Venting Success is a privilege and has nothing to do with hard work

[RosebyAnyName]

People say you just need to try hard an all that, but it's a lie. The key to success is to have been born in the right conditions.

You think of all these "success stories" of "people who started from nowhere and worked hard to earn their success", like Scott Cawthon or Toby Fox. However, when you look closer, you see people who are already privileged and ahead in life.

These people had a stable family, a strong support net, and were affluent enough to live comfortably *before* they became successful. These pre-existing conditions are required to be successful, and you have no control over them growing up. You never hear stories of people who actually lived below the poverty line becoming wildly successful. People with uncaring parents or who are genetically unsociable don't succeed either.

Look no further than actual difficult arts like piano and ballet. These are professions that at least don't lie to you and tell you that you won't be successful unless you start them as a child. A pianist who starts at 25 will never be as good as a pianist who started at 2 years old, that's just a fact. What people won't seem to accept is that this is true for everything, not just the arts.

Your fate is sealed when you're born, and anyone who tells you that it's about hard work are just trying to placate you. The only thing I wish is that everyone was born and raised into the conditions I was raised in, just to make it fair. As a result, I hope all these assholes who cry about "just try harder" get to suffer and fail, not because anything about them changed, but because all the factors they can't change are actually working against them in a meaningful way.

If you succeeded in life at all then you have never faced true difficulties. You have never actually had to try, you have never actually struggled in any significant way. The fact that you succeeded at all shows that. Meanwhile, the people who have tried harder, who have worked harder and longer, they're the ones who don't succeed. Poor people work like slaves and stay poor. The people who have things and money and opportunities handed to them are not the kind of people who are hard workers, yet they're somehow the ones who think they're the hardest workers or that they've earned / deserve the praise that's handed to them by pure luck.

 

[Hvergelmir]

This is highly disrespectful towards anyone whom had to work.

You have the choice to improve your life, maintain it, or let it decline. If you're in a bad spot, I strongly suggest the former.
...and I strongly oppose vilifying anyone who's working to improve their situations.

 

[Darkover]

The idea that anyone can succeed through hard work is emotionally comforting but statistically false. Studies repeatedly show that socioeconomic mobility is extremely limited. If you're born poor, your chances of becoming wealthy are slim—not because you lack talent or effort, but because:

• You didn't inherit wealth
• You didn't have stable, loving guidance
• You didn't have access to quality education, healthcare, or networks
• You had to survive first, not dream

Those born into middle-class or wealthy families often:

• Get years of piano lessons, coding camps, travel experiences
• Get time and space to fail without consequences
• Get mental and emotional support
• Have parents who can pull strings or offer safety nets

How is that fair competition?

Yes, the hardest-working people in society are often the poorest:

• Migrant workers
• Single parents with two jobs
• Homeless people with chronic illness
• People grinding in low-wage jobs with no upward mobility

And while they're breaking themselves just to survive, someone else "earns" praise and millions for making a game, writing a song, or founding a company—after years of being carried by privilege.

 

[Gustav Hartmann]

I belive in determination and I think that free will is an illusion. So life is rather a movie than a video game. I agree living a successfull happy life means that got by coincidence a better movie to watch. It means on the other hand that you don´t have to care about moral, ethics and resposibility.

 

[Suzzana]

i wholeheartedly agree with everything. I know at some point in life i was good n life is making me worse and bitter i envy and despise people but i try to not wish them ill, although i do get it

 

[cemeteryismyhome]

I think it was Bill Gates who once said luck has a lot to do with success. Being in the right place at the right time. We get twisted impressions of hard work and how it relates to success. For example, mainstream media will celebrate a rags to riches story, but not mention the fact that for every such story, there are thousands if not millions of other people who did basically the exact same thing and didn't make it. But it's useless to be envious of successful people.

 

[quietwoods]

I think it was Bill Gates who once said luck has a lot to do with success. Being in the right place at the right time. We get twisted impressions of hard work and how it relates to success. For example, mainstream media will celebrate a rags to riches story, but not mention the fact that for every such story, there are thousands if not millions of other people who did basically the exact same thing and didn't make it. But it's useless to be envious of successful people.

More this than what's being said above.

Success is absolutely connected to hard work. But hard work is no guarantee of success.

Success = hard work + luck

There's an infinite amount of hard work that can be produced. There's a very finite amount of luck to go around.

And luck tends to compound and follow those who started lucky.

Biggest examples are the acting and music industries. So many talented and hard working people that just never make it anywhere.

 

[TheVanishingPoint]

Your post, beneath its caustic tone, touches with surgical precision one of the great dogmas of Western modernity: meritocracy as an ideological apparatus.
And you are right: this is not cynicism. It is anatomical observation. The tale of self-determination is the societal anesthetic used to mask the brutality of birth.

"Success," as told in motivational manuals and stage talks, is a secondary function of material, genetic, and affective preconditions. It's not about "starting from zero," but rather about what kind of zero one inherits.
Some are born with cultural, relational, and psychological capital.
Others are born already in collapse.

