What is Luck?

The word “lucky” has been coming up so often in conversations with diverse people that I began to consider it’s nature and also how the word is used.

I have often called myself lucky, in acknowledgement that my accomplishments have something to do with the fates, not all my own doing.  Fortune has smiled on me.  I have not doubt of that.   And in ways that were poor chance.

We all owe to chance our genetic make up, for instance.  How did your parents meet?  What put them in mood the day you were conceived?  All of us owe a lot of who we are to what particular sperm hit which particular egg.  And so it goes from there on.  That teacher who inspired you could have become a doctor or accidentally gotten pregnant in high school and never made to college.  You could have gotten into a traffic jam on our way to buying that house and found it already sold.

Life depends on luck, right?

I say a small “yes,” and a resounding “no.”

I lost my taste for the word when I sold my first book—a how-to volume on management for business types.  The day I signed the contract just happened to be my birthday—March 17, 1983.  My husband and I were celebrating with dinner out.  With us were a colleague of mine and his wife—a school librarian who regularly bragged about how little work she had to do in the Brooklyn public high school where she was employed.  (I hesitate to say “where she worked,” since her efforts seemed to be singularly focused on avoiding doing a lick.)

David ordered champagne and offered a toast to my birthday and the contract for my first book.  Our friends were very interested in the book and expressed their congratulations.  Except for the “librarian,” who exclaimed, “Wow.  You’re really lucky.”

What could I do but lower my gaze and agree with her.  If I was turning red, they all might have thought I was blushing from modesty.  Modest though I wish to be, at that moment I was miffed.  Perhaps it was because the words came from that woman—who had an opportunity to help underserved children, who instead rejoiced that they were not interested in books.  Their disinterest allowed her to sit around reading magazines instead of engaging with the students.  And she thought that a person got a book contract through luck?

Just two weeks ago, a visitor from Europe reported that a mutual friend had told him how lucky my husband and I were to have bought a place to live in lower Manhattan when it was still affordable.  Yes.  But.  We bought when others were running to the suburbs because NYC was bankrupt and in trouble.  We stuck with our city out of love, not greed.  We WERE lucky—to have found each other, to have the same dreams, to have the capacity to work very hard and take joy in doing so.  In answer to what I hope was mild mannered question, my visitor reported that in his country, everyone ascribed success to luck.  “What about failure?” I asked.  “Oh, they blame failure on the person.”   Really?  Why would anyone with such a belief system get off the couch?  Does it surprise you to know that his country is not one of the more economically stable in the EU?

On the other hand, I expressed to a friend earlier this week that chance is the most creative force on the planet, if you let it in.  For me that "if” makes all the difference.

Are these beliefs the reason why some people persist in pursuit of success while others remain passive in the face of their own possibilities?  If opportunity knocks, are the people who get off their duffs and answer the door lucky?  If you ask me, failure is often merely a result of bad luck.  Success requires good luck.  But sometimes it also requires a whole lot more.

Annamaria Alfieri

Good Luck!

The new year is upon us, and for all us triskaidekaphobes and generally superstitious people it is a time of trepidation. We dodged the Mayan Apocalypse only to be cast into a year ending with the dreaded number thirteen. We must counteract this. We must strive to get lucky. (Not necessarily in the carnal sense.)

Not my office, but it would certainly be nice

Take steps! Attract good luck to yourself! The Chinese know all about how this is done. For example, in my (admittedly shallow) studies of Feng Shui I found that my little home office occupies the wealth area of our house. What this means is that I have to clean and organize my office before I can make a dime this year. I was going to show you a picture of what it looks like now, but I would have to kill myself for shame. It's that bad. So I'll clean my office and Feng Shui the daylights out of it. Plants that simulate mountains. Crystals that concentrate good energy. When it's nice again I'll post a picture.

When one does this, when one clears out the bad energy in one's wealth area, the Chinese say, the money comes rolling in. That would be nice. Of course the whole Feng Shui thing is an alien concept to my particular ethnic group, Anglo-Canadian-Wasp-Irish. My own family was as superstitious as any Asian, but they lived by different superstitions. Never put a hat on the bed. When you take off your shoes, put them together the right way 'round, right shoe on the right side, left shoe on the left. Otherwise all your luck will walk away from you. If a picture falls off the wall someone will die. If you spill salt, throw a bit over your left shoulder or you'll have a fight with a friend. Never work on your clothes while you're wearing them. Sew your clothes upon your back, poverty you'll never lack, goes the rhyme.

Actually that one is not so different from the stricture to keep your office neat and carefully-ordered. It's all about work habits. Good work habits make good luck. So keep the hat off the bed, folks, and put your shoulder to the wheel and your nose to the grindstone. May 2013 be the best year yet for all of us.

Kate Gallison