Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Philosophy Club

[Eckhart Aurelius Hughes]

For 99.9%+ of people and 99.9%+ of goals, even very very bad luck won't stop you, and success is a choice.

Show me someone who says that for them luck is a factor, and I'll show you someone who's either defining their goals irrationally or dishonestly, or (more likely) someone who isn't giving 100% and is not actually choosing success.

Luck is a factor for those who claim to have a goal but only go at it half-hearted and half-assed. Luck is a factor for them, indeed, but that's because they are not really choosing success.

Imagine getting cheated on by your spouse, and then the spouse says, "Oh, I had a goal to not cheat on you, and I worked really hard at it, but, you know, bad luck struck."

Of course, they won't say that. When someone isn't taking full self-responsibility for all of their choices, they start defining their goals in irrational or dishonest ways to make it seem like they "tried" and failed. But there is no try. To try is to lie. Success is a choice, but those who don't choose it will often lie, including lying about what their real goal is, including lying themself with denial and self-delusion.

Even if you have a wild goal like becoming a millionaire, success is still a choice, 99.99%+ of the time.

It's as infinitely easy (just a matter of choice) as it is for a spouse to not cheat or an alcoholic to stop drinking.

Of all these things, failure-choosers will say it's luck not just choice. They are wrong, and almost certainly lying to themselves too.

Success is a choice, but most don't choose it.

And those who don't choose success struggle to fully accept the truth of the phrase "success is a choice". It can be met with anger, denial, or other cognitive dissonance.

Addicts find comfort in pretending to be out of control and in blaming imaginary phantoms for their torture rather than admit they are really their own torturer, and rather than admit they are in 100% full control of their own happiness.

All humans are on the addiction spectrum.

What about you? Are you pretending to be out of control, pretending to have goals that are not really goals but just try-ridden wishes about so-called luck? Or are you honestly looking at all the infinite things you can do and all the things you can have, and then, from that huge wonderful menu, choosing what you want with infinite ease?

As long as you are honest with yourself and others, you will look at the right menu. As long as you look at the right menu, you will know that success is a choice.

Choose it and you'll be successful. Don't and you won't.

What you want you can have. But you do have to really want it, and you do have to really choose it.

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[NENYE1999]

It appears that you have a strong belief in personal agency and the idea that success is primarily a matter of choice and determination. This perspective emphasizes individual responsibility and self-accountability for achieving goals. While self-motivation and choice play significant roles in achieving success, it's essential to acknowledge that external factors, including luck and circumstances, can also influence outcomes to varying degrees. Different people have different life experiences and challenges that can impact their paths to success. Ultimately, the balance between personal agency and external factors can vary from one situation to another. People have different philosophies and perspectives on success.

[Buikem Kasia]

I don't think that this is totally true. Life is unfair and the good guys don't always win. Some people choose to be successful, do all the right things, and yet they end up unsuccessful.

[Faes]

I think Success is a choice, because no matter the drawbacks if you choose to be successful, and put in the effort, you'll surely become successful.

[Witch Cavil]

I don't think so. One can be hard working and still not be successful in life. Hard work is a choice and not success.

[Eckhart Aurelius Hughes]

I gave some helpful examples of the fact that, generally speaking, success if a choice in my other topic, My Three Principles for Happiness and Success (in that order!) | Be Happy and Achieve Incredible Success Guaranteed:

Generally, in the long run, success is a choice. For example, if you weigh 400 lbs, and you want to lose 200 lbs, you can. If you are an alcoholic and you want to recover and stop drinking, you can. If you are home alone lonely and haven't had a romantic partner in months--or years--and you want to get one soon, you can. Or, if you are a sex addict and you want to recover and stop having sex and live the rest of your life as a born again virgin, you can. If you want to make a million dollars and become a millionaire, you can. If you want to become a bestselling author, you can. If you want to start and own your own successful restaurant, you can. If you want to get married, you can. If you want to get divorced, you can. If you want to climb a huge mountain, you can. If you want to sit at home and spend as much time as possible just quietly sitting on your porch drinking tea and staring up at the stars, you can.


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Be careful with words like "work hard", especially if it refers to something like "trying". As my book says, trying is lying.

One of my favorite TV Shows is "My 600 lbs life". It just tickles me how the people will come in a month later for their weigh-in, have gone up in weight (meaning they ate over 6,000 calories per day on average), and then say they don't understand how it happened because they worked so hard and tried so hard. I don't pick on them; it's just perhaps the perfect epitome of the human condition and the things a typical human says regardless of what their person addictions and props happen to be in the common human struggle uniting us all. As I say in the book, all humans are on the addiction spectrum.

Imagine a spouse gets caught cheating (a.k.a. committing adultery, or having an affair), and then says, "I tried really hard to not cheat. I worked so hard at it. But success is not a choice. Bad luck and external circumstance are to blame."

In my philosophy, the very concept of blame itself doesn't make sense. It doesn't apply. There is nobody to blame for anything. In my philosophy, you chose what you chose, you choose what you choose, and that's just the way it is. Blame doesn't come into the equation. The would-be excuses don't even start to get off the ground--in part because there's nothing to excuse. As my book says, there's never anything to forgive.

