I don't deserve my success

[andrewducker]

Over here I've been discussing willpower, effort and success with philmophlegm and it's reminded me of a topic I've meant to discuss for some time - how lucky I am to be anywhere near as successful as I am.

I'm lucky I was born to smart parents.
I'm lucky I was born to nice parents.
I'm lucky I was born to parents who read a lot, and passed that on to me.
I'm lucky my parents were interested in passing along the things they'd learned to me.
I'm lucky that when I repeatedly messed things up at school and university my parents were willing to help me get things sorted out.
I'm lucky that when I was living on very little money, unemployed or on a couple of really rubbish jobs, my parents were capable (and willing) to lend me money.
I'm lucky that my father was interested in computers before they were seen as useful.
I'm lucky that he brought home the most easily programmable home computer* in 1983 rather than the one that had the most games.
I'm lucky I enjoyed playing with them and seeing what they could do.
I'm lucky that my hobby/addiction to computers turned out to be something that people would pay money for.
I'm lucky that my father was able to get me work at the hospital, using my computer skills.
I'm lucky that the skills I developed there were transferrable to my first "proper" computer job.
I'm lucky that when that avenue ran out I was able to start over with my current employers as a "graduate trainee" despite my degree being nowhere near good enough, because they were sensible enough to take experience as being important.

Without all of that, I wouldn't be in nearly as good a position as I am today, and I'm very grateful for all of it. Because frankly very little of that was down to me deserving anything, or making any kind of decision. I chose to "start over" in the final step there, but everything else is me being lucky with the circumstances of my birth.

And that's one of the many reasons I support efforts to give people who didn't have all of my advantages a good start in life, and support when they make mistakes that I could get past because I had a better starting point or parents who could help me out**.

*The BBC Micro, designed for teaching purposes.
**Let's not even get into things like my parents lending me the deposit on my first mortgage. Took me a while to pay it back, and I feel good that I did, but having parents who could even give me that helping hand was a huge step up.

Comments

[dalglir]

Some of that is luck.

Some of that is making your own luck.

I think I'll put together my own post.

[alitheapipkin.livejournal.com]

I owe where I am now to my parents too - they supported me through my undergrad degree and gave me the deposit for my flat. And now I'm helping the Boy finally get a degree because his parents couldn't afford to give him the same help.

I'm not sure whether they really believe they did me a favour though - my Dad had to drag himself up by his boot straps and isn't particularly impressed by my never-been-poor lack of work ethic :/

[andrewducker]

I definitely have less of a work ethic than my parents. But then my father was a doctor, constantly working long shifts, nights and weekends. I made a definite decision around age thirteen that I would not do likewise.

[alitheapipkin.livejournal.com]

Yeah, my Dad worked long hours and travelled a lot when I was little, leaving my Mum at home worrying about him. He wonders why I never wanted to go into industry and travel all over but my memories of that time consist of things like him being stuck in Thailand for 3 weeks when the first Gulf War broke out, and nearly getting kidnapped at gun point in Nigeria...

[channelpenguin.livejournal.com]

hmmmm, I inherited talents from both parents which I use in my job (Software developer: logic and abstraction, creativity) and my major hobby (Music: music, creativity), and certainly them being valuing education and buying me that ZX81 helped immensely. The rest of it was just rent money when I was at Uni, which could have been got by other means, and in a lot of ways, I wish I had (for my own self-satisfaction). I am lucky in that they are decent, honest, sober human beings who try to do their best for me. But a lot of what they are/their values are at total odds with mine and/or held me back /caused me problems, so it's very mixed feelings. I respect my parents but, we often do not agree.

[alitheapipkin.livejournal.com]

I know the mixed feelings - I have enormous admiration for my Dad who went from a council housing estate and leaving school with no qualifications at 16 to the managing director of an international company entirely off his own back, with just my Mum for support. But I never want to be a person who thinks other people don't deserve help from the State because any one worth their salt can do the same.

[channelpenguin.livejournal.com]

agreed.

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

Hell yes. Not to all of them, but the majority of those.

I feel particularly jammy about 'my hobby/addiction to computers turned out to be something that people would pay money for'. Especially as I entered the job market with almost zippo formal experience aged about 34. And now I iz hiring. It's all rather flabbergasting.

