Success and Failure: Choice or Chance?

Until recently, I told my students that if they want to succeed all they have to do is what I did to succeed. That is a common perception in American society. Success can be achieved by "doing what I did.' Success is contagious. The "If I did it, you can do it" philosophy." The other adage we are told is that if you "work hard" you will  succeed. [Thus suggesting that if you are not succeeding in life it is because you are not working hard enough.] For years I bought into those assumptions. 

I was so focused and dedicated to my success that I completed my BA in two years, my MA in one year, and my PhD in four years. That's three degrees in seven years. I allowed nothing and no one to get in the way of my success. I fully embraced a "Damn the torpedoes!" mentality and I developed a tenacity of purpose seldom seen by fellow classmates.   

I emphasizes this aspect of my backstory to my students for over a decade. I told them that i expect them to also allow nothing and no one to get in their way of success - to do what i did. The "If I could do it, you can do it" mentality.

Then recently I began to reflect on my personal story of success and I've concluded two things. First, the "just do what I did to succeed" is rather paternalistic, self-serving, and inaccurate. Second, I forgot how much chance, or luck, played a major role in my success.

While I dedicated every day to doing what I needed to do in order to further my academic goals, and so the idea of choice cannot be ignored, chance or luck seemed to play an equal role in my success.

Right out of high school I enrolled in my local community college. I rarely attended class and when I did I did not take the topics of the day seriously, thus I failed every class. I then enlisted in the US Army. One of the benefits of active duty service is the GI Bill and one part of the GI Bill is the college saving fund. The college fund part of the GI Bill changed over time. When I was in the Army, we had the Montgomery GI Bill. And under that benefit for every $1 I saved to my college fund, the federal government put $2 in my college fund. By the time I received an honorable discharge I had a college fund slightly above $30,000 (that was in 1990 -in 2016 that figure would be a little more than $55,000). I would guess that the average college student does not begin his/her post secondary school with a $55,000 war chest. It was chance, or luck, that I had the opportunity to build a college savings fund.

Having that money meant I did not have to work full time in order to pay for everything and thus I could spend 100% of my time focused on my studies. And to save money I went back to that community college that I flunked out of 11 years prior. Now I did get a part time job working for the theater department to earn money for non essentials.

Another example of chance of luck was my housing situation. My parents lived between the community college and the University of Washington in a quiet neighborhood. They decided to move to Arizona, however as they were under 65 if they sold their home and moved out of state, the state would tax the profits of the sale. So my parents asked me, who was homeless due to a divorce, to move into their house and in exchange of taking care of the upkeep, I could stay for free. I'd guess that the average student doesn't have free housing (almost free as I split the utilities with my younger brother who was still living at home). Without having to pay for housing, my GI Bill college fund could go even farther in supporting my goals. Another example of chance or luck.

Then there were all the professors and staff who helped me to succeed such as Dr. Fowler who allowed me to enroll in his doctoral dissertation writing seminar as an undergrad. That lead to another grad class as an undergrad which lead to a Constitution law class at the UW Law School while I wrote my MA thesis. Then another professor at the UW knew a prof at WSU and they helped me to get into the WSU history program as a doctoral student.

Then when my dissertation adviser needed a warm body to fill in at the last minute for a panel on world human rights I said sure. Well the History Department chair was in the audience. He liked my presentation and so he offered me my own class: the first part of Western Civ. That led to classes every semester. Most of my colleagues never got one class, but I had six before I was awarded the PhD.

In retrospect there were dozens of people who helped to succeed. And so, I hope that I am one of the many faculty and staff who are there when our students need help in succeeding.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it!