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Should I be proud of my achievements if they were obtained through luck?

Home→Forums→Emotional Mastery→Should I be proud of my achievements if they were obtained through luck?

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Viewing 11 posts - 1 through 11 (of 11 total)
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  • February 23, 2018 at 6:21 pm #194175
    Leocube
    Participant

    I feel like I’ve been really lucky my whole life and whatever that I’ve achieved till this day is all because I was lucky. I was lucky that I was able to immigrate to a first world country where I can live my life the way I want and not have to conform to a rigid and old fashioned culture. I was lucky that my first boss was a good guy and guided me through out my early years into adulthood. I was lucky that at my first job, there were lazy coworkers and so I had to do their job for them and therefore mastered my skills quicker and moved up the ladder quicker. I was lucky that I had supportive co workers that encouraged and comfort me when I made a mistake. I was lucky that I got a low paying part time job and got a ridiculously high raise after a few months working there only because they were short staffed and I stuck around. Right now, I’m a cook in one of the busiest and most famous restaurants in a major city. I want to be proud of myself but I just can’t.

    I thought about my past and what I did that got me to this point in life and I realized that, most of the thing that lead me to where I am today, weren’t in my control at all. Had I got a shitty boss that yelled and screamed at me whenever I made a mistake, I would never have had the confidence that I have today doing what I do for my job. Had my coworkers been apathetic, I would never have had the courage to socialize and improve my weakness (anti-social). Had I not been lucky and found that part time job that has an insanely high turnover rate, I would never have had such a high paying part time job. Had it wasn’t been for all of this, I would never have had the confidence and experience to apply at one of the most famous restaurant and get hired.

    Should I even be happy since most of my achievements were achieved through luck and not my actual hard work? I feel like my life has been extremely easy and non stressful and I feel like everything that I am today was handed to me.

    February 23, 2018 at 8:08 pm #194181
    VJ
    Participant

    Hi Leocube,

    Life works on Cause and Effect. What you do to others comes back to you. This ‘doing’ also includes thinking, acting, speaking. What goes around comes around. As you sow, so shall you reap. Every action has an equal an opposite reaction. Now, I understand it is hard to believe these particularly if we think that I haven’t done anything good to anyone in this life. It is not that straight forward. Life is a complicated matrix of energy. The actions that I am talking is not only about this current life but about all the lives that your soul has traveled in another bodies till it came here. The actions do not determine only the “doing good to others part”. It also includes thoughts, feelings, emotions, belief systems, perceptions, programs, memories, charity you might have given to others, your behaviour with other people, what kind of thoughts you are producing in a situation when someone has done something wrong to you, and much much more. It is something that determines your overall consciousness. All these things together form a complex matrix of energy. Think of this matrix of energy as a cloud. This cloud is with you wherever you go whatever you do. Think of it just above your head. The cloud keeps forming with every single thought and act described above. And when the “right” time comes this cloud bursts into forming various situations, circumstances, events, people drawn towards you. These may be favourable to you or may be not depending on what your cloud was like. These situations for people may last for their entire lifetime or part of it. For some their initial life may be havoc but later on heal their karma and have a great life. Some people’s entire life is havoc and in the next lifetime they have a wonderful life throughout right from their birth. We (except God or the Universal Intelligence) do not really know how and when it happens.

    That which you are calling as luck is nothing but the return of this energy coming back to you which you had sent out earlier (whenever that could be). So the lucky situations you are encountering are all yours and only yours and you deserve it fully.

    The ultimate truth is whatever is happening to anyone is exactly the way it should have happened….and so it is happening that way.

    All I suggest you is to not get complacent. The meaning of complacent I am referring to here as feeling so satisfied with your own abilities or situation that you feel you do not need to try any harder or work towards anything or give anything back to the world (may even be by cooking nice, hygienic, tasty food for others) because by doing this too you are creating your own karma forming your own cloud.

    Take care,
    VJ

    February 24, 2018 at 7:43 am #194243
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Leocube:

    Welcome back.

    You wrote that you were lucky your whole life. November last year you came to a resolution: to no longer have your parents live with you in your house. I don’t remember if you resolved to have no contact with them at all. Did you follow through with your resolution, having them out of your house?

