In this brief essay in the April 22, 2016 Chronicle Review, Cornell management and economics professor Robert H. Frank challenges the reader to think about the role of luck and chance in their life and career path. Frank uses examples from his early academic career to show how luck played a pivotal role in helping him to achieve status. But it could have easily gone in a different direction.

How has luck/chance played a role in where we are today? What about people around us who don't seem to experience favorable luck? Is it mostly hard work and talent that opens doors, or is there more to achievement and getting ahead? What do these questions have to do with equity?