Fibs and Fables
I don't believe in luck. it's irrational, it's unpredictable, and I believe it's fundamentally antithetical to the idea of working towards something. My favorite quote from a book of all time is from Aldujous Huxley's Point-Counterpoint - “Everything that happens is intrinsically like the man that happens to.” I like believing in one’s own capacity to dictate their fate, no matter how rare the instance of success or happenstance is.
Let's take a fairly simple example. Imagine that it's a snowy day outside and you go outside to enjoy the unexpected weather. And let's pretend that you make a sudden decision to try to catch a snowflake on your tongue. What would you do to have to catch that snowflake? You would have to dodge back and forth with your mouth wide open and try with all your might the snag one of those elusive snowflakes. Compare that to someone who barely moves around and doesn't open their mouth wide while standing still, expecting snowflake to land in their mouth without any effort. Who has the better chance of achieving their desired goal? If the former you attains their goal, is that version inherently luckier?
Silly examples aside, it highlights my current stance on the idea of “luck” - that it only appears for those that are actively trying to snag it and for no-one else. Luck is that sliver of opportunity that opens for a brief moment as is really only achievable for those already poised to dive in. For everyone else, that sliver isn't even discernible and it'll likely never leave a mark on their lives. But for those that invest time, effort, concentration, failure, and much more in the search of that luck, those opportunities will be far more noticeable and ultimately more snag-able.
This also means that from my perspective, labeling something as "lucky" is somewhat dismissing the amount of effort and investment that someone has put in getting to that point. That person was lucky to get the promotion, lucky to get scouted for a position, lucky to achieve their own success. But nothing falls into anyone's lap unless you're the fabled virgin Mary. All outcomes are the product of preconditions, and the precondition of all forms of luck is hard work and faith.
What do you think? Am I being too practical, too mired in rationale? Or do the impossible really occur? Let me know your thoughts below.
