The Philosophical Muser Vlog - Why We Should Carry On Rewarding Failure

What's The Biggest Factor In Your Success? I'll Give You A Clue: It's Not Your Sex, Age, Intelligence, Height, Good Looks, Family Background, Education, Skin Colour Or Even Your Hard Work!

Apart from as a token term, there isn't really any such thing as 'luck' in the world. Of course we ascribe fortune to events in retrospect: "It was fortunate that there was a parking space when Jack had only 5 minutes to spare before a job interview" or "Lucky there happened to be a doctor in the pub when Hilda became ill", but that's more aptly described as circumstances going our way. Luck and fortune are merely synonyms for a world in which chance occurs due to incomplete knowledge.

To the greatest extent we make our own luck in the world, but if there's one thing that could best be determined as a fortune indicator it is one's place of birth in the world. Whatever we want to call it - chance, fortune or luck - the most significant fact about you that underpins the probability of how your life will turn out is probably your place of birth.

That is to say, people have all sorts of ways of determining their successes and failures in life, plus lots of things beyond their control. But the biggest determiner that most profoundly affects humans' ability and opportunity to determine their successes and failures in life is their country of birth, because one's country of birth plays such a huge factor in facilitating these things.

That's not to deny that all sorts of human qualities are important, nor that our education, family background and hard work are key ingredients. One can't even deny that having many of the traits mentioned in the title are advantageous. But where you're born in the world is the primary determiner that determines to what extent all the aforementioned qualities and traits get a chance to play out into your success.

Whether you're born in, say, Bolton or Cambridge, there are not many barriers to fulfilling your potential compared to, say, whether you're born in England or North Korea (or Pakistan, or Somalia, or Burma). The determination gulf is much wider cross-nationally.