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Do you believe in luck?
Posted at: Apr/30/2009 : Posted by: mel
Related Category: My philosophy,
I was asked the other day by someone close to me if I believe in “luck”. I can say without a doubt that I do believe in luck. Random happenstance of good things is very real. A little while back I was walking through a parking lot, looked down, and a $20 bill was waiting for me to pick it up. Just as random as the good stuff is the occasional bad break. A few months back through no fault of my own I picked up a nail in one of my car tires while going down the road. The random occurrence of good luck and bad luck are very real to me. More importantly, some of these events simply cannot be avoided. Taking this discussion one step further is the question; “are some people luckier than others?” This is an entirely separate issue to me. Now I depart from the previous path. I am a strong proponent of “self-determinism”; the concept that we are each in charge of our own destiny. In my vision, allowing someone to be luckier than another implies external forces acting on or controlling our lives and therefore contradicts self-determinism. There is no doubt that we can each of us easily look around and identify individuals who have had more good fortune than others. Other than the occasional random event, I don’t attribute this to being luckier; I attribute this to open mindedness, flexibility, preparedness, and general attitude. Open mindedness, flexibility, preparedness, and general attitude are quite a list. Really, they all equate to the same general thing in my perspective. Life for me is a progression through time with a never ending series of choices and challenges. Much like driving along a busy freeway, things are happening around us all the time. Some people are moving faster than others; some people are creating situations we have to swerve to avoid. Occasionally we encounter an opportunity to get to our destination faster than normal with only a minor adjustment or lane change on our part. On the freeway you have to be alert enough to identify a risk in order to take the defensive action that helps you avoid a potential accident. In a similar way, when an opportune gap becomes available in an adjacent lane, you need to be alert enough to capitalize on the fleeting opportunity to pass that slow truck in front of you. Similar to driving on a freeway, life provides a continuously evolving menu of challenges and opportunities. If you are flexible and prepared, you can generally see the good opportunities and take advantage of them. Life unfortunately also provides potholes, if you are alert you will be able in most situations to avoid them, or at least minimize the bad outcome. Your apparent luck is really more a measure of your ability to implement these skills. There is plenty of room here to apply the learned lessons of life. These lessons can come from mentoring, personal experience, education, religious teaching, or a host of other sources. Our days are filled with challenging situations in which we must make decisions. Some decisions are simple; to have dessert or not. Some decisions are not so simple; such as who your friends are and what you are going to do on a Friday night. If we leverage the learned lessons we have in life to make these decisions, we are less likely to be stuck in a parking lot with a designated driver who lost their car keys. For me, another skill that contributes to success in life is the ability to “cope” with your failures. Despite all my talk of lessons learned and making good choices, things don’t always go your way. In the sports analogy, think of the soccer player making the three quarters of a field run. As this star striker makes this run they successfully ‘juke out’ three players on the opposing team only to then miss the goal with a poorly aimed shot. The striker is going to face some personal frustration, and that is normal considering the passion of sporting competition. Nevertheless, the sooner they cope with the missed shot and get back in the game, the sooner they will enjoy another chance to score. Being able to rapidly cope with our personal failures and missed opportunities is critical to enjoying success. Things won’t always go your way; being able to move beyond them rapidly is key to being able to take advantage of the next opportunity. I strongly believe that your ability to cope with challenges is a significant portion for what the casual observer will later call “your good luck.” It is the implementations of these skills that make some people appear luckier. Conversely, a lack of flexibility and alertness can lead to opportunities missed or minor incidents becoming much more catastrophic. As an adolescent, much of life initially frustrated me and I sought a definition that would rationalize the world around me. I started reading Robert Heinlein science fiction when I was 13-14 years old. Many of his philosophies easily resonated with me. One of my first Heinlein books was “Have Space Suite Will Travel”, published in 1958. The author introduced a phrase in chapter-1 that has become one of my underlying tenets for life. “There is no such thing as luck; there is only adequate or inadequate preparation to cope with a statistical universe.” Your life is your own, take charge of it with learning, flexibility, and open-mindedness. Remember, if you live your life without blaming “bad luck” for the negative events, you can do some bragging and take the credit when things go well.
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