[poisonduk.livejournal.com]

Is it not best summed up 'I was lucky to be born to middle class parents'?

[andrewducker]

I have several friends with middle class parents that are neither nice nor supportive, and numerous who had nothing to do with computers growing up, plus plenty whose parents didn't help them get jobs.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

Yep, I have several friends who had middle class parents who were either abusive or neglectful, and I can see how this is reflected in the person's history at school and work.

This is one of those points where libertarians baffle me, and I am forced to conclude that most are either impressively self-serving, not particularly insightful, or both. No one "makes their own success", and everyone who pulled themselves up by their own boostraps had a lot of help in this endeavor.

On a related note, have you read Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers, it has quite a lot to say about this, and while definitely not a perfect book, many of it's points are valuable.

[andrewhickey.livejournal.com]

I was born to working-class parents, and about 3/4 of those things apply to me, too. The only ones that seem to rely on class, there, are the lending of money and the help with the hospital job.

[don-fitch.livejournal.com]

Huh? Oh, okay... British Usage. As an American of A Certain Age (83 in my case, but I think it includes most of us over about 60), I see a considerable overlap between "working-class" and "middle-class". The latter would own their home free & clear before they were 50, and be able to send their kids to college... mostly while holding down a 40-hour-per-week, probably blue-collar or factory, job. I'm not sure when that changed and The American Dream evaporated, but maybe it was in the 1980s.

And yeah, most of the people I know who are economically comfortable now can and should ascribe it mostly to luck/accident.

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

Very true.

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

Some of those apply to me, some don't* but the principle is pretty much the same.

I feel I should plug "You're Hired!" and not for the first time.
http://philmophlegm.livejournal.com/tag/you%27re%20hired%21







* My parents have two O-levels between them and one of those is woodwork. I never messed anything up (well, I failed my driving test twice, but that's about it). I was a cool kid with a Spectrum (and before that I was the first kid in my class to have a computer, when I got a ZX-81 in February 1982). I was always a gamer, never a programmer. My parents knew nothing about the sort of jobs I wanted to do after university - the course I did qualifies you to run the country; my dad was a factory worker and my mum a bank clerk.

[laplor.livejournal.com]

In a way this makes me sad - but only because I'm unlucky in just about every one of those categories.

My parents were poor, poorly educated, and so unsupportive that they verged on abusive.

I managed to save enough money while working in high school to run away from home, but then was pressured into lending it to my parents. They paid me back when I was 23 - as a wedding present.

In spite of various disadvantages, I graduated from university into an economic climate where the interest rate on my student loans was 10.5%. Only restaurants were hiring. I had just given birth.

Now I'm 47 and a homeowner with two children in or entering secondary school.

I'm still looking for a rewarding and not too humiliating entry level first job, although I have had more than 15 jobs since I was 19. My last employer, when I mentioned that I would to take on more responsibility, told me that I 'need to just learn to love cleaning the toilets.'

So, as you might imagine, I REALLY agree with you that it's important to give people a good start in life, especially when they aren't born lucky. Sometimes the disadvantaged have learned very valuable things from coping and thriving in their circumstances.

[undeadbydawn.livejournal.com]

today, after nearly a year of neighbourly abuse, Daughter and her mum moved into a new flat.


the plan from here is painfully simple - we aim to give her the best life she can possibly have. No matter what that takes. Irrelevant of cost or sacrifice.

because her world needs to be a far better place than ours.

[thaxor.livejournal.com]

Try repeating it out loud, only using "I'm grateful...".
instead of "I'm lucky...".

Is that any different?

[andrewducker]

I feel grateful towards people for acting positively towards me, but lucky for things that I happen to get.

So I'm grateful to my parents for supporting me, and I feel lucky to have been born to supportive parents.

[mark-nicol.livejournal.com]

Such decent sounding parents will have also gained a huge amount from the process - the chance to support and help you,sharing in your interests and seeing you succeed.

I guess no-one really deserves their success - we are all shaped by stuff we didn't control, but it takes generosity of character to do such a lovely job of acknowledging and paying forward.

[0olong.livejournal.com]

And this is one of the many reasons I think it's madness to pay some people hundreds of times as much as other people.