Have you ever worked really, REALLY hard to accomplish something, maybe worked for years only to have some people say, "You're so lucky."?

Yes! I just laugh. ;)

Wow..there ARE people out there! I’ve been here for an hour and a half and this is one of the first responses I’ve gotten! I was starting to think my buttons were broke, or everyone had died and gone to Fluther heaven without me!

Absolutely. They say I’m lucky about everything, forgetting what they know about my tenacity, my tendency to take huge risks they never would, etc. They think having 2 kids, 5 pets, a job (plus community work with my organization) and degrees and love and time to myself and managing a household with 3 elderly and opinionated Russian women has to do with luck. Yeah, good luck with that.

They are not always losers in my opinion, but they seem to lack the understanding that luck usually means extreme preparedness intersecting with opportunity. This means lucky people tend to work very hard.

Lucky people also tend to be more aware, have their attennas up. They did a nonscientific study of people who identify themselves as lucky and those who say they are unlucky. They placed money on the ground to see who noticed it. Self identified lucky people noticed the money much more often than the unlucky.

My husband gets accused of being lucky, he is one of the hardest working, focused people, I know.

Hard word obviously plays a huge part in it…. If you didn’t bust your ass off of course you wouldn’t have accomplished it.

But trust me, luck plays a role too. You could have been unlucky enough to be hit by a tornado, catch cancer, see all of your stocks crash in the market, suffer an injury that limited or stopped your ability to work, been unfortunate enough to work for a company that was mis-managed and had to lay you off (despite being a hard worker)......

I don’t see it as a discredit to your hard work by any means. More just an acknowledgment that not all of the hard workers end up winning.

‘Ooh, aren’t you clever…’ has been the most common idiocy. Deeply patronising and totally without regard for the hard work. I’ve always worked hard, often for others, mostly found that those who are unappreciative are jealous – maybe of the simple willingness to give it a go. ‘you’re lucky’, or worse ‘your so lucky’, have generally made me grit my teeth, since there is no luck at all in a major health problem, nor in the willingness to attempt to overcome it. Grrrrr…rrrrr.rrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

@tedd I was just thinking about that…you’re right, too! There is a certain amount of luck in EVERYONE’S life! And to not recognize it would be arrogant.

@JLeslie I posted this earlier here…but it’s gone MIA: You said, ”...luck usually means extreme preparedness intersecting with opportunity. ” and that was very, very succinct and well said! I knew there was a reason I liked it here!

I just bought my business I worked for for the last 15 years…“you’re so lucky”!

Just sing “that” Kylie song at them, only with a pissed expression….oh you know which song, I know you do XD

When I told my aunt I was starting a PhD program, she said, “God blessed you with such brains!” I know she meant it to be nice, but I don’t really feel like that dude had anything to do with it.

It is very frustrating to have all of your hard work dismissed as “luck.” I would relpy, “No, it’s not luck; it’s hard work!”

Yes, I have a temper tantrum in my head, but then realize that they themselves are the lucky ones to be still living in a community that bashes on ignorant people. :)

Yes. I used weight, pills, and pumps for years to create my elephantine genitalia only to have fellas constantly tell me, at the gym, “You’re so lucky!”.

they have no idea how much effort and money i spent.

A photographer posted a story once. He went over to dinner at a new friend’s invitation. They complimented him on his work early on in the evening and they ooh’d and ahhh’d over his work and the host said….‘You must have a really great camera!’ He didn’t say anything….

They had dinner and after they ate, he complimented on the good food and said, ‘You must have really good pots and pans.’

‘nuff said.

I have people tell me all the time I’m lucky for various reasons but I take it lightly because most people I don’t know well enough to share the un lucky or tough things I’ve gone through. The people who count, the people important to me know how I work and how I live.

cmon people I thought I’d get a ton of lurve for that quip…

You could say, ‘Yes, I’m lucky all my hard work paid off.’

“The thoughtless, the ignorant, and the indolent, seeing only the apparent effects of things and not the things themselves, talk of luck, of fortune, and chance. See a man grow rich, they say, “How lucky he is!” Observing another become intellectual, they exclaim, “How highly favored he is!” And noting the saintly character and wide influence of another, the remark, “How chance aids him at every turn!”

They do not see the trials and failures and struggles which these men have voluntarily encountered in order to gain their experience. They have no knowledge of the sacrifices they have made, of the undaunted efforts they have put forth, of the faith they have exercised, that they might overcome the apparently insurmountable, and realize the Vision of their heart. They do not know the darkness and the heartaches; they only see the light and joy, and call it “luck”; do not see the long and arduous journey, but only behold the pleasant goal, and call it “good fortune”; do not understand the process, but only perceive the result, and call it “chance.”

In all human affairs there are efforts, and there are results, and the strength of the effort is the measure of the result. Chance is not. “Gifts,” powers, material, intellectual, and spiritual possessions are the fruits of effort. They are thoughts completed, objects accomplished, visions realized.

The vision that you glorify in your mind, the Ideal that you enthrone in your heart – this you will build your life by, this you will become.”

- James Allen
”As A Man Thinketh”

@nikipedia Perhaps God didn’t have a thing to do with the fact that you have a higher than average intelligence, but you didn’t have anything to do with it either. There is nothing a person can do to make themselves more intelligent, just more knowledgeable and educated. In your case that IS random luck. When you obtain your PhD, however, that won’t be due to luck. It’ll be due to hard work and diligence. Good luck with it btw! Wait….did I just say that?!

@Dutchess_III I disagree. I think we are born with an IQ range, but depending on our environment we reach our highest potential of intelligence or don’t. So it has some to do with the person and their upbringing in my opinion.

I agree with that, @JLeslie, but for each person there is a limit. What that limit is, is their luck of the draw. Whether they ever reach their limit does depend on the person’s experiences, definitely. However, not many people could ever come close to Einstein’s IQ, or Hawkins IQ, no matter what they did.

Also, if you take two people born into the same family in whatever culture, and one is innately smarter than the other, the smarter one will still have advantages within their own culture. I mean, I’ve taught kids who had NO chance. Parents were alcoholics, druggies, drifters, you name it, but you can definitely tell Kid A is smarter than the average kid their age. They just “get it.” Even if another, less intelligent kid their age has all the advantages, and gets a good education, in the end they still won’t be as innately smart as the kid that got lost. And those kids are the ones who REALLY break my heart….

@Dutchess_III We agree.

Yes we do. I agree to give you a GA, which I did, and you agree to give me a GA, which you will. Agreed? :)

Gotta go ta bed!!