Just My Luck – No, I Worked Hard to Create My Lifestyle

It’s just my luck that I run into people who tell me and others, “You’re lucky.” It’s as if the current situation we enjoy is something that simply fell into our laps and we held onto it, even though we really didn’t want it in the first place. How lucky of us!

It’s either a very telling sign about our attitude towards success in life, or it’s just me being a grumpy old man, a bit before my time.

Be that as it may, I tire of people telling me that I’m lucky when they find out about my lifestyle. I find it rather insulting that my success in life is viewed as good luck instead of my own initiative and good decision-making.

I really shouldn’t be so hard on these “unlucky” people because it’s simply their way of holding up an excuse for themselves and others to grab a hold of. After all, if one person’s success is good luck, then their lack of success must simply be bad luck.

Are you buying it? I’m not.

A lady friend of mine was told by her sister that she was lucky to have an apartment, a job, nice furnishings, a car and what appeared to be a bright future. She said this as she plopped into the easy chair and asked her sister where the TV remote was located. Get the picture?

The concept of luck is something most appropriately associated with a casino. When you see people with blackened fingertips from feeding the slot machines for hours at a time, they’re engaged in a game of chance. They’re trying their luck at winning money. They’re also making a choice.

Luck is also represented by the hand you’re dealt during a card game; but the way you play the cards isn’t luck, it’s skill, and skill involves making choices. The decision to engage in the card game for money is yet another choice we might make. So, you see, our luck is really a series of choices that we make, no matter how much we try to pretend that it’s some mysterious unseen hand that guides our lives. We’ve been told before about choices and consequences, so why is it that many of us see things as the result of luck or chance?

Is it because it’s difficult to attain skill, maintain the right attitude, engage in deliberate action, base our actions on wise decision-making, and face up to the idea that we make our own luck? In other words, is it because we’ll have to take personal responsibility for our life and the outcomes we create? I think it is. I think it’s also a bit of laziness – it’s so easy to blame chance, even for those events that we set in motion.

Thomas Jefferson once said, “I’m a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it.” Clearly he understood the concept of taking responsibility for one’s life.

For the self reliant among us, we know that luck has some hand in what happens, but it plays but a small part. We know that what happens to us is largely of our own making. The photo you see to the right is what I have mounted on the edge of my computer display. It’s my credo. It’s one concept that I firmly believe in.

Whoever won a game by sitting it out and watching others? Get in there and make it happen. Be smart, play hard and take no prisoners. Once you know which “hill to die on,” go for it.

As managers of our own lives, we can choose what game we play, how we play it, and what risks we take when we do. Most of our lives are a matter of choice. The outcome is largely what we create.

We’re no more lucky than we are a victim in all of this. Success and happiness aren’t going to come our way because of luck, nor will our lives be turned around by others simply because we’re viewed as a victim.

The key to success and happiness is found in careful planning, taking initiative, deliberate and focused actions, and having a goal in mind to keep us on track. It’s a matter of personal responsibility. So, the next time someone tells you you’re lucky, be quick to remind them that luck has nothing to do with it.

photo credit

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Clair Schwan is one of those people who succeed in life simply because he won’t have it any other way. Whatever satisfaction, peace and happiness he enjoys is largely of his own making. He’s learned if you wait around for others to take care of you and make you happy, you’ll be waiting a long time, and you’ll be waiting for something that will never happen. And, you’ll probably not like how they solve your problems. Besides, why in the world would anyone try to make you happy if you’re not interested enough to make it happen on your own?