The collective obsession with "success stories" exists to hide the unacceptable: that the individual is not autonomous, but determined. That our choices arise from non-negotiable contexts. That freedom is often an ontological fiction, crafted to pacify the masses and safeguard the elite.

You cited the arts as an example of systemic honesty — and I agree entirely. Classical music, ballet, Olympic fencing: they do not lie. They declare loudly what every other field conceals: if you didn't start as a child, you will never enter the temple.
The rest hides behind a façade of false egalitarianism. "You can make it too," provided you had stable parents, access to education, no trauma, proper nutrition, safety, affection, and time.

This is what Michel Foucault would call biopower: the governance of life through the narrative of individual responsibility.

And this is why your post is so abrasive: because it denies the epic of the sovereign individual.
It exposes what even sociologists hesitate to state outright: that the foundational variables of success precede merit.
And that those who thrive have rarely built from nothing. At best, they continued what their environment had already arranged.


The only point where I diverge — and I do so not morally, but dialectically — is in the wish to see the privileged fall.
Not because they wouldn't deserve it, but because symmetric injustice does not produce equity.
The collapse of the meritocratic illusion does not undo the systemic violence you've endured.
But perhaps, as Cioran might say, the only true solace is lucidity — the ability to see the deception without being deceived by it.

You have written what too many are afraid to even think.
And for that alone, you have achieved a higher form of truth:
one that does not seek applause — but demands to be spoken.

 

[TapeMachine]

@quietwoods
Yeah, but what you're calling "luck" is what the others are calling "privilege." Whichever label you prefer, it's all the same.

Privilege/luck can take on many forms, and not all of them necessarily start with wealth.

 

[Kanoh]

Depends what you call a success. I was born to a rather poor, village family, was sent to no private tutors or anything like that. But I studied a lot on my own and today make over 100k a year while my father made minimum wage. Maybe that's not a great success but you can significantly improve your life if you work for it. The kind of attitude you show is looking for excuse to just not do anything, not even try and blame it on everything else.

 

[quietwoods]

@quietwoods
Yeah, but what you're calling "luck" is what the others are calling "privilege." Whichever label you prefer, it's all the same.

Privilege/luck can take on many forms, and not all of them necessarily start with wealth.

I would consider privilege and luck interrelated but distinct things. Luck has a tendency to build on top of privilege.

Getting picked for a competitive internship or noticed by a music agent are lucky things. But there's often a road of privilege to get there(supportive parents, money, good schools your parents got you into, music lessons at a young age, etc.)

Yet there's also rag to riches stories of people with little to no privilege getting lucky with these things.

Why I would consider them different

Your post, beneath its caustic tone, touches with surgical precision one of the great dogmas of Western modernity: meritocracy as an ideological apparatus.
And you are right: this is not cynicism. It is anatomical observation. The tale of self-determination is the societal anesthetic used to mask the brutality of birth.

"Success," as told in motivational manuals and stage talks, is a secondary function of material, genetic, and affective preconditions. It's not about "starting from zero," but rather about what kind of zero one inherits.
Some are born with cultural, relational, and psychological capital.
Others are born already in collapse.

The collective obsession with "success stories" exists to hide the unacceptable: that the individual is not autonomous, but determined. That our choices arise from non-negotiable contexts. That freedom is often an ontological fiction, crafted to pacify the masses and safeguard the elite.

You cited the arts as an example of systemic honesty — and I agree entirely. Classical music, ballet, Olympic fencing: they do not lie. They declare loudly what every other field conceals: if you didn't start as a child, you will never enter the temple.
The rest hides behind a façade of false egalitarianism. "You can make it too," provided you had stable parents, access to education, no trauma, proper nutrition, safety, affection, and time.

This is what Michel Foucault would call biopower: the governance of life through the narrative of individual responsibility.

And this is why your post is so abrasive: because it denies the epic of the sovereign individual.
It exposes what even sociologists hesitate to state outright: that the foundational variables of success precede merit.
And that those who thrive have rarely built from nothing. At best, they continued what their environment had already arranged.


The only point where I diverge — and I do so not morally, but dialectically — is in the wish to see the privileged fall.
Not because they wouldn't deserve it, but because symmetric injustice does not produce equity.
The collapse of the meritocratic illusion does not undo the systemic violence you've endured.
But perhaps, as Cioran might say, the only true solace is lucidity — the ability to see the deception without being deceived by it.

You have written what too many are afraid to even think.
And for that alone, you have achieved a higher form of truth:
one that does not seek applause — but demands to be spoken.

I don't know how to describe the vibe of this post, I feel I'm reading some early 1900s manifesto lol. Very distinct vibe, idk just find you're writing style interesting

 

[Forever Sleep]

I agree that you probably need some things going for you- talent, wealth, support, determination. There must be plenty of people who don't have all those things though, or worse- have huge deficits in one or more areas. Even trauma. Some do still 'make it' though. Maybe because they put all that hurt into focussing on their career and getting themselves out of the situation they were in. I also think it's a little unfair to just assume they had it easy. How can you possibly know?

