A lot of it is based on circumstances that occurred prior to your conception, in-vitro or what you were born into. Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos did not go from homelessness and destitution to multi billionaires. Over half of CEO's are six foot or over despite only making up fourteen percent of the population. The candidate who is tallest statistically wins the presidential election. That's just height. And you can't gymmaxx your way to six feet. We haven't covered looks, personality - half of which is inherited and in particular, the dark triad traits, IQ, background born into and growing up and social networking (the concept of who you know, not what you know).
There are exceptions because life is nuanced but in general, most of your life course is determined before you opened your eyes and saw the world for the first time.
Work and effort isn't fruitless and I am not advocating against it. However, it would be wise to acknowledge that it only accounts for a minority of success and that different people have different limits, preferences and abilities.
All of that is true, but God also gave us free will to be able to strive past our circumstances, and most people don't use it and default to the deterministic forces in their life. That doesn't mean any kindergartener can grow up to be an astronaut (hereditary personality traits alone eliminate 90% of them from even wanting to be one), but exercise of free will, achieving incremental and occasionally drastic improvement, is how families and civilizations improve generationally.
A lot of it is based on circumstances that occurred prior to your conception, in-vitro or what you were born into. Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos did not go from homelessness and destitution to multi billionaires. Over half of CEO's are six foot or over despite only making up fourteen percent of the population. The candidate who is tallest statistically wins the presidential election. That's just height. And you can't gymmaxx your way to six feet. We haven't covered looks, personality - half of which is inherited and in particular, the dark triad traits, IQ, background born into and growing up and social networking (the concept of who you know, not what you know).
There are exceptions because life is nuanced but in general, most of your life course is determined before you opened your eyes and saw the world for the first time.
Work and effort isn't fruitless and I am not advocating against it. However, it would be wise to acknowledge that it only accounts for a minority of success and that different people have different limits, preferences and abilities.
All of that is true, but God also gave us free will to be able to strive past our circumstances, and most people don't use it and default to the deterministic forces in their life. That doesn't mean any kindergartener can grow up to be an astronaut (hereditary personality traits alone eliminate 90% of them from even wanting to be one), but exercise of free will, achieving incremental and occasionally drastic improvement, is how families and civilizations improve generationally.