On Luck
March 13, 2014
James E McGuire
“It’s
hard to detect good luck—it looks so much like something you have earned.” In
spite of the wisdom of these words, there are those who mistakenly believe
their good fortune is due solely to their own hard work. In his last presidential campaign, President
Obama misspoke when, trying to echo the eloquent comments of Senator Elizabeth
Warren, he muffed his lines and said something like, “When you see someone rich
and successful claiming they built it, they are wrong. They didn’t build it.” He should have added “by themselves.”
Every
American success story is due, in part, to all the advantages and support that
are built into our social system. I am
one of those American success stories and in many ways embody the American
dream. I do, however, know that luck was
a critical factor in my success.
Luck: the roll of the genetic dice. It all starts there. Any student of reproductive biology knows the
role that chance plays in determining how each of us starts the game of life. At the moment of conception, it is a random
event as to which sperm will win the race to join with that particular egg at
that particular moment to make “me.” There
is no one who can claim control over his genetic make-up or the occurrence of
her birth.
Luck: birth order. Particularly in a large family—I
was one of six—with the same parents, one notes and marvels at the differences
among siblings. We were all reasonably confident that we had
common parents. At the same time, it is
also true that no two children have the same parents. Birth order makes a tremendous difference.
There are special advantages and burdens placed on the first born. For the parents, it is their first experiment
in being parents. By being in the middle, I had the benefit of birth order. My parents had just the right balance: still interested in my band concerts and
scholastic achievements and yet giving me enough latitude and freedom to
develop my own interests and goals. I
had an older brother and an older sister to buffer me from some of the bad stuff -
parents when they were really angry and bullies in the school yard.
Luck: moving to Oregon. We were all born on a farm
in northern Minnesota. We thought of it
as the land that God forgot. It was hot
in the summer with unbearable swarms of mosquitoes to torment cattle and
humans. It was cold in the winter with
daytime temperatures well below zero and with blizzard winds coming straight
from the North Pole. At a time when no
one measured wind chill factors, as a farm child of seven years of age, I hauled water and grain
for the chickens when the thermometer registered many degrees below zero. One will never know what the future would
have been had we remained on the farm. Few
farm boys from Minnesota were lucky enough to make it to Harvard.
In
1955 our parents sold the farm at auction and headed west. All of their worldly possessions in one
home-made trailer and one 1949 Chevrolet, filled with two parents and six
children. I had a cast on a broken leg. They had five hundred dollars in their
pockets and no debts. We settled in
Springfield, Oregon: population of 10,000 across the river from
Eugene (pop. 25,000) and the University of Oregon. No child can claim credit
for the circumstances that landed us in the heart of the Willamette Valley and
all the riches that it held. Also, we
were only one hour from the Pacific Ocean and one hour from the Cascade Mountains.
In the early years, we all knew that we were lucky to have left Minnesota: the cold, the unremitting labor of caring for
animals twice a day, the absence of running water or indoor plumbing.
Benefiting
from the post-war boom of the Eisenhower era, right at the beginning of the
building of the Interstate highway system, in Oregon in the 1950’s, everyone had
jobs and opportunities for new jobs. We all started by picking crops: strawberries,
cherries, and beans. We enjoyed good neighborhood schools with enrichment
programs for the “gifted,” and a safe social environment where kids could
comfortably walk the streets by day or by night. Though they had been given a
key when our parents bought our new home, to my knowledge the front door was
never locked.
Luck: Mrs. Vosberg, the teacher who cared. Almost every success story involves one
teacher or other adult who singles out a lucky person for special attention. Logically, of course, such a teacher has done
those small acts many times over the course of a lifetime of teaching. To the student who benefits, it seems an act
of amazing grace and sheer good luck. I
had such a teacher in the fifth grade:
Mrs. Vosberg. Mrs. Vosberg
singled me out and told me I was gifted.
“You have a brain, Mac. Use it,”
she said in her gravelly, smoker voice. I knew nothing of her personal life,
except she was a great teacher and a smoker.
I know that because I was invited into the faculty lounge to talk with
her while she enjoyed a cigarette break.
When I bloodied the nose of a school yard bully by banging his head into
the basketball goal pole, I was taken aside by Mrs. Vosberg to be escorted to
the Principal’s office for the punishment that was due. On the way, she leaned over and whispered,
“Next time, Mac, hit him harder!” Even
then I knew that was not a license for mayhem, but a vote of confidence in me. Throughout the school year, Mrs. Vosberg
“found” clothing that her “nephew” had outgrown and that miraculously fit me to
a T. My mother was comfortable with me
accepting hand-me-downs, even when accidentally one of them arrived at school
with the price tag still attached. I was
the teacher’s pet. From that year
forward, I knew that I was smart and that I could do anything that I
wanted. “You have a brain, Mac. Use it.”
More
generally, we had the benefit of good free public schools. Class sizes were reasonable; arts, music and
sports were part of the curriculum for all who wanted; the teachers were good,
dedicated professionals who were paid a decent wage, and the school buildings
were safe. We walked to elementary
school, junior high school and high school.
