Moral Luck
Yet what happened was shown to be to a large extent in the hands of what the Greeks called ‘fate’ or ‘the gods’. It was the Greeks’ poetic way of saying that things often work out randomly, according to dynamics that simply don’t reflect the merits of the individuals concerned. The great Greek tragedians – Aeschylus, Euripides and Sophocles – recou
... See moreAlain De Botton • The School of Life: An Emotional Education
If you give luck and risk their proper respect, you realize that when judging people’s financial success—both your own and others’—it’s never as good or as bad as it seems.
Morgan Housel • The Psychology of Money: Timeless lessons on wealth, greed, and happiness
Where does responsibility for success and failure lie? Nowadays, the answer tends to be: squarely with the individual concerned. That’s why failure isn’t just hard (as it has always been), it is a catastrophe. There is no metaphysical consolation, no possibility of appealing to the idea of ‘bad luck’, no one to blame but oneself. Suicide rates clim
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