Are You Downplaying Luck’s Role in Your Life?

http://nautil.us/blog/are-you-downplaying-lucks-role-in-your-life

by dnetesn • 9 years ago

90 106 9 years ago

nautil.us

dvdhnt• 9 years ago

I'm not downplaying luck's role in my life so much as I'm downplaying my role as my own worst enemy.

lhuser1232• 9 years ago

Me too.

ocdtrekkie• 9 years ago

Nope. I got into the career I got into on... mostly luck. It's one of the reasons I don't understand the cultural taboo of speaking about salary... it's not really a valid measure of self-worth, it's just drawing the right card from the deck.

rootusrootus• 9 years ago

It is okay to think about luck's influence on your life, but I would say it is a mistake to cite luck as a justification for everyone else's success or your own lack thereof. While it absolutely helps a lot to be at the right place at the right time, you also have to have enough talent to capitalize on the opportunity.

Boothroid• 9 years ago

Some say everything is luck, indeed if you want to take it to a philosophical extreme there are those that question the idea of free will entirely. I've read about research that showed that those at the top had similar beliefs that they were the main determinant of success as opposed to luck; but if you are at the top of course you are more likely to pat yourself on the back and not admit perhaps it was just a case of right place right time.

RachelF2• 9 years ago

Luck is a huge factor, but mostly blamed for failure, few of us have the insight to attribute much of our success to luck.

lhuser1232• 9 years ago

I sometimes wonder why it's so easy to forget about luck when we are successful. The mind can create an illusion, an alternative world where luck is less relevant.

projektir2• 9 years ago

I think luck is mostly blamed for failure because no energy is expended on it in that direction.

I.e., if you are lucky enough to be able to work on something that earns you lots of money, you may still end up having to spend energy/effort/time on something to earn that money. Even if the situation is lucky, there's effort being expended, and in a relative sense, the amount of luck is irrelevant to the amount of effort.

I.e., "you're lucky to be able to be a software engineer" != "you did no work and got everything for free".

On the other hand, bad luck can hit out of nowhere in the form of random medical expenses.

I think that's generally what's happening. When people work for something and then get it, they generally aren't going to consider that the availability of the situation itself is luck, because they're more focused on the work they put in. When bad things happen to them, or when good things don't happen, the individual often has nothing to do with it, hence it looking like pure luck.

JamesBarney2• 9 years ago

Good point, you not only need luck, but also need to be born with enough talent to take advantage of it.

bamurphymac14• 9 years ago

Being born talented isn't a matter of luck? ;)

flukus3• 9 years ago

you also have to have enough talent to capitalize on the opportunity.

Talent comes down to luck in large part. Sure you have to hone it, but you also have to be born with it and at the right time and place to be able make use of it.

sbov• 9 years ago

I chose to major in CS the same year the dotcom bubble burst. Nevermind the specter of outsourcing at the time. Due to those and many other factors, I am completely where I am by luck - at the time for all I knew I was basically majoring in candle making.

yen223• 9 years ago

Back in the mid-2000's I chose not to major in CS despite having a strong interest in the area, largely due to the doom-and-gloom news surrounding tech in the wake of the dotcom bubble burst.

To a certain extent, I'm still paying for that mistake.

Density• 9 years ago

Don't get too upset. Unemployment rates for new grads are pretty atrocious tyool 2017.

justinzollars• 9 years ago

Same! I decided on a major Fall of 2000, just months after the tech bubble burst. But, I ended up in Tech and Silicon Valley anyways.

Bucephalus355• 9 years ago

I've heard people say they were encouraged not to major in CS because of the belief that all of those jobs would be outsourced. This is from people starting college in 06 and 07. It's amazing to think people thought that at one time, and even scarier when I wonder what other concepts do I think are true now that will be just as laughable in the future.

flukus3• 9 years ago

When I started mine in Australia (around 03 I think) the teachers selling the course said "don't worry, more work is outsourced to Australia than outsourced from Australia". He was completely wrong, but fortunately there were enough jobs for that to not matter.

Meekro• 9 years ago

I started college in 2005, and believed at the time that most programming work was being outsourced to India. I blame Slashdot for putting that idea in my head -- that forum seemed to be full of out-of-work programmers and IT guys who spent all day complaining about how hard it is to make ends meet.