The town library was also only a short walk away. We were given library cards when we were old
enough to read and could check out as many books as we wanted, every week, for
free. The librarians knew me personally
and helped me read more advanced books from the adult section.
We
had a strong local community center, with free swimming lessons and a special
“Teen Canteen” for safe dancing on a Friday night. We also benefited by having a quality state
university, the University of Oregon, right across the river. Open to some of us as seniors in high school,
the university promised an affordable education to all students who graduated
and wanted to go on to college.
Luck: getting into Harvard. There were many related elements of luck that
sent me to Harvard. I had made the
announcement when I was 14: “I am going
to be a lawyer and I am going to Harvard.”
I made the decision based on a school career preference test that
established that I was fitted for indoor clerical work: jobs like secretary, accountant or
lawyer. I told my parents that afternoon
and never changed my mind. On this
topic, my mother was as ignorant as I was about the odds, the admissions
process, or even where Harvard was located.
She never doubted the plan and would tell here customers in the beauty
shop, “My oldest boy is going to be a doctor and Jim is going to Harvard to be
a lawyer.” After years of hearing stories about the future plans of her
children, one of her customers in the beauty shop, who had actually graduated
from Columbia, asked my mother if I had taken the SAT exams. Of course, my mother did not know. Neither of us even knew what an SAT exam
was. The customer also gently suggested
that schools in the east tended to have much earlier dates for applying and
since this was the summer before my senior year in high school, perhaps I
should start the application process soon, if I really was going to
Harvard.
A
trip to the library and a discussion with my special friend the librarian gave
me all the information I needed. She
told me what an SAT was, that the SAT application came from Princeton, New
Jersey and gave me the address for Harvard in Cambridge, Massachusetts. I asked her to check again since I was pretty
sure that the Harvard I wanted to go to was in Boston. She told me that she was pretty sure there
was only one Harvard and that it was in fact located in Cambridge, across the
river from Boston. Not until I applied
did I discover that one had to attend four years of college before even
applying to go to law school.
Undeterred, I filled out the forms and applied. By then my summer job was a roofer, working
for my father. Somewhat grudgingly, he gave me a free Saturday in August to
take the SAT’s. Naturally, I did nothing
to prepare for the exam except to buy two new number two pencils and find my
way to the University of Oregon campus where the SAT exam was given.
I
was accepted by Harvard. Later I found
out that one of the reasons was that Harvard had a concept of “regional
distribution preference” to ensure a more diverse student body. I was also given a full scholarship: $10,000 to cover tuition, room and board for
a four-year education at Harvard.
Harvard even gave me a student loan of $750 in the spring of my senior
year, requiring only my signature on a note and an agreement to pay when I
could afford it.
Luck: meeting and marrying Claire. Many successful
people acknowledge readily that their spouse is the source of their
success. So, in a sense, there is
nothing new in this part of my narrative.
We met by luck and happenstance at a bridge game arranged by an old
girl-friend. It took me less than 24
hours to call Claire, unsuccessfully, for our first date and only three weeks
to propose, also unsuccessfully. One
year later, Claire finally said yes after I had been drafted, was serving in
the Army in basic training, and might be sent to Vietnam. There were many
differences, any of one which might have important enough to be a permanent
obstacle: I was younger than Claire; she
had an advanced degree; I was not Jewish; I came from Oregon; I had no money,
no job, and no prospects. I was in the
Army and I might be killed within the year.
And yet, Claire said yes.
In
the last 44 years Claire has done too many good things for me and with me to recount.
It started right at the beginning. I did not go to Vietnam—another story with
elements of luck and a larger element of Claire’s efforts. I did get into Boston University School of
Law—another story of luck, but a much larger story of Claire’s efforts. My success in law school was a direct result
of Claire’s support. It was not just
that she had been to law school before me and not just that she supported us
for three years when I was in law school.
It was the positive support that got me out of bed early on Sunday
mornings to study; the rationing of football games so that I did not waste the
week-end. It was the positive support of
reviewing my notes and outlines and practice exams and help in editing my major
law review publication.
Another
example is the support I received when I did not make partner at my first law
firm. Of course, there were elements of
luck in finding the last available suitable big firm in Boston that would still
consider my application after I had been turned down for partnership. But even more important than the luck of
landing a job was the support from my wife after I suffered the devastating
sense of failure when I was told that I would not be made a partner after seven
years of hard work. Anyone who has ever
been out of work or turned down for a job knows the enormous toll that
experience can take on one’s mental health and sense of self-worth. Having someone to support you in every
respect is critical to getting out of bed the next morning and doing what needs
to be done to try to get a job.
The
first two examples are cases of constitutional luck: the baggage and benefits of our birth. The second two are examples of circumstantial
luck: things that happened where we had no control, but benefited or suffered
from the circumstances and the events as they unfolded. In the third group are examples of ignorant
luck: lucky things that happened where
we did not even know luck was involved.
