“In western societies individual success depends solely on one´s merit”

All of our lives, we have been told that if we work hard for our goals and never
give up, we will achieve success. In western societies the promised social ascension for
those who deserve, it is practically taken as an indicator of development. Nevertheless,
I do not belive in meritocracy as the only way western people use to reach success.
First of all, I think that is crucial, when speaking about meritocracy ,to take in
consideration that a system based on meritocratic values is an utopian idea. This is
because no matter where you are in the world, you will always find inequalities, they
may be social-economic, cultural or even gender or ethnic inequalities. Having said this
why should we declare that someone´s merit is only based on his work if the context in
which the person lives exerts such an influence? For example, even in Western
countries, which we know that are more developed, men and women not always have
the same opportunities based on their merit.
Second of all, even taking the utopian idea of having no inequalities around the
world, each one of our paths is still different. We all come from different backgrounds,
are exposed to different stimuli and have different skills and habilitties. We are still
vunerable to factors such as luck. For example, my neighbour and I have the same
culture, went to the same school and have the same social-economic conditions, but in
my house my father used to play classical music every morning. I went to the
conservatory at a young age, worked hard and became a successeful musician. He
should not be considered a failure for not achieving the same success as me.
It may be said that if we assume that luck is a conditioning factor to reach
success just as hard work, than people who are lazy or do not work hard enough for
their goals may advocate that they were not as lucky has the people who reached their
goals. It is valid, but it is not enough to lead us to blindly believe in the promise of
meritocracy. In my opinion, we should work hard for our dreams and expect to be
rewarded. Nevertheless, we should not only take in count that our context lead us to
success as well as our work, but also that some people work a lot in life without ever
being rewarded for their effort. For exemple, sometimes we are the ones who studied
the hardest for a test, but because we were not doing well on the day of the test or
because we missed a question that we did not interpret well, we fail.
In conclusion, I strongly advocate