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Comment by tonyedgecombe | Hacker News Reader

I'm not that convinced about the hard work part, it strikes me it's a hangover from the protestant work ethic. If you can't achieve something in 40 hours a week why would adding another 20 make much difference. If anything it might make it more difficult.

I think I'd phrase it as you need work and luck.

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Also the ingredients of hard work, I.e. preservance, energy, focus, etc are themselves dependent on luck - having the right genes, growth environment , health , etc - so that's another type of luck.

Claiming that working hard is "luck" is an absurd excuse for not bothering to try.

The vast majority of people in the US are healthy and the environment in the US is the most conducive in the world to success. Stop making excuses.

I think if you took the time to research obesity, heart disease, diabetes, cancer, etc, in America vs. other countries, you would not be spouting this nonsense. Americans have the ability to get in a bad car wreck and live because we have incredible emergency care. That's it. That is not health.

> nonsense

I'm happy to tell you the good news that the overwhelming majority young adults in American are not suffering from debilitating health problems nor have their lives been saved by incredible emergency care.

> the environment in the US is the most conducive in the world to success. Stop making excuses

I think it depends on what is success. It's at least arguable about the us being the most conductive to success. We have less regulation in a lot of ways than other western countries, but if you have troubles, like say a car wreck that hurts you, it sucks to be in the us compared to say germany. In the us, there are a lot of built in advantages for the existing successful companies, it's harder to challenge. For example there are few large internet providers. But at the same time, there are many more new startup companies here, and there seems to be much more risk tolerance.

You can work softly, not getting as much done in the same amount of time of working hard.

And you can overexert yourself in the same amount of time, leading to deterioration in the rest of your life and eventually handicapping even your ability to work hard. I feel like this is a quite complex issue and I'm not really sure why so many people try to give one line advices on it.

What's special about the second 20 hours that they make no difference? Does the 39th hour make a difference? The 41st?

-1 votes, color me surprised.

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