But if you go to a school where only the worst teachers work, have to run a gauntlet of gang members to get there and back, and/or have no one in your life to support the concept of you applying to college (let alone know how to help you, or how to pay for it/apply for financial aid), then how exactly do you “make” those choices?
You mean like when I worked multiple jobs for more than 40 hours a week to pay for college while I was going to classes on a full-time basis (so as to get through quicker), which meant I couldn’t take science courses because I couldn’t lose entire afternoons doing the lab portions, and thus had to pick classes where papers (which could be written at 3:00am) were the norm? And that was a generation ago, when it was POSSIBLE to afford to get through college like that.
And considering the fact that women in science are still getting treated like it’s the 1950’s, what major would have been the financially solvent one, anyway?
Cheeses on a Ritz cracker. Do you have any idea how tone deaf that statement is? You’re talking to people on this forum who are from all over the world, in various socioeconomic classes, and many of us can tell you about what it’s like to not have the incredible security of knowing we wouldn’t go hungry for at least some part of our lives. You’re in the top 1% of the world’s population when you say that.
Because you were damned lucky with regard to the family, social, and financial circumstances you grew up in.
You just said that your parenting is part of how he got there. Which was at least partly due to how you were raised. So he’s at least 2 generations deep when it comes to good fortune helping him through life.
[quote=“Max_Blancke, post:42, topic:78028”] A large part of his motivation, and mine when I was his age, is fear of having to explain to my Dad why he screwed up. I cannot explain how powerful a motivating force that can be.
[/quote]
So anyway, as what I hope will be my final note on this topic, I really want to thank both the author of this post, and the commenters who engaged me here. I sort of came in and out of the house all day, visiting the bbs when I was in, and doing a lot of thinking about it in between. Mostly about my Dad, who has been a huge influence on me, and who is more or less a force of nature. Late last night, I dug out some old family photo albums. I noticed something that I had not connected before, in the pictures from both my parent’s childhoods. There is a picture of my Dad at maybe 5 years old, with his younger brother, sitting on a horse. One would think it was a 19th century image, but it is from after WW2. The horse is a ragged, tired looking plow horse, and was how they farmed enough to eat. There is no saddle. they did not own one. They did not own the land, either. In another album is a picture of my Mom on another horse, probably taken near the time of the other picture. Mom is a little girl, sitting on a show horse, with shiny polished saddle covered with hand engraved silver embellishments. I spent most of yesterday thinking about them, and how their journeys led to me being who I am. And yes, I am lucky to have such parents. Anyway, I enjoyed the conversation, and the opportunity to reconsider some issues that I always thought that I knew the answers to. And I plan to have both images framed and hung side by side.
MB
Coming back to the original question of why the US seems to play down luck more than other countries, perhaps it’s because it was colonised relatively recently and most people can trace an ancestor who immigrated and did well for themselves.*
Mind you, I’m not sure if this applies as much to countries like Canada or Australia etc so there might be something else at play as well.
*(And there’s a couple of selection bias’s going on there. Firstly Americans are descended from the people who didn’t die before they had kids, and secondly, stories about the ancestor who did well for themselves are more likely to be remembered than the ones who did ok or not well)
I’ve always thought Tim Minchin summed it up nicely in a speech he delivered to a graduating class at this old University:
Remember, It’s All Luck
You are lucky to be here. You were incalculably lucky to be born, and incredibly lucky to be brought up by a nice family that helped you get educated and encouraged you to go to Uni. Or if you were born into a horrible family, that’s unlucky and you have my sympathy… but you were still lucky: lucky that you happened to be made of the sort of DNA that made the sort of brain which – when placed in a horrible childhood environment – would make decisions that meant you ended up, eventually, graduating Uni. Well done you, for dragging yourself up by the shoelaces, but you were lucky. You didn’t create the bit of you that dragged you up. They’re not even your shoelaces.
I suppose I worked hard to achieve whatever dubious achievements I’ve achieved … but I didn’t make the bit of me that works hard, any more than I made the bit of me that ate too many burgers instead of going to lectures while I was here at UWA.
Understanding that you can’t truly take credit for your successes, nor truly blame others for their failures will humble you and make you more compassionate.
Empathy is intuitive, but is also something you can work on, intellectually.
But @anon67050589 you should have just chosen to be born to a rich and good family! Then you wouldn’t have had to work so hard!! It’s just logical! Also you should have been born a straight white man. Probably would have been easier. /s
Seriously eh? I think I strained my eyes from rolling them so much.
