How To Control Your Luck
A few life hacks we can all benefit from
Luck, coincidence, hazard, even accidents. All, words to describe a fortunate or unfortunate event.
A few Sundays ago, wine in hand and music on my ears, I was reading a Manga when the idea to write an article about luck came and got stuck on my mind.
I did some research and tried a few things for myself. I wanted to see if we could manipulate luck in some ways. Here’s what I found.
Luck Is Not Pure Coincidence
When I joined Medium, the very first post I made was a story about perfection. I talked about my birth, how it was messy, lengthy, and overly complicated. It took more than nineteen hours for me to see this world, even more, to be in the arms of my mom.
We don’t choose the moment of our birth, we don’t choose our parents, and surely, we’re not the ones who made them fall in love. So, it’s easy to think of that as luck, as a coincidence, as a hazard. It is simply a lack of control. How many times have we heard? “He’s so lucky, he’s born into a rich family”. “Poor kid, she’s still in high school”.
When we came into this world, we all have been dealt cards. Some, more appealing than others. But that’s just the starting point. It’s something we cannot change so we better accept it. In the same way we need oxygen to survive, some events are just that, constant variables.
Be it good luck or not, those are just interpretations. Ones that are defined by a few rules.
Luck Is Not Some Faraway Force
It’s a feeling but also a state of mind. It is the good things we want to feel and the bad we want to avoid. It’s those fingers crossed, those hands up in the sky, and those heavy fingers on our foreheads.
Recently, I had a big dispute with one of my friends, someone I shared a deep connection with. It felt like a breakup, I felt bad, I still do. But what if I tell you that I also feel lucky? That would be odd right?
Except that it isn’t, we are lucky because we feel lucky. And those feelings come from a couple of entities, I narrowed them down to two, Survival and Society.
The first is linked to our primary instincts. We feel lucky to be alive, in good health, and loved. Those feelings are then reinforced by the mores and manners of the world we live in. We feel lucky to be popular, to be fit, or to be able to buy whatever we want.
“Here’s the thing about luck…you don’t know if it’s good or bad until you have some perspective.” — Alice Hoffman
Luck Is Not Just About Praying
It’s also about putting the work and taking risks.
For a long time, I hesitated to write on Medium. I had my account set up months ago but I didn’t have the balls to jump in. Instead, I found myself in the business of finding reasons. Until one day I said why the hell not? Then I hit that publish button.
Thirteen years of my life, I’ve been writing for myself. Keeping my darkest secrets for my own soul to bear, and releasing only the “acceptable ones” to the world.
When I sent that first story, I also shared it on every social media platform known to mankind (that may be an exaggeration). A lot of my friends read it, some of their friends read it, my coworkers read it, my mother, too, read it. That night, I went to sleep, feeling vulnerable and naked.
The next morning my phone was filled with messages of love, support, and appreciation. An energy so intense that it keeps giving me the strength to go on and to write.
“Luck has nothing to do with it, because I have spent many, many hours, countless hours, on the court working for my one moment in time, not knowing when it would come.” — Serena Williams
Without taking risks, luck will always seem out of reach. But risk itself is not enough, you also have to put in the work.
Luck Is Not Just About Preparation
I stumbled upon this one on my daily routine. 4:30 in the morning, I’m ready for my workout and as always I choose a TED Talk to listen while I do my sets. He’s talking about luck, and the guy said a bunch of interesting things.
Bad luck comes from believing we’re invincible. Good luck comes from feeding your ambition. — Richie Etwaru
I looked back at my life, how many times did I felt invincible? Too much. How many times did I say things just because who cares? How many times did I throw myself in fights I knew I shouldn’t win? How many times did I leave my house without my mask?
Because I felt invincible. I felt out of range, out of danger, it only happens to others right? I don’t shout it out loud but I sure hope like hell that shits don’t happen to me. And when nothing happens, that feeling of invincibility keeps growing. It’s an illusion we ought to dispel.
To control our luck, we have to notice our destructive behaviors. It’s only by reaching self-awareness that we can limit those moments of folly, rage, and temptations. And eventually, having less bad luck.
Luck Is Not Intangible
We can grab it. There’s a mechanism to it.
To have a chance at luck, you have to understand that it descends only upon those standing where it will drop. If you’re not aware of the possibility of an event, you either will be too slow to catch it or caught by surprise and unable to react.
It’s only by foreseeing the occurrence of an event that you can place yourself in a position to increase the probability of your luck. Right place, right time couldn’t have been more right.
While it’s hard to know both variables, it’s not impossible to figure out one of them. When a lion hunts its prey, he can spend hours observing and biding his time, waiting for the right moment to strike. He knew the place, he waited for the time. Sometimes it’s trickier than that. Sometimes we know the date. There’s a book fair coming at the end of the year and you want to be in a place where your book is ready to be displayed on the shelves there. You know the time but you have to work to get there.
Luck has a location, if you know it, go stand there and don’t leave. If you don’t, look at your watch, you may know the time. Do whatever it takes to be ready for wherever it lands.