Even though success is choice, when people don't choose to be successful at what they pretend is their goal (e.g. losing weight, not cheating, not drinking alcohol, etc.), they find comfort in self-deception and muddying the waters with all sorts of nonsense about blame, shoulds, oughts, external circumstance, bad luck, tries and trying, etc. etc.

Needless complexity is the friend of the liar, especially when the one they lie to is themselves.

An alcoholic finds a lot of comfort in pretending to be out of control and saying all sorts of long complicated other words then the one simple sentence, "I choose to drink this drink", or ""I choose to not drink this drink".

He wants to say, "No! Do or do not? No! Do or do not does not apply here. There's tries and trying. There's shoulds and oughts! There's needs and musts!"

The six misery-inducing words provide a lot of comfort to a self-deceiving addict, and all humans are on the addiction spectrum.

Whether you are a sex addict or a gambling addict, whether you a food addict or an anorexic, everyone has their things. Fundamentally, the common addiction is the addiction to comfort. To a degree, all humans are comfort addicts, at least a little bit. All humans get a little trapped in and enslaved by the hellish comfort zone, at least a little bit sometimes.

Addicts find a lot of comfort in pretending that something isn't a choice that is.

In other words, addicts find a lot of comfort in the illusion of spiritual slavery and spiritual imprisonment, which comes with feeling or sense of be a prisoner in one's own body.

My book firmly breaks many of those illusions with simple logic and obvious truths, giving the reader the simple easy path to realize the invincible inner peace of spiritual freedom.



With love,
Eckhart Aurelius Hughes
a.k.a. Scott

[Prince Oyedeji Oyeleke Jayeola]

"Success is a choice, but those who don't choose it will often lie, including lying about what their real goal is, including lying themself with denial and self-delusion." These sentences stood out for me and I read it again, over and over again. Most times people see success as a "want" but then as you have said it's a choice. But, I keep asking my self can we strike out the place of luck in success?

[Kutloano Makhuvhela]

Yes, any objective person can agree that success is a choice, just as much as anything in this world. But I am afraid your personal agency isn't just enough to make you successful. There are many factors that sre put into play that determine your fate, that is, are you going to make it or not, and I think those should be taken into account. People are born into different circumstances, that their personal agency simply wouldn't suffice to make sure they succeed. I am not qualified to speak on this, but I thought I should just share.

[Kelsey Roy]

I, for the most part, agree that success is a choice. As with every aspect of life, there can be exceptions. For example- I have a goal to achieve a certain position at my job. I work everyday to improve at my job and be ready to jump to the next level when the opportunity is provided. I may not get there soon, but I will get there eventually, at this company or at another if I continue to work toward my goal. This is a comparably easy measure of success, some people’s goals are surely harder to achieve, but typically the roadblock is in dedication to the goal.

[Favour Ozone]

The chance of success differs for different people. Some people's life have been made easier by their family background while some try to build from the scratch. Those who build from the scratch sometimes give up after much strife.

[Somtochukwu olisagozie N]

Indeed! success is a choice. I remember telling my friend about an opportunity that would change our lives but we must commit at least 3 hours of our daily time. She told me that he has something that she is doing(we are both doing that project), and because of it, she can not commit to the opportunity. I left her, and today, things are far better for me than it was before.

[Joy Wendy]

These are pure facts! I believe that if one determines to embrace something he must definitely achieve it. Success is driven by our mentality, through the decisions we make we choose what we want to be.

[Rob Carr]

I usually set myself 10 goals at the start of each year. In a typical year I would fail about half of them. I don't think there is anything wrong with failing those goals for the most part. Usually it's because priorities changed, something was harder than I thought it would be, or there were things that happened that I didn't expect. Occasionally I just decided I couldn't be bothered with that one. I still set new goals again the next year though despite knowing I won't achieve them all because it helps guide my thinking around how I should prioritise my time during the year and decide what really matters to me.

Success is a choice but that doesn't mean we should necessarily internalise failure as us failing to make good choices. Sometimes deciding to fail is the best choice you can make.

[Oleabhiele Joseph]

Someone told me this; “90% of people who gets good grades at school end up financially handicap. They invest their time and energy in school, and when the labor market doesn’t absolve them, they are left without a cause.” I strongly object to this. I know a lot of people who were academically smart, got good grades, and finished college with no jobs for them. But they took it upon themselves to find success in any place available. Do you agree with that person? Are intelligent people fooled by their academic success that they end up without enough training for the real world, being left for broke when they don’t get their dream jobs?

[Paavni Jain]

The perspective presented strongly emphasizes personal responsibility and choice in achieving success. It underscores the idea that, for the vast majority of people and goals, success is within reach through determined and committed choices. The analogy of an addict finding comfort in external blame resonates with the notion that acknowledging one's control over outcomes is pivotal. While the argument might be seen as assertive, it serves as a motivational call to self-awareness, challenging individuals to honestly assess their commitment and choices on the path to success. It encourages a proactive mindset, rejecting the notion of luck as a primary determinant.