What really makes a person successful? It could be merely having good luck and being born with a God given skill or come from hard work and expanding one’s knowledge in order to receive a successful job. In some cases people can be born successful through a famous family or God given athletic skill, but in most cases success comes from hard work. Success is largely the result of hard work with a small part of success being taking advantage of when the “good luck” opportunities that arrive.
A lesson that is taught to us from a very young age is that nothing comes free in life. From the first day of school to our last, we are taught that by only through pursuing a college degree will we earn a good job and become successful. All of these years put into school, studying, and pursuing a college degree add up to surpass the 10,000 hour rule described by Malcolm Gladwell in Outliers in which he states, “Ten thousand hours is the magic number of greatness” (40). Whether or not 10,000 hours is the true number for greatness, one thing cannot be argued; the more work put in to a given profession, the more skilled one is and the higher level of expertise one has. It has been stamped into our heads that the more time and work that someone puts into a sport, studying, etc., the better the pay off later in life.
If one dedicates his or her life to working hard and practice, life is bound to reward that person. Ragged Dick is a perfect example of how life repaid a man who worked his hardest his entire life. An opportunity came along by chance where a young boy fell over the railing of a boat and Ragged Dick was the one to save him. Not knowing that this young boy was the son of a very wealthy Mr. Rockwell, he saved this boy because it was the right thing to do. There was an offer put out by Mr. Rockwell that whoever saved his son received $10,000 but Dick did not hear this offer when he jumped in. After he saved the boy, he declined the offer but still was rewarded by Mr. Rockwell with new clothes, a new job, and a new life (Alger 246). Ragged Dick had no idea that saving this boy would be a new start for him. It was simply life itself returning the favor for saving the young boy.
There is a saying that has been around for many years that “people create their own luck.” In many senses, this is true. However, there are two types of luck in this world. There is the type of luck where someone buys a lottery scratch off and wins $10,000 and then there is the type of luck where an athlete works hard his or her entire life, puts in hours and hours of practice, and is rewarded by being prepared to take advantage of a spot on the football team that just opened up because the starter got hurt. “Being prepared to take advantage of good or lucky opportunities when they come along can also be considered to be good luck and this is a more probable and realistic GOAL than pure luck which is winning the lottery against tremendous odds”...
