Luck is the feather daring to fall on the scales at equilibrium.

Hard work can never beat talent ceteris paribus. If A and B both work as hard as each other but B also has talent, then A has no chance of winning. 

The misconception is that talent will not beat hard work because those with talent are lazy. That is not true. It may be the case for the majority, but somewhere out there, there will be a person with talent who will work equally as hard as you, if not better.

That said, the reason one makes the effort isn't that they aim to be the best, but because they are content with being better than they were yesterday. The enemy is not each other but our own stagnation. 

We must learn to accept the inevitability of the feather. 

Competition is good, but only to a point. There must be chivalry, for only the prideful are the ones who deserve the most pity, only those who believe they see how the world works are the most blind.

----------

Edit: 24th Feb 2021

Albert Einstein wrote, "Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid."

The same can be said about hard work and talent. Yes, a fish could eventually climb a tree if it worked hard enough (and was motivated to do so), but it would never be efficient at it. The beauty of wabi-sabi is that life is imperfect and requires sacrifice. Maybe the fish's dream job is to become a tree climber, but unless fortune bestows upon the fish a trust fund, the fish must choose another profession that it loves and also adequately equipped to do. 

For clarification, even though fish is a talented swimmer, it should not be forced to do so. On the other hand, bluntly speaking, the fish sucks at climbing so it should not do so either. Just don't do what you hate and if implausible, don't do what you love either. Find something that you like instead. That isn't rationally efficient, however, life isn't about economic efficiency. From a (nihilist?) viewpoint, there isn't any opportunity to plant a new tree unless you first burn down a rainforest. 

Mistakes aren't accidental - they are necessary. We must have evil and it is also inescapable: The spectrum is not straight but round - too much of anything (even goodness) is bad. E.g. If you over-diet you won't lose weight but gain weight instead.