I had a teacher in high school who tried to impress a maxim on me: “smart men always win.”
at the time I really looked up to him and this maxim seemed reasonable enough.
but over time i gradually noticed this phrase had problems. my high school teacher definitely meant well, but the more i poked at it, the more objections i had to his phrase.
for starters, why men? why not women? why not people?
and then there’s smart. people have talked about how it’s important not to praise children for being smart, or for intrinsic qualities they don’t have control over, but to praise them for their virtues, like hard work or patience. that helps people to develop a growth mindset, one that is resilient and adaptive, rather than brittle and dependent on things going well.
and as for always: always, really? literally always? definitely not. maybe not even more often than not.
and lastly, win: why adopt a frame that involves winning and losing? is life a competitive game, or a collaborative game? is it a game at all?
“hard-working people usually do ok” doesn’t have quite the same ring to it tho. they don’t choose aphorisms for their nuance and accuracy