Fortunately, I majored in CS anyway because I had been passionate about it all my life. I only discovered that I was wrong to worry when I graduated in 2009 and was flooded with job offers. I still wonder why those Slashdotters were having so much trouble finding work.

amelius• 9 years ago

I'm wondering if there are people who actively try to eliminate certain types of luck from their lives, for example because they think it would make life too easy.

lettergram3• 9 years ago

I personally turned down all the government grant money I was offered for school. I didn't feel it was right to take peoples tax money. I did take other grants and loans supported by companies, individuals, or the university.

I did it because of principle. I didn't / don't think it was moral correct for the government to take tax money and hand it to someone blindly. It should be a choice of individuals to contribute, not the right of the masses.

Not exactly luck, but most people look at me like I'm insane. I'm sure there are people out there willing to eliminate luck for a similar reason.

ams6110• 9 years ago

Chance favors the prepared. Everyone has countless opportunities, but only some recognize and act upon them.

0xbear• 9 years ago

Chance also favors those who expose themselves to it. It is very easy to sit on ones ass for a decade, with a narrow and constant social circle, without trying anything new.

AstralStorm3• 9 years ago

Misfavors too. We have limited time and mental resources to manage social circles. Someone falls off the list.

Ann's whether a new circle will be beneficial is not obvious.

petraeus2• 9 years ago

countless? how about for a chinese orphan born during the tiananmen square massacre? I could count those opportunities on one hand

Can_Not• 9 years ago

Some people never got a chance to become prepared.

eli_gottlieb2• 9 years ago

No, actually. I know that I've started from way behind most people in my demographic cohort, made incredibly mediocre choices, and lucked out in a lot of ways... to still end up mediocre.

Fuck luck.

tertius• 9 years ago

to still end up mediocre.

It's not the end my friend.

AstralStorm3• 9 years ago

Over time, number of opportunities rarely increases. (But sometimes their quality does.)

eli_gottlieb2• 9 years ago

Working on it, but we'll have to wait and see.

deegles• 9 years ago

Mediocre is relative. Having the ability to browse the internet and post on a forum such as HN means you're already exposed to a lot more tech than 50% of the world's population.

KekDemaga2• 9 years ago

75% of the world lives on less than $10 a day, I'd wager everyone here is in the top 10% or better.

rublev4• 9 years ago

My entire life is luck. Sometimes I have a moment of appreciation where I realize it fully and laugh to myself maniacally wondering when and how the streak will end. I've never attributed much of my success to anything but right place right time. Honestly most people could do my job if they tried, I just happened to meet the right people. I got into my career accidentally. Accidentally met my fiancee. Accidentally met all of my best friends, just on the bus, or at a park or something. Sometimes I think about if I just tweaked any one of those happenstances how it would all fall apart. The thought tickles me greatly.

For example, I heard about crypto because some guy in WoW wanted to buy my character off of me painlessly. He told me to register on btc-e, then I got a bunch of BTC and that was it. 5 years later I hear about crypto again, remembered those coins, and boom, life changed. All because I was in some virtual world at 3am on a Thursday trying to sell off my WoW character for beer money for the next day.

senatorobama• 9 years ago

What's your net worth?

rublev4• 9 years ago

Enough to not work and day trade (lose) shit coins all day. On the other hand life is sort of pointless now. Trying to avoid the hedonic treadmill.

I'm not rich, I can just pay my rent for a decade and a half before really having to dip into savings.

foota• 9 years ago

Wanna buy me a lottery ticket?

rublev4• 9 years ago

I feel like that's the final straw that will break my streak. Don't want to overplay my hand :P

forgotpw1123• 9 years ago

holy shit

flukus3• 9 years ago

We got a home computer in the very early 90's (Amiga 500) and dad bought me programming books for it. I was afforded the time to use those. I came out quite good in the brain department of the genetic lottery.

Those three bits of luck make up a huge part of where I am today.

lettergram3• 9 years ago

You know, recently my wife and I (25 yo) bought our first house. For the most part, it's larger and nicer than the rest of my family members. I bought it because it was a great deal, and I needed a big house if I wanted to invite my large family over. Given it's about 2 hours away from where most of them live.

