Luck Favors Only The Prepared~Luis Pasteur

Studious men of rhetoric and purely academic minds do not usually believe in luck; that success can come about by lucky circumstances such as being at the right place at the right time by chance. They believe that success and breakthroughs can only be attained by labored precision and accuracy, with no room left for chance or skepticism. To an extent they are right; right that diligence is that preparation necessary to cease opportunities when they do present themselves. But in a field where everyone is quite good, sheer luck and chance tends to play a role.

Consider this for example. A writer’s book gets published by New York Times because he’s bright letterhead caught the attention of the publisher who was otherwise day dreaming of daisies. This guy then grows on to be popular and acclaimed as a renowned story writer endowed with the gift of ancient story tellers. Other writers start to quote his words in their own books, thus his works reaches more and more people; so more and more people buy his book which soon becomes a best seller selling ten million copies. This guy’s success cannot be purely attributed to the hard work he put in, but also the element of chance that played a significant role. Most probably he’s manuscript wasn’t the best in the chaos of other books. But because he’s got read(by chance) it displaced all the other books, which were probably more noteworthy and aesthetic.

If you ever happen to read Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s “The Black Swan” (which you should at some point in your life) you’ll happen to come across his notion about how the American system works “simply because it allows people to be lucky by aggressive trial and error.” So good writers will not always be the one’s who’s books get published, but who’s books(by chance) get the attention of the day dreaming publisher! Of course the book has to be a good one to be actually published, but not necessarily the BEST. You’ll also discover in this amazing book why it’s easy for “the rich get richer whilst the poor get poorer.” Sorry for using the book and publisher analogy, but I can’t think of anything else. A book writer gets published and he’s book becomes a bestseller from that. Other writers quote his words, thus increasing his audience. He later quotes them too in his newer books, thus becoming an “I quote you and you quote me situation.” This creates a caliber or class of book writers, who the world will take as the epitome and prodigies of literature. The works of other writers gets forgotten and diminished, therefore never seeing the light of day even though their works are greater. They sag and complain (rather than send their manuscript to other reputable publishers, or just write another book)

#AgressiveTrial&Error