George Washington became a hero at a battle in the French and Indian War. When the Indians launched a surprise attack against British and colonial troops, and the British commander was wounded, George rode his horse about giving commands and rallying the troops. The Indians, seeing him on horseback, did everything they could to kill him. They shot horse after horse out from under him and put three musket-ball holes thru his coat, but they did not hit him. The Indians concluded that he was a great man with great magic. I would say that he was brave, a terrific leader, and very lucky. To some extent he made his own luck by not riding directly into the Indians, but mostly he took tremendous risks — and survived, to later become a great general and president.
Almost everything we do has some element of chance to it. If we work hard at a job, we may get ahead in an organization or not. If we get married, things might work out great — or not. Luck plays a small role sometimes and other times is a powerful force. A Woody Allen movie, Match Point, makes this point by showing how the bounce of a stolen coin on a railing determined whether a murderer was caught or not. We can reduce the effects of bad luck by avoiding high-risk behavior and situations, like murdering someone. We can increase our opportunities for good luck by doing things, helping others, and working productively. An example from my work life: To have good luck in publishing, I need to work hard and sensibly and to submit manuscripts! To avoid bad luck in health, I exercise a lot. Still, I would not say that I make my own luck. Chance events, good and bad, happen to me. I just try to put myself in position to experience more good luck than bad.
What have you done that led to good luck?
John Malouff, PhD, JD, Associate Professor of Psycholgy
Hi John,
On the topic of luck and chance, do you think fate comes into play as well? If chance and luck are not completely in a persons control but are affected by our chosen risks sometimes it is easier to say it was fate than to think that we caused the outcome ourself through our behaviour.
An example of things I have referred to as luck and fate over the past 12months…
12months ago this weekend I decided to quit a career that brought money but not happiness and set off on what was meant to be a 3month holiday and to return to Australia at the start of the uni semester and study full time with any full-time 38hr a wk job to pay the bills. In 10days time 1yr ago I had 2 broken wrists and was saying “fate” sux but that it was very “lucky” that it happen in the short time I was staying with friends because I really don’t know how I would have survived getting food, etc etc without them. 7 days later after considering strongly if I could go on by myself….sit on a beach in the Caribbean or something while my wrists got better the doctors talked me into coming home due to the type of displacement of one of the bones.
Back in Australia and after a few weeks interstate with family I returned to the floods in Brisbane. Where I felt lucky that I wasn’t directly hit by them but found myself progressively hating “fate”. Not understanding why this had happened and I couldn’t even write so anything I try to read for uni seems to get forgotten, I can’t look for a job….and with the house shortage due to the floods I was unable to find somewhere to live and stayed on a friends floor for 6weeks. Luck did not come into this for me. It was all “fate” and I couldn’t stand not being able to see why it had happened nor able to move on….
Casts off the arms and uni starting all around the same time I was determined to get a job and normal use back in my wrists and over the following 4 weeks (now mid-end March) I continually would get calls for jobs and when I advised them of the week I would need off in April due to intensive school I continually heard sorry thats in training I wouldn’t be able to go or can’t be considered for the job. Seriously “fate” was horrible, I remember saying over and over I don’t believe in it, we create our future, luck etc what do I need to do differently?? By this point I was starting to get mad at fate…if I wasn’t meant to be over seas, it sure as hell feels I am not meant to be where I was so what am I meant to be doing and where…we create our own fate/luck but what was I doing wrong?? I was determine not to give up trying to change my “luck”.
To cut the storey short I always seem to relate the bad things to fate and good things, even if I have worked hard towards them, to luck.
Why is that?
Sometimes good decisions really don’t end good, or the path they lead us down is harder when we are on it than the risky alternative and in business we need to risk a lot to make a lot so can 1 person really ALWAYS decide on the correct best outcome or does “luck or fate” come into play that isn’t created by ourselves?
If luck is like attitude and we are meant to get back what we put out, how do we always keep this in balance?
A now disbeliever of fate and a believer that luck is something you get after a lot of hard work and determination if your “lucky”,
Cherie
Hi CK. I have been reading “The Best Advice I Ever Got” and found in it a good quote from Thomas Jefferson: “I’m a great believer in luck, and I find that the harder I work, the more I have of it.” We have some control over some of what happens to us — it makes sense to use that control for good purposes. Events beyond our control (fate, luck, chance, random occurrences) will sometimes help us and sometimes hurt us — that’s life — at times a roll of the dice.
I am a great believer in “crap happens”. That is not a direct quote, I have paraphrased 😉
Something really, really horrible happened to me last year, I don’t believe in fate, or god, or karma – just statistics, and random chance.
I worked pretty hard to not have this befall me, but it did, and now all I have left is how I feel about it, and how I choose to move on with my life. So here I am, at uni, working hard (though procrastinating on the eve of exams!), and completely falling apart randomly.
So I don’t believe in luck, I only believe in effort and resilience. And the buffering effects of good relationships 🙂
Hi Lara. Life deals us each a hand. You have decided to play the hand dealt you — that is the only way to win. It is wise to control what we can and to accept what we can’t control. The serenity prayer points us in the right direction.
Some individuals seem to have an inexplicable abundance of good fortune. They are successful in matters of love, in their careers, in their finances, and in leading happy and meaningful lives. Yet these people don’t seem to work particularly hard, nor do they posses extraordinary intelligence or other gifts. Of course there are also the natural opposites of the superfortunate; people who repeatedly fail despite their efforts and talents.
As is true with so many human problems, people tend deal with this difficult-to-quantify inequality by giving it a name— “luck”— and then disclaiming any responsibility for how much of it they are apportioned. Luck is considered by many to be a force of nature, coming and going as inevitably as the tide. But Richard Wiseman, a professor at Britain’s University of Hertfordshire, has conducted some experiments which indicate to him that we have a lot more influence on our own good fortune than we realize.
Hi Ashley. I believe that we make our own luck to some extent.