Create optimal conditions for lucky things to happen to you (2020)
This is a great elaboration of something I realized in my early adult life, after feeling perpetually unlucky throughout my adolescence. In my youth, I found myself frequently disappointed that things didn't happen for me, lamenting my bad luck.<p>The beginning of college coincided with my recovery from an episode of depression, and I guess fueled rebound energy, I started prospecting. I just said yes to as many things as I could. It didn't take long for this to start paying dividends, and I started getting lucky.<p>By the end of college, I could see how luck compounds. I think the world is very random, practically speaking, but that probably distributions are highly mutable. I found that decisions I previously made set me up for higher likelihood of being chosen for subsequent opportunities. I parlayed this into getting a grad school fellowship that took me to an Ivy League university, needless to say, that opens further doors.<p>Suddenly, I was quite lucky, and I've remained lucky for my adult life to this day.<p>This, incidentally, is the problem with meritocracy. Meritocracy showers opportunities on the lucky, rather than the needy or the deserving or even the highest leverage. For the privileged (as I am, in many ways), this starts before birth. Merit is manufactured and compound. Success justifies the perception of merit, but ignores the extent to which successful people are often the beneficiaries of massive overinvestment.<p>Nonetheless, this is the system we live in, and I think it's good for people to know how to navigate it.