Does hard work pay off?

[dead0man]

Yes.  There are few people that are not assholes that worked hard and didn't find success.  You really can't answer this question unless you've lived a little.  If you're 18 and think you know the answer to this, you are very very wrong.


I guess it could depend on what you mean by "pay off".  If it means "rich" then the answer would be "sometimes", but if it just means "by middle age you've got a bunch of ways to entertain yourself and those you support" then the answer is "yes".


It also might not be "yes" in some western countries that have stupid unemployment numbers.

[dead0man]

Very true.  Especially the play well with others bit.  It doesn't matter how hard you work, if everybody hates working with you, you're going to have a harder time finding success.  I think "luck" is a little overrated....but I would think that as I totally lucked into my current cushy gig


(but I created my own luck by being easy to work with, working hard (enough, I'm by no means a "hard worker"), showing up on time and generally not being an asshole....that got me the good references needed to luck into the cushy job)

[dead0man]

Hard work isn't generally what gets you wealthy though, that depends more on luck.

I suppose if you're counting the people born into, then yeah, but for the people that actually made the wealth....well very few of them didn't involve a lot of hard work.  A few young artists, maybe, but if they were unable to work hard they probably didn't keep that wealth.

Unless I'm forgetting some segment of wealth creation....the lottery winners?, I'm guessing they are a tiny fraction of the total (and don't we often read how many of them are bankrupt 4 years later?).  Or are you saying it's not the hard work that got them the wealth, it was the luck?  In that case, yes, sorta, but if the vast majority of ways wealth is created involves hard work, we can assume that hard work is an important contributing factor in it.  Nobody is saying it's the only thing or that if you do it, wealth will 100% come to you.  We're saying without it, it's pretty much guaranteed you WON'T be successful.

Saying to yourself "I'm not going to work hard because it's not a guarantee that I will become wealthy" is not a good idea.  On the other hand, it makes life a little bit easier for those that do work hard.  Less competition you see.

[dead0man]

I suppose if you're counting the people born into, then yeah, but for the people that actually made the wealth....well very few of them didn't involve a lot of hard work.  A few young artists, maybe, but if they were unable to work hard they probably didn't keep that wealth.

What I meant is along the lines of: there is no situation where hard work can't help - but just through hard work alone the chance of becoming wealthy is small. So my opinion is that luck played a bigger role than hard work for most of the rich.

Plus there are plenty of types of hard work that don't lead to wealth, like caring for children, but are still necessary.

Ahh, yeah, I agree with all that.