

Life is exactly what you make of it - For most people, this is a bad thing - sendos
http://andrewoneverything.com/life-is-exactly-what-you-make-of-it-for-most

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giusemir1978
Andrew got it right, it is a problem of survival bias.

I have been lucky two times.

I have been an entrepreneur, I was succesfull enough but not enough to cover
the risks (i am italian, doing business here _is_ risky).

Then I set up myself to find a job, in a time where there aren't many and in a
country in full recession. And found a good one!

I can say it was hard. But even if I had been told that i could try and fail,
I would have tried anyway.

Sometimes, you really have nothing to lose.

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6ren
He disputes the success stories because of absence of failure stories
(survivorship bias) - and then uses this lack of evidence to assert the
opposite is true.

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goblin89
Those who failed might have been tried very hard indeed, but this doesn't mean
that they were moving in right direction. My opinion is that each one can
excel, if they really would want it, put a lot into it, would be willing to
constantly learn from their mistakes.

As for the poem… Liked it very much. I think I can get that feeling myself
sometimes. But—it's been said a lot that the way itself should be the end
goal, not destination. Otherwise such pessimism would be inevitable. Don't
look to get to ‘another land, another sea’. Enjoy the journey.

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sendos
I'm curious what you guys think of this.

It very closely relates to something we see a lot here on HN, which is the
call to leave the boring job at the "big company" and follow your
entrepreneurship dreams.

The issue is that not everyone is cut out to be a successful entrepreneur, no
matter how much effort they put into it. And I don't see this aspect discussed
on HN much.

~~~
batista
_The issue is that not everyone is cut out to be a successful entrepreneur, no
matter how much effort they put into it. And I don't see this aspect discussed
on HN much._

A much more important issue is that the system cannot work, and actually WONT
work, with everybody being an entrepreneur, so not only are not everyone cut
for it, even if they were, they would still could not be. An economy NEEDS the
office drones, the service workers, somebody to take out your garbage, etc
etc.

But this "everybody can be anything" is a fairy-tale ingredient of the
American Dream, so it's not talked down that much.

Like how only one guy out of 300,000,000 can be the President, but there's
this wishful thinking that "anybody can be". Well, no, each term is 4 years,
so only around 15-20 people in a generation's lifetime (~80 years) get to be
the President (and I'm not even counting double terms, or that you have to be
> 21 to become the President).

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Gravityloss
Interview lottery winners.

I've been saying this for years.

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batista
_The cliche that "life is what you make of it" is actually true. In a free and
developed country, whatever job, friends, or relationships you have are all
dependent on you._

No, you have _some_ power.

Let's ignore random events that can happen to everyone regardless of their
starting condition (i.e getting run over by a car).

Even with those out, you cannot chose to be born with caring or rich parents,
or to have been raised in an environment where your drunk father didn't hit
your crack addicted mom, for example.

Now, despite those things, is it possible to make to it to achieve some X?
Well, people have achieved any given X (like: being a rich entrepreneur, a
famous actor, a great scientist, a good parent, etc) from very different
starting points, including unfavorable ones.

But this "life's what you make it" thing misses one basic point: that the WORK
and CIRCUMSTANCIAL LUCK needed to achieve X varies widely based on the
starting point. A poor black kid born in the 1920 would have zero chance to
become, say, the President. As would an atheist, cross-dressing communist. But
if you think those are extremes, consider that people from poop backgrounds
are much less likely to become, say, doctors that people from rich families
and/or people with doctors as parents.

So, "like if what you make it" can be better rephrased as: "life is what you
make it, but for a lot of people it takes 10 times the effort other people to
make it the same thing, and/or extremely rare lucky breaks".

~~~
sendos
> _No, you have some power_

I agree, which is why the post says "the reality is that what we achieve is
limited by our abilities, our personality, timing, and luck"

That is, yes, there is an element of timing and luck and other things beyond
your control, but a huge portion of it is your abilities and talents.

> _Even with those out, you cannot chose to be born with caring or rich
> parents, or to have been raised in an environment where your drunk father
> didn't hit your crack addicted mom, for example._

Well, those things _are_ part of who you are. That is, a person with a given
DNA, if raised by caring and educated parent will turn out to be a very
different person, with different abilities, talents, and character, than if
they were raised by a crack addicted illiterate mom.

So, the phrase "life is what you make of it" means not, "life is what your DNA
has dictated" but "life is what you (as shaped by your DNA, your upbringing,
and major events in your life) make of it"

> _So, "like if what you make it" can be better rephrased as: "life is what
> you make it, but for a lot of people it takes 10 times the effort other
> people to make it the same thing, and/or extremely rare lucky breaks"._

I agree, but the main point of the post was not to focus on the large hurdles
that the disadvantaged have in achieving any given goal.

The main focus was on the fact that, for people facing a similar set of
hurdles, their whole persona (abilities, talents, personality) is a huge
determinant of their success, and as a result, the life they can make will be
very different, even if they both work equally hard.

For example, take two middle-class fresh grads from great schools moving to
Silicon Valley to make it. One is a top-notch programmer and great at
socializing and is immediately likable when people meet him, while the other
is a so-so programmer and not that good at socializing and meeting people. Who
do you think will make more connections in Silicon Valley, get better job
offers, etc?

To summarize, the main point of the post can be captured by the following:
"Life is what you make of it, but for most people, what they _can_ make of it
is not much (especially if their sights are too high)"

