Hard work builds you, luck boosts you.

Source

This post is my submission for the Hive Learner weekly featured contest Week 84, Edition 02

One characteristic that almost everyone would agree is common to all people who are successful in their respective fields is hard work. But that begs the question: are all people who are not successful or reach the mark of success in their respective fields not hard-working too? Yes, some are actually as hardworking as their successful colleagues, but that is where luck comes in.

Luck is defined as a favourable occurrence that happens to someone by chance.

In life, you can see two different people put similar energy into doing a thing, and only one would be successful at it. Sometimes the reason can’t be explained, or it is something absurd that makes them successful.

For instance, in today's world, a lot of creative people, like musicians, artists, and writers, rely on social media to promote their work, including upcoming ones. In my country, a lot of musicians have become popular not because they make very good songs or have a distinctive tone, but for reasons like an established musician liking their song or something happened and that person's song was used, etc. There are a lot of good musicians who are even better than those popular ones, but they might not get the recognition that they deserve.

A famous example is a musician called Passenger. Passenger has been making good music for years, but hardly anyone listened to his songs until 2012, when he released “Let Her Go,” which made him popular worldwide.

This shows that to be successful in anything in life, you first need to work hard, and then you also need luck to cap the hard work. Hard work is what builds you up in your field and what makes you move from a noob to a pro, but to be among the most successful people in any industry in today’s ever-competitive world, you need luck, a favorable chance, or whatever you call it.

I got lucky

One recent event where I can say that I got lucky happened a few days ago when I was among those selected to be given Leo delegations for participating in LPUD (Leo power-up day). Even though some might say that I did the hard work and sacrifice by participating in LPUD, the reality is that I wasn’t the only one who participated in it. Those selected were not selected due to any special reasons but through a raffle draw, and that is why I said I got lucky. It wasn’t that I did anything better or special than others who didn’t make the draw.

My hard work paid off

Another event where hard work really paid off was when I came in second in the quiz competition organized by the faculty. Normally, I was good at general knowledge, but I decided to refresh my knowledge by reading likely questions based on the topics we were given. I did these two days before the quarterfinal and the final of the competition, and I came in second. I was answering all the questions thrown at me as easily as pie.

After the show, most of the contestants and audience members confessed they didn’t know the answers to this question, and they were shocked that I got it all. I was able to achieve this feat by reading up and not just by luck; in fact, I would say that I was unlucky to come in second and the person who got the first position was lucky. In fact, he was already losing until when the judge decided to change some of the rules.

Conclusion

But nevertheless, the event showed me what happens when you work harder than everyone around you, you become better. But when you get a favourable condition or occurrence after your hard work, you become more successful.