We use this word ‘LUCK’ with abandon. ‘Luck of the draw’ ‘Lucky Catch’, ‘as Luck would have it’, to name a few.  What do we mean when we say someone is lucky/unlucky?   Generally it seems that we are implying that the person had nothing to do with the good or bad event that occurred, it was just something that happened to them, as if by magic.

 

I however am not sure this is the case. 

 

If someone is particularly good at something, perhaps singing or sport; we may say they are lucky to have such a great voice or natural athletic ability, but that is just DNA. It’s in their genes.  There is no luck involved here; you simply inherit them from your parents. Its not luck, its biology!  If that person has risen to fame because of this natural talent, then that is probably hard work and good decisions along with being in the right place, at the right time, because of them.

 

If someone win’s the lottery we call them ‘lucky’ but is it?  They purchased the ticket, perhaps regularly for years, which is an act of persistent action, not luck.  The fact they won, simply a game of odds or chance…. someone had to.  

 

I do agree that sometimes luck seems to play a role in our lives but in my experience when we look back, we can probably trace a series of incidents and decisions that brought us to this place and time.   The fact that something good or bad occurred, seemingly out of the blue, simply a result of those earlier actions or decisions.

 

People do seem more easily to accept ‘Bad Luck’, as out of their control entirely; because why would anyone deliberately bring about bad luck?  Well of course no one wishes for bad luck but here too, I feel we have played our parts consciously or not.  If a budding athlete badly injures themselves while performing their sport, was bad luck sitting on their shoulder?  Possibly, if only metaphorically. They could well have been troubled by something which was demanding their attention or, perhaps they were predisposed to an injury of that sort by their genes, and unaware of this pushed a little too hard, causing the events that led to the accident. 

 

When diagnosed with a life threatening disease, can we sit back on our laurels and blame ‘bad luck’ ?  I don’t think we can. Cancer for example does not just pop into our lives because we are ‘unlucky’.  It is a long process of things going wrong both inside and outside our bodies, that set this awful disease in motion. Not ‘Bad Luck’!  And there is no Luck involved in recovering from it. It takes a persistent and deliberate attitude of mind, to do what is needed to correct what went wrong.

 

I also feel that it is important to recognise some of the lesser “cross roads of life”. We often rush though our lives only stopping to check the landscape when it practically hits us in the face and forces a decision.  We have to be open to all the opportunities that come our way big and small and be prepared to make deviations if necessary. 

 

I am often referred to as a “Lucky” person and I have to admit to finding this a tad annoying sometimes.  Most of the things that people perceive as having been “good luck’, in fact have been very much down to making the right choices, at the right time and being prepared to do what is necessary to make things happen.  My entire life, I have tried to remained open to options, been prepared to take a left turn when required and then committed fully to do what was needed……..that is not luck.