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The problem is, as I said earlier, I want to remain close to family. I currently work for what is just about the only remaining firm in my field near where I live. As I said before, I would not consider a life of nothing but commuting, working, and sleeping to be "successful".
Deciding to choose to be close to family is not luck. It's a deliberate choice.
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Originally Posted by mitsguy2001
I have very little control over whether or not this company is successful enough to avoid layouts, since it is mostly dependent on whether or not our clients (mostly government agencies) have enough money for projects. In 2011, the company that I work for laid off 2 of the hardest working employees. That was just bad luck on their part. Bad luck that our clients were broke, and bad luck that the company chose them as the people to lay off (rather than laying off inferior employees). They both found a new job, but they have much longer commutes (less free time and lower quality of life) and are paid much less, so they are not "successful" by any definition, despite their hard work.
One thing that you have to understand is that success does not come from hard work. There are plenty of people who work hard who are not successful. Sometimes people who have to work too hard at their job are ineffective. Success comes from results regardless of whether you work hard or not.
Luck exists and does affect people. However, over the course of an entire career it is rarely luck that determines a person's success. In the short term, luck does play a part but over time it is your responsibility to make your own luck.
Fair enough. But would you agree that career success is based on a combination of talent, hard work, and luck? And, would you agree that bad luck can potentially ruin the career of somebody who is both talented and hard working?
I think hard work is over rated. I also think that while luck plays a role in the short term it is rare that luck defines a person's entire career. A career is very long. I think you forget initiative. People with initiative are much more successful than those who sit around and wait for life to happen to them.
Deciding to choose to be close to family is not luck. It's a deliberate choice.
I know that. I was just reminding you what I consider to be my criteria for success (the whole premise of this thread is that everyone defines "success" differently), so that you can't just tell me to relocate.
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One thing that you have to understand is that success does not come from hard work. There are plenty of people who work hard who are not successful. Sometimes people who have to work too hard at their job are ineffective. Success comes from results regardless of whether you work hard or not.
Seems to contradict what you said before.
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Luck exists and does affect people. However, over the course of an entire career it is rarely luck that determines a person's success. In the short term, luck does play a part but over time it is your responsibility to make your own luck.
But getting unlucky once can ruin your career, and getting lucky once can give you a career. Like I said earlier, the owner of my company got lucky once in life, at birth (being the son of the owner of this company), so now he is a multi-millionaire who doesn't have to work. Somebody can get unlucky once: you can get into a car accident and be paralyzed for life. You can develop a serious medical problem through no fault of your own. In my case, if I get unlucky once and lose this job, it ends any chances of living close to family.
When did this thread change from Tiger vs Beta mom from a parenting perspective, to the "I can't find a great job in my field that also is in the area I in which I want to live" question - maybe you should be posting in the Work and Employment forum. My thought on that? It's a choice. One way or another most of us are faced with that same choice. Some choose to move to have a better chance at supporting their family, others choose to lower their career/pay expectations to live where they want to (near family or in a preferred climate...whatever...) and some just feel lucky to have a job at all. That's life - not just you.
I think hard work is over rated. I also think that while luck plays a role in the short term it is rare that luck defines a person's entire career. A career is very long. I think you forget initiative. People with initiative are much more successful than those who sit around and wait for life to happen to them.
Ok, then, do you agree that success is based on a combination of talent, hard work, luck, and initiative (not necessarily in that order, and not necessarily in equal proportions)?
It probably varies from one industry to another. For example, Miley Cyrus is successful as a singer only because of her father. Again, she got lucky once, at birth. Her career is not based on talent (her voice sounds like nails scratching a blackboard), not based on hard work, and not based on initiative. In her case, it was 100% luck. Same with the owner of the company I work for. His career is 100% luck. He has no talent, he's never worked a day in his life, and he's never taken initiative, he was just a winner in the "genetic lottery".
When did this thread change from Tiger vs Beta mom from a parenting perspective, to the "I can't find a great job in my field that also is in the area I in which I want to live" question- maybe you should be posting in the Work and Employment forum. My thought on that? It's a choice. One way or another most of us are faced with that same choice. Some choose to move to have a better chance at supporting their family, others choose to lower their career/pay expectations to live where they want to (near family or in a preferred climate...whatever...) and some just feel lucky to have a job at all. That's life - not just you.
When did this thread change from Tiger vs Beta mom from a parenting perspective, to the "I can't find a great job in my field that also is in the area I in which I want to live" question - maybe you should be posting in the Work and Employment forum. My thought on that? It's a choice. One way or another most of us are faced with that same choice. Some choose to move to have a better chance at supporting their family, others choose to lower their career/pay expectations to live where they want to (near family or in a preferred climate...whatever...) and some just feel lucky to have a job at all. That's life - not just you.
One of the premises of this thread was that Asians believe that success is based on hard work, so they encourage tiger parenting, while Americans believe that success is based on talent, so they encourage beta parenting. I then said that success is based mostly on luck (encouraging beta parenting). Other posters didn't agree with me. I then gave examples of how success is based on luck, and the thread just went off on a tangent.
We may have to agree to disagree. When I started my first job, they got involved with a scandal (which I had nothing to do with) just a few weeks after I started, which financially ruined the company. I wasn't going to quit a job after just a few weeks, especially not in a bad economy. How was that anything other than just bad luck for me? At my current job, if I had applied 6 months earlier, I'd be making more money than I am now. How is that anything other than bad luck for me? If I had applied to this job 6 months later, I'd be unemployed. How is that anything other than good luck for me? The owner of the company has no skills, but inherited the company from his father. How is that anything but good luck for him?
So one persons anecdotes discounts every other successful person on the planet? Go read outliers.
Ever notice the only people who claim things are mostly due to luck are those who are not successful?
One of the premises of this thread was that Asians believe that success is based on hard work, so they encourage tiger parenting, while Americans believe that success is based on talent, so they encourage beta parenting. I then said that success is based mostly on luck (encouraging beta parenting). Other posters didn't agree with me. I then gave examples of how success is based on luck, and the thread just went off on a tangent.
That's a gross over-generalization. Just about every American I know thinks that it's a combination of factors that leads to success. By the way, there are plenty of Asians who are also Americans.
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