Do you get equally annoyed with someone who thinks you where born under a lucky star but you feel they make their own misery?

Yeah, I’ve had this conversation before.

Yes, I do think people make their own misery. And that is often the kind of person who views other people as being “lucky.”

@thrifymaid I’m sorry if this question has repeated before but in the 3 months I’ve been on here I have not encountered it. If I had then I would’ve just read those remarks.

@Pandora I didn’t mean I’d had the conversation before on Fluther. I have, in fact, been told that my life is as it is because I am lucky. The person who said this to me spent a lifetime making poor decisions. That conversation went deep into the night.

“Fortune favors the prepared mind.”—Louis Pasteur

@thrifymaid Did they still think you where just lucky, or did it make them understand where they made their own life the way it was?

Being upper-middle or upper class is being born lucky.

Aside from that small proportion of the population,
most people will only make it if they try hard and act sensible.

@The_Idler I’ve met people from well to do families who crashed and burned. Not so sure money always makes you lucky. Just not hungry.

@Pandora In the end he agreed with me. All he saw was a house, car, education, and good job. I shared with him what it took to get there. It had nothing to do with luck.

@Pandora well yeah, the luck of their birth doesn’t guarantee anything, but it is the only kind of birth that could be described as “lucky”.

Most of them will have to put in little to no effort to attain professional status (or not even bother, for the upper classes) and continue living an extremely comfortable life, and enable the same for their children.

I am not middle class and, like almost everyone else, I will have to work very hard to become a professional. Once I am a professional though, I will be able to afford to educate my children similarly, and so the middle-class is.

@The_Idler I think the word lucky is used to loosely. You can be born into a family with money who’s parents are abusive or neglectful because they value the almighty dollar and their possessions then their children. I once babysat a neighbors child who was 5 at the time. Her mother had just attempted suicide.(She didn’t know what her mom tried to do. She just thought she was sick.) I told her she was so lucky to have all the toys and nice things she had. She said she wasn’t lucky because she never gets to spend time with her parents. Dad was gone a lot and mom worked 2 jobs. Found out later mom tried suicide because she felt she failed as a mom. Her 5 year old told her about the abuse her little brother was recieving from the babysitter after she found a bruise on him. The little girl was afraid to tell because she threatened to hurt her mom.

@cockswain – Zombies, however, prefer it raw.

Some people seem to know how to either make the right decisions more often, and that’s because they’ve been taught to trust themselves from the get-go, or they have learned how to make the best of what could appear to be unfortunate circumstances, events or decisions. That’s not luck, that’s self-awareness, self-mastery and self-esteem. People like that don’t take setbacks as permanent or indicative of their true selves, but as something external to them and temporary. Martin Seligman talks a lot about just this topic:

Authentic Happiness

Well, I got a little annoyed when I was told I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth (the guy was not being mean, but I was tempted to say “fuck off”). I was born into a wealthy family and raised by excellent parents, so yes, my life has been smooth sailing for the most part and that’s a big part of the reason I’m at Stanford right now.

But chance and luck can’t be blamed (negatively or positively) for everything. They certainly play a part and they can affect the outcome of your decisions, but your decisions are just as important. Of course people make their own misery or luck sometimes and once they realize they’re the ones creating that misery and not “society” or “bad luck”, they can begin to improve.

@aprilsimnel Thanks for that title. I think I know a few people I can buy the book for. :)
@DominicX I wouldn’t associate the phrase, being born with a silver spoon, with being lucky. I’ve known people to say it, to mean that when you live in comfort all your life it is more difficult for such a person to understand the depth of the struggles that a poor person may go through. At least that is how I’ve taken it to mean. I had a friend who grew up with maids and nannies all her life and didn’t understand why some people had a hard time picking themselves out of poverty until she lost everything. She didn’t realize how not having enough to feed your family could paralize some with fear and yet motivate others to try harder until it happened to her.
Bravo to you though, because it isn’t necessarily money that will help you get a diploma at Stanford. Yes you may be lucky to afford the education but the grades depend on your skills and not luck.

@Pandora I thought we were talking about “making it” within society, in which case being upper-middle to upper-class is most definitely a lucky birth, in that it takes comparatively little effort for such a person to live a life of secure occupation and social position, with an early retirement and the ability to grant their children the same privilege.

Obviously their childhood and family might be crap. Probably that is actually more likely than in lower-middle class and working-class people, but you look at it different when you’re 30 and our fellow with the “nasty” parents is sure to be earning £60k+ for the rest of his working life (or doesn’t have to work at all), and the other with the “nice” parents could get laid-off any day and can’t afford to save any money or educate his children.

Obviously anyone could have a horrible childhood, whatever their social position, but with regards to success in later life, the only people “born lucky” are those born rich.

@The_Idler Actually I’m asking on a broader term. Like someone who finds 10 dollars when most needed. Or someone who always seems to know someone who can help them out in a time of crisis or the ability to get that rare job that so many applied for.
With the exception of finding money or winning a lottery (which btw, winning the lottery is somewhat lucky but you have to still play. Real luck would be someone dropping the winning ticket and you finding it)