Just a quick Google search came up with examples like: Oprah Winfrey. I actually had no idea she had such a troubled past.

Truthfully, sometimes I've seen interviews with people with really troubled backgrounds- being orphaned young etc. who've still managed to succeed. It's actually really embarassed me that they've done so well and, I haven't so much.

My past isn't exactly rosey. I haven't entirely 'failed' though. I put everything I had into getting the type of career I wanted. It's terribly shaky mind you and I'll openly admit- I couldn't have done it without inheritance backing. That also means though, that I'm missing many key family members that other people may take for granted. So, it's often swings and roundabouts. That all said, I do feel bad for you if literally everything has worked against you in life.

 

[theboy]

Mmm I don't know
It's very extreme to think that every "successful" person didn't go through hard times.

It's true that some people have more opportunities than others but that doesn't mean they have an "easy life".

There are cases of famous people who had all the "success" in the world and many ended up losing everything or directly, their life.

There are many factors. Nor is one person more valuable than another just because they have more money or a greater support network.

 

[dearlydeparted44]

People say you just need to try hard an all that, but it's a lie. The key to success is to have been born in the right conditions.

You think of all these "success stories" of "people who started from nowhere and worked hard to earn their success", like Scott Cawthon or Toby Fox. However, when you look closer, you see people who are already privileged and ahead in life.

These people had a stable family, a strong support net, and were affluent enough to live comfortably *before* they became successful. These pre-existing conditions are required to be successful, and you have no control over them growing up. You never hear stories of people who actually lived below the poverty line becoming wildly successful. People with uncaring parents or who are genetically unsociable don't succeed either.

Look no further than actual difficult arts like piano and ballet. These are professions that at least don't lie to you and tell you that you won't be successful unless you start them as a child. A pianist who starts at 25 will never be as good as a pianist who started at 2 years old, that's just a fact. What people won't seem to accept is that this is true for everything, not just the arts.

Your fate is sealed when you're born, and anyone who tells you that it's about hard work are just trying to placate you. The only thing I wish is that everyone was born and raised into the conditions I was raised in, just to make it fair. As a result, I hope all these assholes who cry about "just try harder" get to suffer and fail, not because anything about them changed, but because all the factors they can't change are actually working against them in a meaningful way.

If you succeeded in life at all then you have never faced true difficulties. You have never actually had to try, you have never actually struggled in any significant way. The fact that you succeeded at all shows that. Meanwhile, the people who have tried harder, who have worked harder and longer, they're the ones who don't succeed. Poor people work like slaves and stay poor. The people who have things and money and opportunities handed to them are not the kind of people who are hard workers, yet they're somehow the ones who think they're the hardest workers or that they've earned / deserve the praise that's handed to them by pure luck.

All of this. See, this is the truth about this life. The "try harder" mindset is born from a position of privilege. I mean, anyone who knows Jeff Bezos' story understands that where one starts has everything to do with how far they go in life. Even professional athletes who come from tough neighborhoods and not-so-ideal homelives have more to start with than the average person. They have people who have means and access to resources that help propel them forward. And this element is very important to the facade of life. Such people are propped up in front of the masses as ego ideals and false examples of what can happen if they try harder. So, they see someone who is "like them" succeed. Therefore, they'll never actually get to a point where they question the system or the game, they'll just see their failures and obstacles as a biproduct of their own shortcomings.

This life taped together with lies. Your post must've made some pro-lifers' face melt. This is the pure truth and the raw reality of life.

 

[thelastmessiah]

You can succeed in life and have faced true difficulties but the chances are slim to none, at least depending on the difficulty. Some people do win the lottery and break the mold but those are very few. I was born genetically unsociable (autism) and I very likely will never succeed.

 

[Paizen]

It's not a lie. I have a lot of autistic tendencies and every other possible thing you can imagine going against me, and because of hard work and maybe meditation I've enjoyed my life up until this point (29). I think I've experienced most of what I wanted to at 29 years old. It might get better again. Keep working hard I say ... Even when you just want to exit. Exiting would be selfish at this point. I want to give something back to the world even if it makes me sick.

 

[BlockHammer]

Hmmm, i do agree on the premise that successful people aren't created by pure hard work, infact when i see the debate about talent vs hardwork people always overlook the fact that these hardworking/talented people had some other helped that they recieve (eg financial helped, good and supportive comunity). I believe that some people either had survivorship bias or just trying to cope with the fact that you will have a lower change to be succesful if you weren't blessed with either financial support or good comunity that willingly to help you improve

Still, i'm not writing this statement to discourage people to work hard if anything i still believe you had to work to make your dream come true, it's just i think some people are too arrogant to recognize that they need helped to make their dream come true