LOL, dualism moment. There is no "you" outside of your genetics and the socialization you experienced. There is definitely some luck involved, but also you're the product of a lot more work and planning than you give yourself credit for.
Some people are lucky enough to have parents/family that handle this planning for us at young ages, knowing we will benefit in the future.
Do you think you were “lucky” not to be a 100kg mass of disconnected plasma inside the sun?
This doesn’t make any sense. There are different processes in our universe that produce different things, from plasma to rocks to mosquitos to unsuccessful people to successful people.
These processes are different, and their outputs are not fungible. There’s no luck. There’s no sense in which “you” could have been anything except what you are.
It’s weird to point out the usage here. Sure someone can say “I’m grateful the insane probabilities of every small detail that led to today collapsed on me living a good life”, but it’s easier to just say “I’m so lucky”.
> There’s no sense in which “you” could have been anything except what you are.
Perhaps yea, this feels tangential to the argument there is no free will and the universe is 100% deterministic. Maybe I’m reading too much into your comment, but for my lived experience. It certainly doesn’t feel that I was 100% destined to end up here. Im sure others feel the same way that their circumstances were never predetermined.
Luck = fate
I encounter this “luck” argument that implies dualism, of a self separate from biology and life experience that could have somehow existed in a different body, all the time.
And until I read this comment I felt like I was the only person who found that idea specious.
It sounds like what you really mean is something like a psychological continuity (identity is having psychological continuity) or animalist (identity is being the same human animal) view, which are both consistent with some mental characteristics (like intelligence) being accidental to who we are.
In another way, yes hard work and good planning is vital to success. But you shouldn't pat yourself on the back too hard for it, and you shouldn't think of yourself morally better than anyone else for it.
(This isn't sour grapes from me. I'm successful and worked incredibly hard for years without much money.)