A friend of mine unexpectedly posed this question to me today. I simply responded, “Yes” without giving much thought to the matter. His counter – “Why?”
This required much more thought. We proceeded to have an excellent, albeit brief, discussion on our views’ of “luck”. We seemed to be in agreement on many fronts and I truly enjoyed the chat so I decided I’d go home and write about it.
Initially, I was stumped. I was not sure why I believed in luck, I just knew I did. After a quick search through my mental attic I gave a two part answer to the “Why?”
1.) I believe in a higher power which controls matters such as luck.
2.) I believe things are meant to happen, and for these things to happen an element of luck may or may not be involved in tilting the odds of the uncontrollable in ones favor.
I do not have much to add to the first part and even if I did, that is not the direction I wish to take my writing. I do think I will enjoy briefly expanding on the second. There are two key words in that sentence, “element” and “uncontrollable”.
Luck, both good and bad, is one element, or variable, that may or may not present itself in the unfolding of life’s pages. I do not believe in “pure luck” which I define as dumb, blind, undeserving luck falling upon the unprepared and unworthy. Luck is something that shows itself, when necessary, to aid in things falling into place as they were meant to.
I also believe that the odds of good luck are greatly increased for those who put in the time, sacrifice, and hard work that will prepare them to handle it. Likewise, I believe the odds of bad luck increase for those who sit around, pity themselves, and wait for good luck to hit them on the head.
It’s a shame when an individual experiences earned success of any sort only to have it undermined and credited to pure luck. It is not uncommon for athletes to find success seemingly out of the blue when in fact it was preceded by years of blood, sweat, and tears unbeknownst to the public eye.
In personal experience, I feel very lucky to be in my current position at the World Athletics Center but I do not feel that luck is the only reason I am here. I was lucky that the factors uncontrollable by me were favorable, such as the need for more staff. But I also feel that I had a part in the factors that I was able to control, such as my personality and work ethic during my internship.
Luck is real but it is nothing to depend on. If you can depend on yourself to properly control the controllable then good things will happen.