    If so, it is definitely an achievement that you can be proud of, as it wasn’t easy to do.

    anita

    February 24, 2018 at 10:21 pm #194327
    Jake
    Participant

    Luck is subjective – a word that simply defines something highly improbable happening in the eyes of the person using the word. You mention ‘hard work’ as the sole variable that determines ‘success’.  But we just don’t know all the variables that determines our outcomes.  And if you believe in past lives, maybe you worked really hard in your past lives, and it’s not luck at all, but you reaping the benefits of past lives.

    As VJ said, don’t get complacent — stay humble, give back to others, enjoy your life, and don’t feel guilty!

    March 15, 2018 at 7:03 pm #197525
    Leocube
    Participant

    Sorry for the super super late reply, sometimes I get emotional and went online to rant then I would forget all about it, sort of like a blackout.


    @VJ     : Thanks for your insight, I don’t like to get too comfortable as I’ve experienced my bubbles being busted before. I think that I understand what you mean when you’re talking about these energy being formed. Not quite like “karma”, but something like “cause and effect”. I’ve thought about these things before too but I’ve also wondered whether everything is just coincidental. Some people have crappy lives just because, and some people have amazing luck just because.


    @anita     : Hi anita, it’s nice to hear from you. It’s amazing that you’re able to remember the things that I (and hundreds of others) have told you. I have decided to cut ties with my family, that decision still stands. They have agreed to move out by June this year. They’re looking into buying a house or an apartment in the mean time. I realize that although we may not be on the same boat, but I do feel grateful for the things that they’ve done for me and I would like to return the favor by giving them time to get their situation in order. I’m thinking of giving them my small house as a gift and move somewhere else because frankly, I would prefer they not know where I live. I’ve worked hard to buy that house, but I never really cared much for money. I’ve talked to them about it and they don’t want to have my house and insist that I stay here while they move away. Either way, I will be moving somewhere else. I won’t be having any contact with them after I move away.

    I actually don’t feel proud about this, it just feels long overdue. I don’t feel happy or sad about it, I just feel like it was only necessary. If you’re able to reply, i have a question that I would like to ask you. I know that after I move away, I will be thinking about them from time to time for the rest of my life. I will be wondering how they’re doing, if they’re happy, if they’re sad. I will be reminiscing about the good times that we had. What does this mean? Does this mean that I’m regretting? Does this mean that having these thoughts are only natural? What would you call these emotions? Are they even emotions? Thank you.


    @Jake    : It’s weird because reading your comment, I’m actually remembering how I used to think as a kid. I wanted to be a rich and famous surgeon. I wanted all the girls to desire me. I wanted everyone to accept me as superior to them. Overall, I wanted to continue being in the same social class that I was born into (my parents are surgeons and my family is well respected in my home country). Typically in my culture, being a doctor has got to be one of the most respected jobs. Even the richest guy in my country had came to our family to extend respect to my parents after my mom saved his daughter. I used to look down on people who work “labor jobs”, like dishwashers, cooks, severs, cashiers, movers etc. Not look down, but I never thought that today I would be working one of these labor jobs, and enjoying it. If I were to tell my 18 year old self that I would be a cook in the future, my 18 year old self would have been greatly disappointed. I guess the younger me wouldn’t have considered my life right now as “lucky”.

    March 16, 2018 at 5:26 am #197591
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Leocube:

    You are welcome. Glad to be communicating with you.

    You wrote that after you move away you will be thinking about your parents from time to time for the rest of your life, wondering how they’re doing, feeling, reminisce about the good times. You asked: “What does it mean? Does this mean that I’m regretting?… what would you call these emotions? Are they even emotions?”-

    Some will be thoughts, some will be emotions. A lot will be a numb mental sensation, a nothingness. I think that whenever you miss them in a way, if you do, when you do, it will be missing what you did not have with them, the childhood you not have, the togetherness you.. did not experience.

    What is clear to me from communicating with you, over time, is the intensity of your being alone, as a child with your parents around, and as the adult that you are, still, currently in their presence. The emotional divide between you and them is huge.

    When you were very young, there was no division. You reached out to them for love, for that togetherness. They rejected you, ignored you, left you to be alone. So you lost that need to reach out to them, almost. You almost lost it completely. There is that tiny seed of a need, very small, hardly felt that still exists, from the very early years, and that seed sometimes vibrate some small emotion.

