I would argue that true maturity is when someone can take care of themselves, recognize their inputs with gratitude, and ask for help when needed with humility, not expecting that someone else would take care of them AND being grateful even if they don't get it.

The polarization of our arguments leads us to pretty shallow poles.

This response, to me, misses the point. Yes, you gotta play the hand you're dealt. It's not crippling at all to acknowledge the cards in your hand. If you don't have any pairs or face cards or whatever, it is not crippling to acknowledge that. Acknowledging the help of other is not telling ourselves we're succeeding because of "what we were given", and acknowledging the role of chance isn't denigratory either. To me, acknowledging what others helped us with, the chance encounters that helped, etc can help us seek out more chance, more help, and then provide that to others as well. Then we can indeed make our own luck and create luck for others.

Acknowledging the help of others is just not at all the same as lessening our own contributions.

I guess it is true that some folks see it that way, that if you ever thank or acknowledge anyone else then you're weak, there is this pressure to pretend that everything is original and done alone, but... that's just lying.

Both points are valid, and I agree with both. It's ok, they're different points.

First, it is a problem that people don't recognize and acknowledge the external factors behind success. It leads to poor decisions, helplessness and other negative feelings, and reactivity ("why didn't you just save more of your minimum wage like I did with the interest from my trust fund?").

Second, it is a problem to see success as only determined by external factors, then you lose agency and are less likely to do as well as your opportunities allow. You are permanently "bad at math", you can only get somewhere if the Man stops pushing you down. It's the opposite of a growth mindset.

I agree that self-efficacy is a predictor of success and taking initiative. While it's not mutually exclusive with the recognition of social support, I think that rationalization espoused by Arnold is used by some as an instrument for self-defeat/self-pity and a defense mechanism against taking action. Example beliefs: "I probably couldn't become a world champion bodybuilder, because I don't have the support network Arnold had, so I won't bother"; "people who create successful startups all come from rich parents and stable households, I shouldn't even try"; "I'll never lose weight without a super-pill".

So I agree with you and somewhat with those who are responding to you.

If you find it crippling, you haven't at all understand what he meant.

It's just gratitude.

Nothing "crippling" about that.

It depends on the perspective. If you look at yourself and see you got where you are because of the help you got, that's great.

If you look at someone else, and see they got where they are because of help available to them but not you, that's crippling.

I worked with high school kids and college kids for a while. I saw this exact mindset far too much.

Students were obsessed with picking apart people's success stories and attributing all of the success to some external factor. I can't tell you how many times I heard someone bring up Bezos just so they could tell me about the $300K loan he got, or Musk so they could talk about the emerald mine story. We tried to discourage using celebrities like Bezos or Musk as role models anyway, but people were drawn back to them because they enjoyed picking them apart.

There's something satisfying about this mindset that can explain away every success story as the result of factors out of their control. It's comforting to tell yourself that the only reason you didn't become a billionaire is because your parents didn't give you a $300K business loan or own an emerald mine or whatever other justification they could come up with.

It was a lot of work to try to defeat this mindset and get students focused on what they could incrementally accomplish within what they were working with. Honestly, getting them to let go of the celebrities like Musk and Bezos and others was half of the battle, but they also couldn't care less when we tried to introduce local successful business operators who ran companies they had never heard of.

It's tough. Social media makes it harder, and honestly the people who read Reddit seem prone to the worst of it.

That kind of mindset is arguably the norm for the rest of the world. Tall Poppy Syndrome in the UK and Australia, or worse, the extreme bullying in Japan and Korea. It's perhaps what made the USA so unique in having a culture that was opposed to that and willing to take risks. So it's pretty sad to see the USA drop it's own individualism in favour of collectivism.

I disagree. Equal opportunity is a lie. Our options ebb and flow with the fickle sensibilities of our communities. Having the 'wrong' hair color can disqualify you from opportunity.

My argument does not assume equal opportunity. Regardless of which opportunities are available to you, you can squander them of make the best of them.

It's a mindset more based on reality than the opposite mindset. It keeps you grounded, which is a good thing, imo.