Nature, Nurture, Luck or Normal?

I don’t have a position on this, just a thought that crossed my idle mind this morning.

My grandfather came from an extremely wealthy and successful family. I’ve recently been around the various land and properties in Dorset and the family vault. There’s a family crest granted by a king (for paying off his gambling debts) etc.

Here’s the rub though: he was born illegitimate to wealthy parents who subsequently married. Given it was the 1890s, though, he was born in secret and shipped off to an orphanage in London until he was 13 when he was brought back into the family. He was a tearaway though, went off to fight in WW1 in the trenches as a private, and when he married my grandmother (who was considered unsuitable), he was disinherited and his mother never spoke to him again. He farmed, he fitted boat engines, he was a skilled machinist and a reserved occupation in WW2, and, when I was a kid, he was a petrol pump attendant. Not what you’d call a privileged background.

This morning I was thinking about his offspring. My cousin has just been awarded an OBE, my brother is a self-made millionaire, my niece has a First from Cambridge and is now doing a scholarship at Harvard, another niece plays hockey for Belgium, Charlie has his Cambridge First, Eve her Glasgow First, another cousin (not related to the niece) got a first from Oxford and I think is very wealthy, and I’d say that all of my cousins (on my grandfather’s side) are “successful” (my cousins on the other side much less so).

It did make me wonder then if that is pure luck. Or whether he brought up my mother and aunts in a certain way. Or whether he conferred some DNA advantage. Or whether there’s something else. I don’t know or really even have an opinion. I do know that once you’re out of poverty, life chances are much better. But he started in an incredibly tough place and lived an incredibly tough life.

Thoughts?

Aye Rich, I took a wee while & thought about not posting at all, not because of the content really,more of not bursting any bubbles so to speak. I'm firmly in the camp of what will be will be, simple. Obviously if you are a hard worker & of the academic type, you can make good headway in life, that's for sure, but it's purely up to the individual to achieve this. Then again, post code lottery can play a part in your outcome, then again there have been cases of people making fortunes coming from very poor backgrounds. I think at times, & I'm sure we all overthink things & dwell too much perhaps.

I'm a black & white person, it's either yes/no, wrong/right. No higher being that's for sure. You make your way in life yourself. Obviously there are those who are born into money, but I'm that's a different story.Your parents & how they bring you up plays a big part, especially in the very early years, my wife who is among other things a child development expert & psychologist, but it can be complicated to explain all the relevant situations. Back in the times you are talking about, I do believe certain individuals have the foresight to take advantage of things that will reap rewards in the future. Today, there are far more people chasing the money wagon for want of a saying.

Bottom line. Luck/post code lottery/upbringing how your parents are good bad towards you. So in essence, taking everything into account, it really is just luck in my view. There are so many things you could throw at this, but again that would be just regarded as luck, some will call this your destiny, you could call it anything you want, but it's going to happen.....

I think the key is resilience. Whether it comes from having to be resourceful in order simply to survive or whether you are wealthy and keep starting and investing in new businesses after repeated knock-backs, I think the ability to come back from adversity and not give up is what makes people successful (however you define that...).
Generally, my observation of "successful" people would suggest that the harder the start, the greater the resilience. Whether this is environmental, inculcated or inherited, I have no idea, but I would suspect a combination.

The man in uniform

There are so many things that can affect the outcome of your life. It's like a tapestry.

What if your grandfather's life was exactly the same as you've described it apart from one thing - he was born without arms?

Would he have approached that disability as just another challenge in his already incredibly tough life and owned it? Or would it have been something that despite his positive attitude simply meant he lost out on opportunities? Therefore unable to farm and fit boat engines like you said or indeed do anything physically demanding?

How would that have changed his life? Would he have had to adapt and do white collar jobs instead?

How about if we add another problem to his physical disability? Say if he also had a condition that affected his short term memory? So now he is unable to carry out office related duties too.

I think what it comes down to is, even if you're overall dealt a bad hand by life, as long as you have a fighting chance, you can hopefully somehow (through hard work/luck or both) get out of the crap.