this post was submitted on 01 Mar 2024
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[–] [email protected] 49 points 8 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 49 points 8 months ago (1 children)

That's just a different kind of luck

[–] [email protected] 19 points 8 months ago

Born on third base and convinced I hit a triple.

[–] [email protected] 42 points 8 months ago (5 children)

This is 100% true, but you also have to be prepared for the moment you get lucky.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

I think the comic is pointing out the exact opposite problem: They ARE prepared and disciplined, but luck is far too great a factor.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Indeed. You need luck but if you don't have discipline, tenacity and ability your chances to get lucky fall dramatically.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 8 months ago

Luck is when opportunity meets preparation.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I consider my current career success to be due to a great deal of luck, but I also can't deny that a lot of work went into being ready when that moment finally came.

Hard work doesn't always translate to success, but you can definitely nudge the dice in your favor - especially with a more "holistic" approach to life.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Success is where luck meets opportunity.

If you don't give yourself the opportunity you can never be lucky. The better you can set yourself up for opportunities the better you can make luck work for you when it arrives, both good and bad.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I think we put a lot of emphasis on "luck", while neglecting what success actually looks like.

A lot of that "luck" manifests as benefiting from the status quo. A hundred people line up for a job and ten people get it. Those ten "got lucky", perhaps even by having developed a particularly valuable set of skills that are exceptionally useful in that moment. But then you ask what they "got lucky" doing. And it turns out we're describing Don Draper-esque ad executives profiting off the cigarette industry. Or WWE wrestlers who share Vince McMahon's taste in victims. Or bank managers who had some of their best sales years in 2007 and got out before the card tower collapsed.

When you're focused on "success", its worth asking what you're even trying to succeed at. Particularly when so much of what makes a modern Success Story in America comes down to boiler room scams, physical/sexual abuse, and the most toxic forms of industrial output in human history.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

These are good points.

Success to me is health, friends and family, video games, and being able to do something I love while making enough money to maximize those things as best as I can. It's always a balance.

I think everyone should define success on thier own terms. I feel lucky that none of the typical western desires of status or shiny objects interest me at all.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I think everyone should define success on thier own terms.

I think that works at some level. But you're opening the door to some Wolf of Wall Street style sociopaths making life miserable for the rest of us so they can jockey for biggest bank account.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

You can't choose what other people are allowed to think.

There are always going to be evil people. Things that lead to evil people doing more damage then good is what regulation is for, like workplace safety, etc.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

You can’t choose what other people are allowed to think.

That's functionally what education is. Not so much "allowed" as "inclined". But establishing social obligations and taboos is sort of foundational to any cohesive cultural movement.

There are always going to be evil people.

I don't doubt it. But its important to define what "evil" standards for in order to rally against it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

Tenacity yes that was covered

[–] [email protected] 21 points 8 months ago (2 children)

A person once told me that in life you need to learn to be lucky. When I asked him how to learn that he replied that you need to want to be lucky. And that's it.

He was very serious and, to some extent, I think he wasn't saying something crazy (and in fact he's been very successful in his life, without resorting to help from others).

I think he meant we make our own luck: we work as hard as possible to create several occasions and maybe we screw lots of them but, if we try, try again, we can seize some of them.

I suppose the message really was: you need to be persistent. If you're so dedicated, you end up grabbing some opportunities you didn't even know existed (but you kind of created)

Thanks for coming to my TED talk... Be lucky!

[–] [email protected] 12 points 8 months ago (2 children)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_(Byrne_book)

The Secret is a 2006 self-help book by Rhonda Byrne, based on the earlier film of the same name. It is based on the belief of the pseudoscientific law of attraction, which claims that thought alone can influence objective circumstances within ones life

Just a modern day spin on the Prosperity Gospel.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

That's an interesting (though different) take of how people can convince you to be lucky!

Wow, this book actually claims thinking can change reality to make it how you'd like it...

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

Oh wow, the book was based on the movie? That explains some things.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago

That's the "tenacity" bit in this comic.

You won't get lucky and win the lottery unless you buy a ticket. But there's still a huge amount of luck involved once you make the effort.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago

It takes luck to get an opportunity.

It takes skill to capitalize on that opportunity.

Of all extremely important life lessons to have had firmly pointed out to me, I would never have expected something this grounded and helpful to have come from a minecraft youtuber, but such is life. (Technoblade's three videos on the Potato War)

[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago

The real key is lowered expectations? /s :-P

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago

Tenacity is measured in the amount of extra resources you have to try repeatedly

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

It is I, Nagito Komaeda; the Ultimate Lucky Student!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago

Luck is when preparation meets opportunity.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

Wasn't there a Fort Minor song about this?