The first thing a couple family members said to us was, "you're so lucky!" And quite honestly just that infurates me. It's one of the most insulting phrases I think I've ever been told. I know they didn't mean it, and I actually questioned why I was so mad there for a while. Obviously, I didn't let the family member know, but later, my wife told me she was just as mad.

A bit of back story, my family was poor. I had to start working at 14 to pay for my clothes, sports, really anything. Now, I never went hungry and always had a home - so it wasn't the worst. We all pitched in, and it taught me a lot and made me tough. I literally pride myself that I kept a Pentium III computer until I was 19 going (aka 7 years or something).

In high school, I taught myself to program and worked odd jobs to make money. In college, I did the same. I went to junior college, worked 40 hours a week, then transferred to UIUC where I continued working 40 hours a week, and took a full course load. I graduated with a 3.1 GPA - cutting it as close as I could to keep a 3.0+ average, while still supporting myself. In the end, I still have $70k loans (In part, because I helped my now wife who was astranged from her parents, aka no student loans possible).

I've had so much bad luck I can't explain it here. Sure I didn't get cancer, but I have severe allergies, I have a learning disability [1], my wife and I had to fight in court with her crazy parents, so on and so forth.

Now, we are both living in a nice house. She's about to start her PhD in Neuroscience. I have a good job, and we are both starting a company (which makes some pocket change). Luck right?

The point is, I work hard 80 hours a week; my wife the same.

So fuck luck. We've earned it.

Things fall the way they do, we've had a hundred failures for every success, but the success is what counts. I'm not going to apologize for getting lucky, nor am I going to blame luck for failures. All you can do is constantly position yourself for success.

I've been in positions that benefit me, the best example is actually my teachers kicking me out of my "regular" course work in high school. They told me if I wanted to graduate I had to start in the honors courses. Is that luck? I definitely had teachers who cared, but it was what they saw that made it count. We (as in people) make our own luck, through our personalities, our perseverance, our ethic.

That family member who says "your so lucky" implies they don't understand how tough it can be. They either don't have the ethic, or have given up. Sure things can fall in your lap, but even then. Keep positioning to do better, else you increase the potential bad luck.

If for instance, I stopped after my teachers pushed me into honors courses, then I probably wouldn't have had any future luck, right? It's the perseverance and drive that keeps us going.

Articles like this, breed whiners and failures. What's the PG quote, "Startups rarely die in mid keystroke. So keep typing!"[2].

Make your own luck, and don't give up.

------

[1] http://austingwalters.com/please-excuse-my-grammar/

[2] http://www.paulgraham.com/die.html

twh2702• 9 years ago

Way to go, and thanks for sharing a bit of your story. "Make your own luck, and don't give up" is absolutely great. Respect to you for all your hard work and the success you've achieved because of it. And I'm sorry for the struggles you refer to (fighting in court with your wife's parents). That just sucks, no matter the outcome. Sympathies and I hope those relationships can be better someday.

bandushrew• 9 years ago

Truths are not usually exclusive.

Its true you have worked hard all your life, and overcome many obstacles.

Its also true that many people do all of that, and are still unable to attain the lifestyle you have (whatever it may be).

You have worked hard and overcome many obstacles and been very lucky.

That is pretty cool.

lettergram3• 9 years ago

Maybe I'm confused about the term luck, but usually it refers the chance of a good (or bad) event happening.

I guess my whole point was, you're job is to position luck to fall in your favor. It's a lot of work, but it's controllable. Making it seem like it's not (to some extent) controllable, is just doing a disservice to everyone.

madengr• 9 years ago

If you want to see how much luck directs your outcomes, just flip a coin for every decision, instead of calculated choices.

gexla• 9 years ago

Luck is a short term fluctuation in Texas Hold'em. Over the long term, the fluctuations of luck smooth out. A given action could win or lose on one hand, but over the long term, the return (or loss) will reflect the strength of the decision.

In real life, lottery wins happen, but not often enough to bank on.

projektir2• 9 years ago

Except there's no balancing measure to make the various events equally impactful. There's nothing out there to even out or amortize luck effects. There's no nice pseudo-randomness mechanic to make things "fair" or "fun". The effects are often catastrophically long-term and there's no smoothing out. Why would you think otherwise? Why would you compare life to a human-made game? Life is explicitly not a game, it's not fair, it's not fun, it's not balanced.

