The faint linkSuccess and luck [Archives:2003/640/Culture]

By Kamal A. Al-Hirdi
When people succeed, it is because of hard work. Luck has nothing to do with success.
As a matter of fact, the two terms “Success and luck” are mutually exclusive; in the presence of success luck must be absent and voiceovers. There is neither direct nor indirect relevance between success and luck.
No one can claim that great people (Scientists, scholars, physicians, businessmen, literary figures, politicians, artists, and so forth) have achieved success and made great names for them by luck. Logically speaking, there must be a rationale behind their success. The rationale is simply the hard work together with sharp mental abilities. Some people might say, “How about those who win lottery! They succeed by luck”. Yes, they win lottery but they never succeed. Success has a completely different meaning. While success requires personal abilities and faithful efforts, luck requires neither the prior no the latter. Lucky people make no effort and have nothing to do with successful ones. For instance, the student who goes to college to study a certain branch of knowledge is unlikely to obtain a scientific degree by luck. Because that requires the student to have a mental readiness and real hard work. Let us assume that there is a piece of land intended to be a farm. Definitely there would have to be a number of factors for the farm to have it produce good fruits and vegetables; turning the farm soil upside down, fertilizing, distributing seeds evenly, regular watering, applying insecticide tc. We have to have the tree pass through all those steps in order to get the final outcome “a fruitful grown-up tree”. Similarly, success is always built on a very systematic and solid ground, which is called (hard work).
In life, there are enormous examples that illustrate the difference of having even an incidental relation between success and luck.
If I could digress a little bit I would have to say that there is a common misunderstanding among both educated and ordinary people regarding the difference between luck and fate. Religiously speaking, many people of different religious backgrounds one hundred percent believe in fate. Which they very often mistakenly regard as luck. This is, in fact, why most people cannot ignore the role of luck in making their lives.
In summary, luck can be existing in some moments of life but not in the moments of success.
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