The Chinese say "luck is the combination of hard work and opportunity". It requires both. There are limitless scenarios in which the same type of hard work will give you a completely different result, if the opportunity never comes.

This is why I am so annoyed by the Left and the Right simplistic view of this.

The Left: "You are rich because your are privileged!"

The Right: "You are poor because you are not working hard enough!"

Oh, how do I hate both.

Research seems to indicate successful persons, underestimate the role luck had in their success.

"Is Success Luck or Hard Work?": https://youtu.be/3LopI4YeC4I

The details are luck, but the overall arch is much less so. For example, if you:

1. stay in school

2. don't do drugs

3. don't do crimes

your odds of being "lucky" in life rise considerably.

I too wish life were an RPG of binary choices.

Lots of people like to think they don't have choices. But they make choices every day.

People drop of of school to find incredible independence,

People take medication to adapt their specific brain chemistry to their environment.

People necessarily perform crimes to adapt to rigid and inefficient systems, often historically founded on unforgivable humanitarian disasters.

But I feel like that's obvious.

Yes, this is why I endlessly respect the people who are successful and who, when asked, claim that the key to their success has ultimately been luck.

(Example: Fareed Zakaria, in a podcast once)