tabular_rasa (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
tabular_rasa) wrote2009-10-14 04:35 pm
tabular_rasa) wrote2009-10-14 04:35 pm
Entry tags:
Writer's Block: Happy go lucky
[Error: unknown template qotd]
I believe some people are more fortunate than others AND that people create their own luck; I don't see circumstance and locus of control as a mutually exclusive factors. People come into this world with certain features predetermined for them: their sex, their race, their appearance, their predisposition to certain diseases, the status of their family in the community, the laws and social mores of their birthplace, etc. For the first decade of our lives or more, our health and our education are mostly determined by the factors of our birth and the decisions of our parents and community. Some factors can be changed (surgeries to change medical conditions, appearance, or sex; makeup to change attractiveness; life changes that ascend or descend one in social ranking or move one to another more or less liberal society, etc), but there are often limits. A girl standing 5'6'' with an assymmetrical face will not get a job as a runway model, no matter how much she wants it. A boy born with Trisomy 18 is never going to lose his extra chromosome and the organ disorders that result from it. And in terms of getting a liberal arts education, a girl of a religious family in Tehran is simply going to have a harder time than an upper-middle-class WASP boy from the north shore of Chicago. These unchangeable features of ourselves can shape us in irrevocable ways.
That said, attitude and personality can compensate for or negate a lot of these factors. We've all heard rags-to-riches stories of those who start from nothing and defeat the odds for great success-- and we've all seen some of the most privileged squander away their advantages and end up with nothing. A person who is born into a lot of disadvantages is certainly unfortunate, but he can also create his own fortune through hard work, perseverance, an openness to opportunities, an optimistic outlook, inspiration, and by creating good karma around himself.
Does effort and pluck always overcome the odds? Unfortunately, not always-- at least not miraculously. Man's fate is a mix of circumstance and choice.
I believe some people are more fortunate than others AND that people create their own luck; I don't see circumstance and locus of control as a mutually exclusive factors. People come into this world with certain features predetermined for them: their sex, their race, their appearance, their predisposition to certain diseases, the status of their family in the community, the laws and social mores of their birthplace, etc. For the first decade of our lives or more, our health and our education are mostly determined by the factors of our birth and the decisions of our parents and community. Some factors can be changed (surgeries to change medical conditions, appearance, or sex; makeup to change attractiveness; life changes that ascend or descend one in social ranking or move one to another more or less liberal society, etc), but there are often limits. A girl standing 5'6'' with an assymmetrical face will not get a job as a runway model, no matter how much she wants it. A boy born with Trisomy 18 is never going to lose his extra chromosome and the organ disorders that result from it. And in terms of getting a liberal arts education, a girl of a religious family in Tehran is simply going to have a harder time than an upper-middle-class WASP boy from the north shore of Chicago. These unchangeable features of ourselves can shape us in irrevocable ways.
That said, attitude and personality can compensate for or negate a lot of these factors. We've all heard rags-to-riches stories of those who start from nothing and defeat the odds for great success-- and we've all seen some of the most privileged squander away their advantages and end up with nothing. A person who is born into a lot of disadvantages is certainly unfortunate, but he can also create his own fortune through hard work, perseverance, an openness to opportunities, an optimistic outlook, inspiration, and by creating good karma around himself.
Does effort and pluck always overcome the odds? Unfortunately, not always-- at least not miraculously. Man's fate is a mix of circumstance and choice.