8/28/19
I wrote this letter to the Wall Street Journal
at the end of July in response to a weekend edition Opinion piece. The letter wasn’t published. Since its subject matter is timeless, it’s
not too late to share it with my readers.
7/27/19
I agree with Frayda Levin’s exasperation at the
attribution, so prevalent in today’s increasingly simple-minded society, of
success to luck. (“Lady Luck Didn’t
Make Me Successful,” Opinion, 7/27-7/28/19)
Such attribution simply feeds the wrong-headed envy that leads to
idiotic policy and furthers the social division on which politicians thrive. However, I would be a little more nuanced,
and a little less cocksure, about the role of luck and point out that luck is a
necessary, but not sufficient, condition for success.
In the many years I have spent working, and simply living, I
have seen those who rely exclusively or largely on luck fail miserably. At the same time, I have seen many people
who work diligently, intelligently, and nearly incessantly and still fail to
achieve success. There was something
that wasn’t working for them. Call it
luck, serendipity, or even blessing, though the last would involve ascribing
motivations to the Almighty that are baffling and far beyond the scope of this
subject. In any case, these people, who
had worked as hard as anybody, still failed to achieve success. They were simply unlucky.
I have also noticed over the course of a long life the positive
relationship between the amount of luck from which a person has benefited and
the intensity of his insistence that luck had nothing to do with his success.
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