Being born a human is huge. Being born in the right country is huge. Being born without genetic problems is huge. Being born to decent parents is huge. These account for the vast majority of a given's person experience pool. Once you get to individual decisions, all the most important things have already been determined. If you're sitting at a place where you feel like you can make all the important decisions yourself, you're already way ahead of the game.

The other problem is that decisions are not fully free and are very strongly influenced by luck, as well. Things like education, information availability, clarity of mind, and, if you want to go there, fluid intelligence, likely influence the quality of your decisions, and that's also luck. Everyone wants to make all the best decisions, otherwise you're saying that lots of people are deliberately trying to reduce the quality of their lives...

xapata• 9 years ago

Texas Hold'em is IID -- events are independent and identically distributed. Life is non-stationary, with autoregressive conditional variance. Heck, for some aspects of life, the mean and variance are undefined.

It doesn't always smooth out in the long term, except for that in the long run we're all dead.

AstralStorm3• 9 years ago

So far. Technically immortality is not out of question but a really long shot.

brudgers• 9 years ago

Living requires playing the hand that is dealt. Everyone gets one and only one and some people sit down at the table with no chips.

KGIII• 9 years ago

I dislike the term luck, I prefer chance or happenstance. I am where I am because of being, by chance, in the right place, at the right time, and able to take risks.

petraeus2• 9 years ago

imagine playing texas holdem where the dealer always deals you two aces, thats basically being a white american male

turc1656• 9 years ago

I'm so sick of seeing articles like this. And it seems like a cop out or excuse people can tell themselves if they don't get what they want.

I think the old adage that luck is when preparedness meets opportunity is much closer to being the truth. Look at the example they give with Bryan Cranston. That's an opportunity that happened to open up for him through a series of events outside of his control. But he wouldn't have been offered that part if he wasn't of a certain caliber in the first place. Successful people generally work hard and usually that pays off in the long term for them by being able to seize opportunities when they arise. No one is going to run after you to say "hey I have this great thing that you need to be involved in" if you are mediocre.

I can smell the privilege and white guilt ideology that underpins articles like this. I've seen it before in much lengthier pieces. This one is no different.

boomboomsubban2• 9 years ago

That's an opportunity that happened to open up for him through a series of events outside of his control. But he wouldn't have been offered that part if he wasn't of a certain caliber in the first place.

How many actors were of that quality and didn't get a series of events leading to that opportunity? Opportunities arising are luck, no one is saying hard work isn't necessary to take advantage of the opportunities.

I can smell the privilege and white guilt ideology that underpins articles like this. I've seen it before in much lengthier pieces. This one is no different.

This one is different as it does not take the further step of showing how rich white men tend to get far more opportunities than other groups. If you start from the question "what makes people successful," you will see luck playing a role before you look to see which people are luckier. Saying that a "white guilt ideology" drives this is looking at it backwards.

bamurphymac14• 9 years ago

Why did Cranston develop into that caliber of actor? Hard work, sure. But what made him work hard? Why was he the type of person to do that and not to sit back and relax?

What made him make those choices?

throwawayAB1F• 9 years ago

I owe my life to luck.

Two years ago I suffered an extreme bout of depression and hung myself. I'd apparently called 911 beforehand so that someone prepared would find my body. The police got there first and cut me down, but I was not breathing and had aspirated (vomited into my lungs). The ambulance arrived and took me to a nearby hospital where they performed an endotracheal intubation (tube through the mouth, down the esophagus) and hooked me up to a ventilator. I was sedated for 10 days, put on longer-term life support (tracheotomy and PEG feeding tube, etc. It was expected that I would almost certainly have brain damage if I survived. The aspiration had lead to substantial pneumonia, further complicating treatment. When I awoke I was hallucinating from the sedatives and had lost all memory of the week leading up to the suicide attempt. After a few days they were able to take me off the ventilator and just use oxygen, and eventually the tracheotomy tube was removed from my throat. Luckily the opening healed, and I could speak and breath on my own. I was transferred to an inpatient mental health facility and learned to better cope with depression. There was no brain damage. Hanging has a higher rate of completed suicides than shooting. Almost all of the incomplete (survival) hangings result in permanent brain damage. I am ridiculously lucky. My survival is due to the hard work of a large number of people, for which I will always be grateful. But there's still a lot of luck involved.

pakaibuang• 9 years ago

Welcome back.

ntrepid8• 9 years ago

I think being born white, male, and good at math at this particular time in history is the very definition of luck. I'm definitely playing the game of life on "easy" mode.