    Let me know if my explanation reads reasonable to you and if it is helpful.

    anita

     

    March 16, 2018 at 7:28 am #197611
    Peter
    Participant

    Should I be proud of my achievements if they were obtained through luck

    Pride can be a complex emotion, to much and we lose the ability to see others and ourselves, to little and we lose the ability to see ourselves and others. When we can take pleasure in our work we ought to.  At the same time we need to be careful that we don’t attache our sense of self on our work, achieves or failures. The ego likes to attach itself to achievements – “I” am a good person because I am good a playing the piano. The ego will also attach itself to our failures – “I” am a bad person because I suck at playing the piano.  ‘You’ are not your ego

    Take pleasure in your achievements just be careful if you find yourself defining yourself as being this or that based on those achievements.

    March 19, 2018 at 9:58 pm #198243
    Leocube
    Participant

    @anita Hi Anita, what you’ve explained could very well be true, I really don’t know. I’ve never thought of myself as a deep person. I feel what I feel and most of the times, I act on the shallow emotions that I feel. I don’t tend to analyse them very much. I’m just thinking out loud here, but it’s almost like, I can’t undo what I already know. I know of my family, and I’ve spent a good 18 years of my life living with them, I think it makes sense that I would be thinking about them from time to time. But on the otherhand, there’s something telling me that if they aren’t worth being in my life, then I wouldn’t be thinking about them at all. The fact that I will think about them could mean that maybe they are worthy to have in my life.

    Before they move in with me, I was living alone and rarely contacted them, I was completely ok. Only now that I’ve decided to cut ties with them, my brain is thinking up of all the “ifs”. I feel like only time can answer these questions. I tend to overthink and doubt myself alot, so this may also be one of those moments as well, I really hope that it is.


    @Peter     Thanks for you insights. I rarely think in term of “I’m a bad person/I’m a good person”. What I do think is whether I am good enough. Whether I truly deserve these achievements. I just want to know objectively what my real ability is. That’s why I dropped out of college, I didn’t take my parents money, and started working minimum wage right when I turned 18. I wanted to know had I not been given money, or a college education like a good amount of the population, would I amount to anything. I usually compare myself to the people that started with nothing, rather than the people that were blessed with money and a good education.

    March 20, 2018 at 7:29 am #198321
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Leocube:

    There is such a thing as analyzing too much. This too, in moderation, if it is useful, if it may be useful. For example you wrote: “there’s something telling me that if they aren’t worth being in my life, then I wouldn’t be thinking about them at all. The fact that I will think about them could mean that maybe there are worthy to have in my life”-

    it may be worthwhile to analyze this question: do people think (and sometimes think a lot) about people who are of no positive value in their lives, of people of negative value? How often does it happen?

    If it happens often this may apply to you too, that you may be thinking about your parents even though they are and will be of no positive value in your life, maybe even negative value.

    Let me know if you want to examine/ analyze this particular thing, for useful purposes, that is.

    What is true to people, some of it is true to you too because you too are human.

    anita

    March 22, 2018 at 6:28 pm #198903
    Leocube
    Participant

    @anita Hi, to answer your question, I do tend to think alot about people even if they have no positive value in my life. For example, I still think about my middle school bully occasionally and wonder what his life is like right now. Obviously I don’t like him, but if it’s someone that I know and interact with for a long period of time, I will think about them. If a person has ever triggered some sort of strong emotion in my brain, I will remember and think about them. Sometimes I get giddy on the thought that I no longer have to be associated with my family, but sometimes, I get an image in my head of my mother’s face looking sad and I think to myself that maybe I won’t be as giddy and happy as I thought I would be. I still stand by my decision, I just need to get these thoughts out there somewhere.

    I feel sorry for my family. I want them to be well and happy, maybe death would be better. I wish that they could just die painlessly and swiftly so at least I don’t have to worry about their future. I don’t mean like I want them dead in a vengeful way, I jsut feel that it would be in their best interest (and mine) if they were to die. Is this turning into something else? haha

    March 23, 2018 at 5:21 am #198933
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Leocube:

    In your earlier post you wrote: “The fact that I will think about them could mean that maybe they are worthy to have in my life”.  In your recent post you gave an example of a person you think about who is not worthy to have in your life.

    Well, then you know that when you do think about your parents once they are no longer in your life, it does not mean at all that they are worthy to have in your life.

    The fact that you feel about your parents the way you do is a result of their input into your life, it is a consequence of their words, actions and lack of. Let them experience the consequences of their input into your young life. It is not a good idea to interrupt the natural law of cause and consequence, to … protect people from this law.

    Some sadness of their part? Be it.

    I used to think my mother will be devastated without me in her life, that she couldn’t live… well, she is living just like before, five years of no contact with me.

    anita

     

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