Everyone would give their vote to either hard work or luck based on their experiences and on what they have been taught to believe all through their life. Why, up until some days back, I was always in unbiased favor of hard work and one's own actions. But today I have been feeling, though irrationally, that probably luck is all that really matters in order to achieve, without it even hard work won't pay off. There is this whole war going in my mind about who should be the winner. My experiences are confusing me more than ever. Keeping one parameter common – relevant hard work ( note that I said, relevant hardwork - if you work really hard on something not relevant to what you are trying to attain, you are not going to see much success), I have successfully achieved at times as well as failed at other times despite hard work. What do I attribute the failures to? Is it that I didn't work hard enough, which is what a part of my mind tells me, but I do know I work really hard, so then it could be luck and fate couldn't it? I think it is convenient to attribute all successes to hard work and all failures to fate and bad luck, or even more convenient to think like some people who have completely surrendered to fate and believe in fate and luck's role in both successes and failures. However I will continue to believe one thing. Hard work pays, and never goes waste, though sometimes, its fruits will not be apparent right way, but someday they will. I am however unable to draw a conclusion as to which one should I believe in – hard work or luck. If fate and luck were what every achiever in history had believed in, then probably they would not have achieved. I am compelled to favor hard work, and I can’t stop thinking that fate and luck are two scapegoats people use to prevent some of the self – blame and thereby depression.