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Comment by vertline3 | Hacker News Reader

We have this tendency to look at successful people and think we can imitate them and have their success. I see Bill Gates is always giving a list of his favorite books of the year. Sorry Bill, if I read your books, I won't be a billionaire. Well Jackie Chan as great, talented, funny as he is. No matter what, I will never be him. Survivor bias and luck play a large role beyond what hard work and pain alone do.

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Right. A large part of success is definitely luck and random opportunity, but I will say that you still have to be prepared for those instances to take advantage of them(unless you have nepotism on your side, then you can coast to your heart's content).

For us in the the lower / middle class, the best we can do is prepare as much as we can for the day we encounter luck or opportunity. No amount of preparation / commitment / training guarantees success, but we can't afford to be fatalistic about it.

I do agree that we need to be more empathetic with those who haven't succeeded though. People tend to assume it's due to some personal fault rather than accounting for the luck / opportunity aspect. Humans tend to think that when they themselves fail it's because of outside forces they couldn't control, but when others fail it's because of internal forces they could have controlled.

I think the reply below, it helps us prioritize our time and set good goals. Maybe look at our motivations, are they outside our control or inside our control? Trying to be honest is not giving up and lying down.

Also agree, failure is complex and society has been known to sweep people under the rug.

I think you are correct. I would say there are things that one can do to improve their odds of random opportunity and luck. A good example of that is hanging out with the right people and staying positive & motivated. In a lot of ways it is like dating. You need to be putting yourself out there. It isn't going to magically just happen. You have to make it happen.

This attitude may be technically correct, but it's not very productive. Why emphasize your own lack of control over your life? It's certainly possible for it to become a self-fulfilling prophecy, even if the inverse is not true.

Not productive in what sense? Knowing your limits let's you focus your energy in other ways and areas

That's great advice. Especially if you get specific about the other ways and areas one an focus on. But what parent post said was, you'll never be a billionaire or literally Jackie Chan, so don't try. Seems (to me) like a waste of mental energy to even process that.

No I did not say that you shouldn't try, but that doing what they do, don't expect that you will be them. It is cargo culting success

You will never be Jackie Chan, because...survivor bias and luck?!

To be constructive: Here, enjoy G.K. Chesterton's wonderful and funny short essay The Fallacy of Success, which I think agrees with you. I'd love to be able to write so well, but...I'm not him.

http://www.clerus.org/bibliaclerusonline/en/bae.htm#l

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