We love a good success story. The self-made entrepreneur who bootstrapped their way to the top. The athlete who defied the odds. The student with the tough background who had to work harder than anyone else and reaped the rewards in the end. These stories fuel the belief that, with enough grit and determination, anyone can succeed.
I personally find this narrative inspiring. But there’s another side to life that’s often overlooked. There’s also the support, and dare I say, luck and circumstance that form a backdrop to most successes.
And I find it’s important to remember this because, as philosopher Michael Sandel argues in The Tyranny of Merit, the more we believe we are entirely self-made, the harder it becomes to cultivate humility and gratitude.
The Myth of Self-Sufficiency
It’s easy to feel like we’ve earned everything we have through our own efforts. You alone are more aware than anyone else of what you’ve gone through.
Each of us acutely know about the sleepless nights, the long hours, the worry that we’ll never get there that have plagued our minds. But then our hard work and determination, and the choices we make along the way, gradually pay off.
This is my personal story too – I know what I’ve gone through to get to where I am. And it wasn’t easy. Hard work and perseverance do matter. Of course they do. But no one exists in a vacuum.
Let’s also consider the education we received, the opportunities we were given, the health we may have been fortunate enough to have—all these factors play a role in shaping our paths.
In reflecting on courageous decisions that I’ve made that shaped my life, I’m always drawn to when I resigned from my very well-paid job to start a career in writing and speaking. It took a lot of courage, not least because I didn’t have experience in doing what I was setting out to do.
Yet, if it hadn’t been for my mum and dad a year or so earlier, who supported me through a difficult period of depression, a period of time that sowed the seeds of that decision, then I’d probably never have done it. And I wouldn’t be sitting here writing these words.
And my PhD professor was pivotal in me landing that great job in the first place. Had I done my PhD under any other supervisor, I probably would not have even got an interview for it. Some might call this luck. Others, fate. But either way, my choices were built upon other things happening, and other people.
And what about intelligence? We often credit this as underlying our abilities. It’s often viewed as a purely personal trait, not something we choose. But we don’t decide our genetic makeup or the environment that shapes our abilities. Nor do we control the economy we’re born into or the societal structures that determine which kinds of work are valued and rewarded.
Yet, when success arrives, it’s easy to forget these external factors. We congratulate ourselves and, sometimes, even look down on those who didn’t ‘make it’ in the same way, imagining that they just didn’t work hard enough.
Let me just say here that this isn’t in any way to take away from what we’ve gone through and the grit and determination that anyone shows to get to where they are, but just to also remember those who helped (in obvious and less obvious ways) on our path.
It’s in finding that balance within ourselves: I did something good and I’m also grateful for help I’ve had along the way in my life. It’s neither just one or the other. Cultivating a sense of both aspects is healthy.
Because danger lies when we attribute all success to individual effort. We risk losing sight of the essential role of others in our lives.
Why Forgetting This Makes Gratitude Harder
Gratitude flourishes when we recognize that we are interconnected. It grows when we acknowledge that we are recipients of kindness, opportunity, and even good fortune. Because if we see ourselves as purely self-sufficient, what is there to be grateful for? Just the sunshine?
Even sunshine makes it easier, some might argue, to work in rather than wind and rain, which might be someone else’s circumstance. Physically and metaphorically.
If I believe that every success is purely of my own making, then I have little reason to feel thankful. Worse still, I might come to see those who struggle as simply not trying hard enough rather than as people who may have faced obstacles that I was lucky enough to avoid.
Because for every person who succeeded in building something, someone else had a similar dream but ill health or some other circumstance stood in their way, or made the hill much steeper to climb.
Gratitude requires an open-hearted recognition of the people and circumstances that have helped shape us. It softens the ego’s grip and lets humility find a foothold — the understanding that, while effort matters, none of us are entirely self-made.
A More Honest (and Kinder) Perspective
As I’ve said, this isn’t about diminishing hard work or denying personal responsibility. It’s about taking a fuller, more truthful perspective—one that makes space for gratitude rather than entitlement, humility rather than arrogance.
It’s about recognizing the teacher who took extra time to encourage us, the family member who supported us, the unseen workers who built the infrastructure we rely on every day. It’s about appreciating the fortunate breaks, the mentors, the societal structures that helped us get where we are. And the luck, or fate – whatever we prefer to call it.
And it’s about extending that same understanding to others—acknowledging that not everyone had the same foundation to build on and that kindness, rather than judgment, is the more compassionate response.
Cultivating a Culture of Gratitude
When we move away from the myth of being entirely self-made, something beautiful happens: gratitude becomes easier, relationships become deeper, and kindness becomes more natural. We start to see success not as an individual possession, but as something we can share—something that can lift others as well as ourselves.
Humility and gratitude are not just moral virtues; they are deeply connected to well-being. Studies show that grateful people are happier, more resilient, and more connected to others. Humility, too, is a strength—it allows us to learn, grow, and see the world with clearer eyes.
So perhaps the real marker of success isn’t just what we achieve, but also how well we recognize the web of connections that helped us along the way.
The more we embrace that truth, the more grateful—and ultimately, the more fulfilled—we become.