Yes, but it wasn’t ALL luck

Minh Tan

Other quotes by me

There are some people I know who seem to think everything I’ve achieved and/or gotten has been purely by chance, without any effort by me that might have contributed to the same results. I can just hear it in their tone of voice, and how often they say it. And that’s disregarding the usual “well if I had the same luck” sort of comments.

I used to just say “thanks” to comments like “you’re so lucky to…” have this or that, achieved this or that, and so on. I still do to a large extent. But for some select situations and definitely some people, I’ve started to take some credit where credit is due, especially since they were never going to give me any. I’ve started to reply with a gentle “Thanks, but it wasn’t ALL luck”, with a little smile. 🙂

They can think what they want of me, including arrogance, to be honest. Their opinion doesn’t matter to me if I’m correcting it in their face like that! They obviously don’t realize, or believe in, the fact you have to be good to be lucky, and lucky to be good. Nor do they have the perspective that you can make your own luck by hard work, persistence to give yourself multiple chances, preparation to be ready for when opportunity calls, etc. Not surprisingly, many of those I’m talking about aren’t successful in life. They just believe I am because of luck. Well, to each his/her own.