That being said I think there is a minimum level of effort, intelligence, and resilience required to take advantage of certain lucky opportunities if they present themselves. When I look at how much some of my peers had to endure and overcome to reach those minimums compared to what I had to do, it's easy to see how lucky I've been.

steveeq1• 9 years ago

I think being born white, male, and good at math at this particular time in history is the very definition of luck.

And being an asian, male, and good at math isn't?

valesco• 9 years ago

Being white means that you have a higher probability to be born in a developed country too.

saltedmd5• 9 years ago

That being said I think there is a minimum level of effort, intelligence, and resilience required to take advantage of certain lucky opportunities if they present themselves.

Lucky you for having been born with willpower and smarts, then.

twh2702• 9 years ago

Cranston got to play Walter White, the school-teacher-turned-meth-dealer in Breaking Bad, because two talented actors, John Cusack and Matthew Broderick, refused the part.

If you buy into oversimplifications and weak analysis, this article probably appeals to you.

Success, overwhelmingly, looks a lot like hard work. That hard work might present in a lot of different ways, but it is almost always there. And mostly when it's not, the "success" was not truly earned.

boomboomsubban2• 9 years ago

Success, overwhelmingly, looks a lot like hard work.

And if two people do the hard work with one becoming much more of a success? It's not either or, luck plays a huge factor. Acting is an easy example, how many thousands of people work hard to become an actor? What evidence is there that the successes worked harder?

norswap• 9 years ago

Interesting to see no mention of Fooled by Randomness either in the article on in the comments. Isn't that the central thesis of that very influential book?

RachelF2• 9 years ago

It is one of many topics in "Fooled by Randomness". However, Taleb's views on luck profoundly influenced how I see the world.

RcouF1uZ4gsC• 9 years ago

I am extremely lucky:

1. I did not end up as a spontaneous abortion (if you include fertilized eggs that don't implant, 70-75% of conceptions end in a spontaneous abortion.

2. I did not have any severe genetic abnormalities

3. I was born healthy and full term

4. I was born to parents that loved me and took good care of me and did not abuse or neglect me.

5. I was born in a developed country

6. I was born at a time in history with generally low levels of violence

7. I was born in a time in history when they had treatments for common infections and other childhood conditions

8. I was born in a time in history and a place that encouraged individual freedom.

9. I learned English as my first language

10. My parents had enough money to buy me a computer

11. My parents had enough money to buy me programming books

12. My parents believed in children going to college

13. I had good friends that did not get me in trouble.

solomatov• 9 years ago

Not all of these events can be considered random. Spontaneous abortion is definitely stochastic process. But you don't have a distribution of being born at a particular time, i.e. you can't talk about probability of being born nowadays vs 100 years ago.

nnfy2• 9 years ago

I think being born white, male

That is an ABSURDLY racist and sexist thing to say, and it is terrifying to me that it is becoming not only socially acceptable, but socially required, to believe and say such things.

What happens to people of all colors/genders if racism/sexism becomes socially acceptable again?

Mouse47• 9 years ago

What? There's nothing racist/sexist about acknowledging that racism/sexism isn't as much of a problem for certain groups of people. And I'm pretty far from being an SJW. Being this disingenuous does nothing but weaken your side's argument.

gyardley3• 9 years ago

Dude, come on. Pointing out that racism and sexism has made things harder for people that aren't white and male is not the same thing as being racist and sexist yourself.

I know you are smart enough to be able to appreciate this difference, so stop being disingenuous.

basurihn8• 9 years ago

I know a lot of poor white dudes in West Virginia. Amazing how being white and male brought them luck and overrode all forms of class discrimination against them...

Oh wait, no it didn't.

Funny how I can dress in a hoodie, fake a pimp walk, and get an equal amount of discrimination against me.

Or put in some fake teeth and speak with a southern accent.

Or just be myself and experience discrimination when in a poorer neighborhood.

