Quote:
Originally Posted by WhiteTiger
Because luck discounts effort/work significantly.
Our society is set up (theoretically) to reward work. You work, you reap the benefits. You pull yourself up by your bootstraps. You work hard, and you are rewarded with a 'good' life.
Society looks down on the lucky as undeserving. "He didn't earn that, he just got lucky", "He just got a lucky break, he's nothing special. Anyone could do what he did, with the same break."
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The phrase pull your self up by your bootstraps is perhaps the perfect phrase for this given it’s original literal meaning and current figurative meaning. It’s dripping with irony.
In a literal sense pulling up your self with your boot straps is impossible. You pull up on your boots and it doesn’t raise you off the ground. In its original sense it was something that wasn’t possible. Then in the 20s and 30s the meaning changed to the self made man version today. So it is rather ironic that the phrase the wealthy use to describe how success occurs is an idiom that when taken literally is physically impossible.
I like your first sentence, Calling it luck devalues an accomplishment and therefore people don’t like it. So I probably should use the word opportunity not available to x% of people as it better describes the situation.