But you can make excellent choices and still not suceed for reasons that can't really be explained. Luck is as good a way as any.

Almost all the really bad shit in my life was stuff I didn't choose in any way. I have made careful choices, but I have not always gotten what I wanted.

It's often claimed that if you get an education, delay having children until you're in a stable marriage, work hard, accept responsibility at work, spend your money wisely, blah blah blah, you'll do well. Not my experience, unfortunately.

Edit: You're a journalist! You must know how this works. Choosing to go into journalism was one of the things that hurt me. I couldn't have known what was coming when I chose to do this. (I finished HS in 1984.) And I loved being editor of a newspaper. It really fulfilled me, and I was very good at it. But I never made much money and I didn't manage to get out soon enough, even though at the end I was trying mightily. I was too old to really make a go at advertising -- they really prefer the young and hip people. I was never hip!

I also didn't choose for my first marriage to end suddenly and horrifically.

For others, it's a bad health issue, a special needs child, something like that. But I will die on this hill: A lot of where people end up is out of their hands, whether they know it or not.