matter is , if they hadnt encountered bad luck , they would not be forced to dig extra deep and bounce back in the first place , luckily for most people , they are not required to face massive life tests

InReality

Agricola wrote: »

Luck plays a role, but apart from lottery winners, almost all successful high achievers have things in common. Focus, determination, single mindedness, etc etc.

People like Jobs self torture themselves into excelling. If he had been born in India to a farming family, he would have ended up going into business selling fertilizer or some shít. And then he wouldnt stop until he was India no1 supplier of the stuff.

Bottom line is you have to have the drive or else you are going nowhere. No matter how big the silver spoon was in your mouth.

Of course plenty of people have all this drive etc and still are not successfull.Its the common fallacy of all these "become a superstar like x " books.

battle_hardend

InReality wrote: »

Of course plenty of people have all this drive etc and still are not successfull.Its the common fallacy of all these "become a superstar like x " books.

audition for X factor and this reality becomes crystal clear , thier are any amount of leona lewis or one directions who for whatever reason are passed over by tv executives , they go back to answering phones at vodafone while nial horan becomes a millionaire by the age of nineteen

maninasia

battle_hardend wrote: »

everything is relative , someone in india born into poverty ( by western standards ) doesnt expect to go to trinity or even secondary school , same way an irish person born a century ago didnt expect to go to secondary school let alone college , i dont mean that those people are less deserving , a son of a bus driver in dublin could on paper be said to be unlucky compared to the son of a harvard professor in america but since they exist in completley different worlds , its not really comparing like with like , a person born in a slum in india might end up being luckier than someone born in a middle class family in the west , not everyone in india is miserable regardless of how poor they are by irish standards

Sorry, I don't buy the 'everything is relative' line. In fact it is kind of insulting if you think about it. It is clearly not relative. Somebody is born in a mud hut and never went to school. He might have grown up hungry, had to start manual labour when young. Probably has no access to clean water or good healthcare.When he grows up he may be nutritionally stunted, he'll be smaller than average and his IQ will have suffered, he may have picked up some chronic disease and he will not have the skills on hand to improve his lot. He's going to have a very big hill to climb.

That doesn't mean he can't do something, but this is NOT lucky. There are human standards that apply across the human race.

Linoge

I don't think any Jews alive in Germany during WW2 believed the "you make your own luck" mantra.

howtomake

battle_hardend wrote: »

i accept that thier are indeed lazy people but lazy is a label often hung on people who due to have experienced misfortune and incredible setbacks simply loose thier mojo for life , they turn into someone who merley goes through the motions , turning in a days work but with no real enthusiasm , you might say that its nescessery to bounce back from a major setback , i dont disagree with this and those who do are to be commended but the point of the matter is , if they hadnt encountered bad luck , they would not be forced to dig extra deep and bounce back in the first place , luckily for most people , they are not required to face massive life tests

Yeah I didn't want to go into any specifics, its the internet after all, but I only know of a couple of people I would quantify as purely lazy, these being people that I have a good few decades of history of, and they are highly intelligent and had lots of opportunities afforded to them time & time again. Again most some of the brightest shining people I know have had some terrible sad luck, for which I wouldn't even grudge them for. And I know its hard in the materialistic world that judge the have nots, but I'm not judging those, I don't think like that. But I can definitely see where you are coming from, because there are those that do judge people on that.

ygolometsipe

I dont know but I bet this guy does!

http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~ssanty/cgi-bin/eightball.cgi

codrulz

luck is probably 90% of your life.

NakedNNettles

Linoge wrote: »

I don't think any Jews alive in Germany during WW2 believed the "you make your own luck" mantra.

What about the ones who jumped on a plane or boat to head for England or the States, did they not make their own luck?

Linoge

NakedNNettles wrote: »

What about the ones who jumped on a plane or boat to head for England or the States, did they not make their own luck?

With what money?

Thats like saying to X child has cancer, is poor and cant afford good health care and is dying as a result. Y child has cancer, has rich parents who have paid for top doctors and is now on the road to recovery. Y made his own luck!

BostonB

NakedNNettles wrote: »

What about the ones who jumped on a plane or boat to head for England or the States, did they not make their own luck?

Depends if the boat or plane made it. A lot didn't.