Down-voted for such a strong word - "nonsense". See my other comment [1]. I am as self-made as anyone can be, with a very high standard of living in my country without taking even one cent from my parents beyond a certain age. But all that is because of one stroke of luck - I am proud of the fact that I was able to use that luck to my advantage but under no illusion that all my success is due to me alone.
Even the superheros in the movies are permitted a little luck occasionally. "Only people who had the worst possible luck at every turn may be considered self-made" or similar is a ridiculous goalpost-moving standard. Next we'd be sitting around a table competing over who faced the most hardship to be considered legitimate.
>But all that is because of one stroke of luck - I am proud of the fact that I was able to use that luck to my advantage but under no illusion that all my success is due to me alone.
I would call you fortunate, not lucky. You didn't fall sideways into your success; you were given an opportunity and _you_ made the most of it. Many others may not have done the same.
We all owe a part of our success to _some_ number of external factors, but go deep enough and it gets absurd (e.g. we all owe our success to irrigation because, without it, we'd be subsistence farmers.) Seeing an opportunity and pouncing on it is not the same as being handed a trust fund and a full ride to Harvard.
The fact that you did not do whatever it is that you did without any modicum of help or luck does not mean you are not self-made. You can take credit for your accomplishments. It's ok. We don't have to live in a binary, all or nothing world. You can acknowledge that you got lucky, while simultaneously acknowledging that you were smart and hard working to achieve whatever it is that you have. Maybe in your case it was entirely due to luck, but I seriously doubt it.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19200621