The Incomplete Formula:Hard Work=Success

The media, the education system, the government feed the myth that all that is required for wealth, status and achievement is hard work. This of course a key part of the formula to success, luck.

The chimney sweepers in England of the 18th century worked incredibly hard yet occupied the lowest strata of British society. Congolese children work incredibly hard mining resources yet struggle to satisfy their basic needs. Furthermore, the poorest of much of the Western world today work unimaginable hours and remain locked in a state of constant financial anxiety. The lie that hard work breeds wealth is a lie that is not reflected in actual society, rather, it is a lie that lives exclusively in the mind of the deluded.

The true formula to achieve relies largely on the element of luck. It is luck that allowed for Elon Musk to be born to an affluent family and be gifted a stellar education. It is luck which placed him in an environment that allowed for him to network with the people he did which subsequently led to his development of an entrepreneurial spirit. It is luck that endows individuals with magnificent IQ’s, it is luck that allows for individuals to develop mindsets conducive for success. We are only products of our environment and so the fact that we don’t choose the environment we are placed in at birth is why we must not arrogantly take individual credit for achievements.

However, the ego of the wealthy and accomplished is not adequately stroked by the fact that they are not the prime cause of their own wealth and so they develop the myth of hard work. If you work hard like me, you can have what I have is how the line goes. Under that belief, a slave who worked from sunrise to sunset should have been wealthy. This formula is of course flawed and  incomplete, only if you are born in fortunate enough circumstances (in other words, lucky circumstance) will hard work be capable of yielding any rewards. It is clear therefore that the economic environment we are born into is of greater importance than hard work in determining our status, achievements and wealth.

The wealthy live ignorant of this fact, instead they peddle the lie that their wealth is hard- earned and a product of their extraordinary intelligence and talent. They live lives of unimaginable wealth, spending unjustifiably on excess luxuries whilst overlooking the millions who languish in deep, abject poverty.

And even though they may distribute crumbs of their wealth to placate their guilt for benefitting from injustice, it must be understood that no equitable social structure would have ever allowed for economic inequality to ever rise to the point where a large portion of the society are forced to beg for crumbs from the table of exorbitant wealth.

Is it that humans are irredeemably greedy and innately unfazed by the suffering of others… or alternatively, is it that a society has been created which drains basic empathy out of human from birth, thereby allowing for a system of exploitation to operate largely uninterrupted?

This question has disturbed philosophers for years but it is a question which demands deeper attention because if it is the social structure which is cursed, it must undergo a radical restructuring.