Maybe there is something about fate after all, or shall we call it a destiny?
When you’re relatively young, everything seems feasible and within reach as long as you work hard and keep moving towards your desired goal. And usually nothing else stands on your way.
“Fate, destiny? Who cares… I’ll get what I want if I never stop trying…”
That’s a good mindset, and it works, maybe not always. People give a lot of credit for it, highlighting the importance of hard-work and its almost guaranteed reward.
This is something you often hear from big influencers, from people who has achieved something, from people of “higher” society, or should I just say “wealthier” society. The audience is almost convinced that there is an award waiting for them, if they only do the same thing someone they look up to have tried.
What you don’t hear very often is that “hard-work” is just one of many factors that play in achieving your goal, or reaching the point where you are right now – where others look up to you and wonder - “What on earth this guy did, to be where he is at this young age?!”…
We all wish it worked like that – work hard and succeed – more deterministic.
People are where they are because it simply happened to be. It’s a combination of hard work, right time, their environment and influence of people around them.
Perhaps one’s success is tightly linked to one’s environment more than anything else. Being at the right time, with right number of opportunities places you in a better spot than someone else being in a slightly worse time in an environment with less opportunities. And this is something that is out of individual’s control. And you can’t simply judge people for not working hard enough, to be fair, you shouldn’t judge anyone at all.
I think I’ll just take the privilege and give a fictional case to make my point more story telling.
Imagine two boys born on the same day in the same city.
Alex grows up in a quiet suburb. His father is an engineer who brings home broken gadgets for him to tinker with; his mother teaches at the local high school and knows every scholarship counselor within a hundred miles. By age 15 Alex is soldering circuits in the garage. By 17 he has a paid internship because his dad’s college roommate now runs a small robotics firm. Teachers notice him, investors notice him, doors keep opening before he even knocks. At 22 he sells his first startup for seven figures.
Daniel's parents work long hours to make ends meet. There are no gadgets to tinker with, yet he still finds ways to learn everything he can about electronics. By age 16 he’s already working part-time jobs at a local phone repair shop to help support his family. By 18 he’s exhausted from balancing school and work. Teachers overlook him, opportunities pass him by, doors remain closed no matter how hard he knocks. At 22 he’s still trying to figure out if he should go to college or keep working to support his family. Environments shape people more than we like to admit. It is easy to blame Daniel for not trying hard enough, because admitting the life is partly rigged would force us to question our own standing.
If Daniel “deserves” his outcome, then Alex deserves his, and the rest of us can sleep at night believing we’re exactly where our effort has placed us. The truth is humbler and more unsettling: most of what we call "hard work" is just luck combined with privilege.
This doesn’t mean effort is meaningless. Not at all. It means the effort is not the whole story.
So the next time someone tells you their success came from waking up at 4 a.m. every day then remember Daniel.
And if you happened to be Alex, don't take things for granted, acknowledge the role of luck and environment in your success, and look forward to create opportunities for others.
Because the most dangerous thing we can take for granted isn’t money or status. It’s the illusion that we earned it all by ourselves.