0095

Am I lucky, to have gotten where I am in life? On the surface I'm quite visibly successful. I have a stable job with a good salary and solid career prospects ahead of me. I live in a dense, modern city in my own apartment. I have a healty amount of friends and very very healthy amount of family, all of whom I get along with. I'm generally well liked and get along with almost everybody I meet.

There are a lot of people who are struggling and working hard every day to get to a similar position. Especially careerwise, I knew a lot of people in university who worked incredibly hard at getting internships and work experience and side projects to ensure their future career. It's not that I did none of those things, but sometimes it also feels like it worked much less hard for an equal or greater reward. What gives?

I think that getting my current job is the strongest example. When I say the position on some generic job posting website I didn't really take it that seriously. I didn't really want to move to the US, which I later discovered was contrary to most of my peers who had bigger dreams of money and ambition than I did. I applied for fun, because applying anywhere and everywhere was what I was doing during that time.

I don't think I did exceptionally well on the interview. It feels to me like I performed about as well as any of my motivated and studious friends would have. They probably would have done better, without making the mistakes that I did. Unfortunately I don't remember the behavioral part of the interview too well, which is a shame since I suspect that would be the most interesting. Nevertheless, somehow, thanks to what I can only presume is good luck, they picked me.

Then again, I may not be giving myself enough credit. I never felt exceptionally smart or academic in high school or university. I guess I was up there, but there was always plenty of people smarter and higher achieving than me. I think that there's anything that set me apart, it would have to be my personality and general go getting nature. My attitude towards most classes, clubs, and activities leans pretty positive - unlike many of my friends I almost never said no to trying things.

I don't think that this is necessarily the best strategy. More focused people can and did perform better in their classes or get more relevant experience. I still think it must have entirely been luck that they picked my resume instead of any other generic grad who did a few internships, probably at fancier companies. But, just maybe, it was my positive attitude and good energy that swayed the interviewers into choosing me?

idk, and I'll probably never know for sure, but that's the only explanation I have for it. It's the only explanation I have in general to explain my so called luck. I'd still mostly describe it as that by the way. From the inside, it's always felt like that, like when good things happen to me it's for no particular reason. If anyone ever asks me why I'm where I am, I still lean towards attributing it all to luck since that's what it feels like.

I don't want to only take about work and school though. Of course, there's a lot more to life than that. I also know about lots of people who have very successful careers, who live in nice apartments in nice cities, and who unfortunately struggle in their personal lives. Either they dedicate all their time to work and none to themselves, or they just aren't very pleasant and have trouble holding on to friends, or maybe their lives are really nice and they just don't appreciate it.

I'm generally pretty happy with the people I know and the kinds of things I do, and more content than a lot of the other people I know. Again, if you asked me about that I'd ascribe it to luck. Yeah, I'm just lucky that I'm such a chill, happy person. I'm just lucky I ended up with a life that keeps me content. It could have happened to anyone, really, it's just a roll of the dice that it was me.

I think it feels good to attribute this kind of success to luck, but I guess again, if pressed for an actual explanation or some piece of advice I could pass along it would have to do with attitude. There's a lot of emphasis placed on soft skills in engineering; after a certain level, just about everyone is as driven or intelligent or talented as anybody else. What really differentiates people is whether they're nice, easy to work with, fun to have around.

I like to think that's been my differentiating factor, and that's the advice I'd pass along to others following in my footsteps. Of course I'm competent, but others are much more competent and even though competence does matter for work that's kind of the exception. I think that being unusually proactive, helpful, and generally just a chill guy can have outsized benefits that all might otherwise look like luck.

Maybe some people would describe it as confidence? I'd say I generally interview and present pretty well, but from my perspective it's almost more that I don't mind the outcome because I'm having too much fun. Then again, maybe that's exactly what confidence is. I've said before that fortune favors the bold, and I guess this is exactly what I mean.

I have certainly been very lucky with many of my endeavours. I still think much of it is unexplainable and just good fortune. But, to the extent that part of it can be explained, I really do recommend maintaining the positive attitude, being nice to be around, and generally saying yes to things. I hope this advice will be as good for others as it has been for me.