Читать книгу A Guide to the Scientific Career - Группа авторов - Страница 26

Thomas Jefferson once attested, “I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have.” This statement is the key to understanding luck and its relationship to success. Simply put, there is no bad or good luck in effect. It is determination and working hard toward a set goal that create a context in which one can flourish. If there were bad luck, it would be a law of nature. However, were it a law of nature, it would not suffer under the weight of chance and probability. And were there no chance, how could there be any kind of luck at all? We all have an idea of being in the right place at the right time as a quick way of achieving success. The problem with this kind of thinking is that it ignores the importance of goal setting, planning definition, measurement, and the perseverance to continue forward toward your idea of success.

If you depend on luck as a means of achieving success, you are eliminating the possibility of agency in your pursuit of personal success. How can you influence your success if you are at the whim of mere fickle chance?