Its mostly about class nowadays, except in isolated bumfuck areas way out of the cities.

dang• 9 years ago

This breaks the HN guidelines against flamewars. In fact it's exactly the sort of thing most of us come here to avoid, so please don't post like this again.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15086798 and marked it off-topic.

nnfy2• 9 years ago

I'd just like to point out that I was wasn't the one who introduced the "flamewar topic" of race and success, and so a just application of the rules would place https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15086798 at the head of this detached subthread.

gyardley3• 9 years ago

Hell, no. I know I've been lucky.

I also know that while I was lucky, I wouldn't have been in a position to be lucky if I hadn't made some good decisions. I didn't just sit back and wait to be lucky.

The way to maximize the role of luck in your life is to behave like luck has no role in your life.

maroonblazer• 9 years ago

Where were you born? Was it in a war-torn or poverty-stricken third world circumstance? Were your parents emotionally or physically abusive to you? Were you born with mostly normal cognitive function? Without any significant physical handicap?

I.e. even though you made some good decisions, you were still lucky to be born/raised in an environment and with a body that enabled you to make those good decisions.

I agree with your last sentence.

basurihn8• 9 years ago

Thanks for this insight. I think all of these things could easily permanently handicap anyone.

And I have serious respect for those who manage to overcome these issues, if luckily.

nradov• 9 years ago

As a child I won a free computer in a drug store drawing and that got me into programming. If I hadn't won I might have ended up in a totally different career. Luck plays a huge role.

brandonmenc• 9 years ago

I was born in America in the latter part of the 20th century. That alone makes me luckier than just about every human who has ever lived.

BatFastard• 9 years ago

Luck is being in the right place at the right time, and education and experience are key in that, or course a little bit of lucky never hurts.

qbit• 9 years ago

The reality is, everything comes down to luck. We are all ultimately a product of our genes plus our conditioning, neither of which we control. And any decisions we make are a function of those two things, so they are also out of our control.

bamurphymac14• 9 years ago

I'm always surprised how few people are willing to just come out and say this (to me very obvious) truth.

It's rare enough that I feel the need to express some kind of solidarity / comraderie to someone else dated to look at the world the same way.

So well done (not like you had a choice.)

lostmsu• 9 years ago

Came from low-medium income Russian family ($9k/y household), made it to multiple $100k/y total comp. in one of the big 4.

But here's a thing: pretty much anyone of my old non-CS schoolmates/university friends would call that 'luck', but somehow most of them would consider a suggestion to learn Computer Science to be arrogant.

mnm1• 9 years ago

Most people do. The luck isn't that, like many here, I got into computers at an early age, had the free time to teach myself, and was smart enough to. I would likely be programming anyway and so would many here. The luck is that there are good paying jobs in computers. It doesn't have to be this way and in fact, in most of the world, it's not. Programming jobs could be paying a median wage. They could be few and far between. That's where I and others like me got lucky, IMO.

natecavanaugh• 9 years ago

A lot of these posts, while I appreciate the gratitude and they're great, don't seem to show the gratitude for the seemingly bad circumstances or those less than ideal.

I am insanely lucky for my strait, white male privilege. But I'm lucky for every disadvantage that taught me empathy and patience with those not so lucky. It taught me that manifest destiny may be present in our lives, but it's value is to help connect and help those whose life didn't go the same path. I think gratitude is a truly differentiating factor when interacting with others.

My merit means nothing if it only exists to serve me. Meaning is found by leveraging those strengths for others :)

weddpros• 9 years ago

I wouldn't be where I am today, living the dream life on a sunny island, if I didn't have a stroke at 33 at lost my dad at 36. Lucky me!

That's exactly the same bias as in this article. "Luck" is only a post-hoc interpretation of stochastic events. Explaining these events by "luck" is like explaining them by "good angels" or "aliens influence": pointless.

That not science, and making any conclusion based on this "research" is a bad idea.

Are you really surprised if people tend to downplay luck, angels or aliens?

Luck is like religions, trying to find meaning in something supernatural...

bamurphymac14• 9 years ago

If you answer this "no I worked hard" it's a good exercise to examine the prior conditions that led you to hard work.

Keep following that chain back; honestly keep asking yourself how everything isn't a matter of luck.

Are You Downplaying Luck’s Role in Your Life?

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