Everything is Luck
One of my goals for this year was to start writing. So far, I’ve managed to publish two articles (one of which was “Why I’m Writing”), while having twenty-seven “in progress”. As I mentioned there, I’ve come to realize I have rather a lot of perfectionist tendencies. Unfortunately, realizing that and dealing with it are not the same thing. So I’m giving myself 30 minutes to write something, and at the end of it I’ll post it, whatever state it’s in.
Everything is Luck.
Some things are obviously luck. Winning the lottery, or inheriting great wealth. But others are seen as something else. Work ethic, natural ability, tolerance of discomfort, etc. What all of these have in common, what everything has in common, is that they eventually come down to luck.
Look at work ethic. When you work you hard, you get rewarded. How much depends on other factors (where you live, how your company is doing, etc.), but in general, all other things being equal (they never are), more hard work equals more pay, more prestige, more of whatever you care about. I certainly haven’t put in much hard work on this blog (less hard work), and it shows by the lack of articles (less reward).
But why not? When I went back to school after leaving the Air Force, I signed up for 23 credits (including organic chemistry, which was surprisingly fun) in one semester, and maintained a 4.0 GPA. I certainly worked hard at that. The natural reason to give is that the reward was larger, so the incentives pushed me to it.
I really didn’t need to take that many credits at once, though. In fact, the way it worked out, it actually cost me. I was using the GI Bill, and how much it pays out depends on how many credits you’re taking. By my final semester, there were only 5 credits worth of courses I could take. Full time is 12 credit hours, so (scheduling aside) I could’ve taken 16 credits one semester and gotten the full GI Bill benefits by taking 12 my final semester.
So why? Why was my work ethic ridiculously high in one situation (23 credits in 4 months) and ridiculously low in another (2 articles/1600 words in 7 months).
I have the same genetics now as I did then, so that’s out. With the exception of the two years between, I have the same life history, so my upbringing is out. What causes the difference in work ethic?
Luck. Just luck. But no, maybe it’s intrinsic motivation. After all, it’s well known that people can do things to influence how motivated they are. Short term, people can watch an inspiring lifting video (”Lightweight Buddy!”) and then go crush a workout. Long term, we know that the habits we instill hugely influence our day to day behavior. Perhaps I set up good habits for school, and bad habits for writing.
There’s certainly some truth to that. After all, despite writing being on my daily schedule, I rarely put any real work into it, while I had a successful albeit highly impromptu approach to putting in work to get the school assignments done.
Why? Well, perhaps that isn’t down to intrinsic motivation after all. Maybe it’s extrinsic motivation. Nobody is going to get on my case if I don’t write anything for 10 years, while my grades would suffer if I didn’t do the homework on time, and heaven forbid anything happen to my precious 4.0 GPA.
I could continue down this rabbit hole indefinitely. Eventually though, everything returns to luck. The reason I’m a reasonably successful adult human is because I happened to be born in these particular circumstances and with these particular genetics. Think of the worst person you know about. Now consider that had you been born with exactly that person's genetics and grown up in their exact circumstances, you would not do anything differently, because you would be that person. This gets into selfhood and free will, but I’ve only got 6 minutes left, so I’m not going there.
The point is, it’s all luck. Every time you think this is not the case, ask why. Eventually, you’ll come down to the brute facts of the universe, that A causes B, and there’s nothing you can do about it. If you decide to quit smoking, it’s luck. If you think it’s because you finally buckled down and used your free will to willpower through it, consider why you didn’t do that yesterday. Keep asking why, and I’m convinced that every single aspect of life will eventually come back to the answer “luck.”