From yesterday's Times:
I find myself itching to slap round the ear those who say to youngsters, ‘If you want something badly enough, you can get it.’ What an absolutely destructive thing to tell them. It simply isn’t true. Wanting something is never enough. Nor even, in isolation, are intelligence and sheer hard work. A major element is always being in the right place at the right time and having something of relevance to offer... Good fortune, in other words.
Counting Bears
2 hours ago
11 comments:
Oh dear. He's damaging aspirational education policy. He might even have set the policy back another 10 years.
Does he not believe in prizes for all, belief triumphs over ability and a healthy encouragement in the individuals right of choice.
"Can I just go home now teacher."
"You can if you believe that you can"
Terry Wogan talks a lot of sense quite often. In the Sunday Telegraph today, talking about the weather - "Of course, it was no one's fault. A spokesman would like it known that it was certainly not the fault of the Government. We were in fact better prepared than most other countries. This was a global problem. In fact, it started in Russia" And on the lack of transport - "Come 2012, the transport system to the capital will be the envy of the world, with eight trains a minute to the Olympic site. Don't doubt it will happen. The man who is buying up the banks said so"
Just brilliant.
Luck has a lot to with it. Sure, intelligence (which is down to luck) and hard work are important, but so is luck.
Mr Wogan writes of "Wanting something... and having something of relevance to offer."
He is merely stating that if you don't, then you won't.
I want to be a great songwriter. The fact that I lack talent, skill, musical ability, imagination, technical ability are enough to prevent this. Wanting it is not enough.
It's some feat, Mr Howes, to get me agreeing with John B. Perhaps you were just lucky.
Bill, ok, yes I agree, I was wrong and misinterpreted his words - I saw it as a statement that even if we do work hard for something, that this is meaningless as it's mostly up to chance anyway - I see now that by chance, he also meant being imbued with the skills to achieve, just as Mark said.
I saw it as a rejection of "if you want something that anyone or you in particular can achieve, you can get it" as opposed to a rejection of: "if you want anything at all, you can get it, even if you don't have the good fortune to possess the skills necessary to achieve".
Thanks for that, and sorry for boring you :)
Having intelligence is lucky, ..... so is having persistence and desire not also lucky?
Maybe luck plays a bigger hand in life than we realise.
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