I have always been curious as to what other people think, when it comes to goodluck and badluck. Whether people think we make our own luck, or whether it is outside influences that creates the good and badluck for us. Personally, I am really undecided as to whether we create our own luck or not, or whether it has a lot more to do with outside influences. I mean, I have walked around with a positive attitude to life and a negative attitude to life, and the only difference I found was that I basically shrugged a lot off. Didn't let it get to me. But what about luck? Do you think that positive people tend to have more luck than negative people? Do you think we are the biggest influence on our own luck, or do outside influences have more to do with it? What are your thoughts on luck?
Well, I don't believe in luck as some force of its own that can be influenced. Random things occur and sometimes they will be in your favor and sometimes not. If you want to call it luck when things randomly occur in your favor you can. It certainly has a nicer ring to it than statistical outcome. What positive thinking people are better able to do is to take ANY event that happens and make the most of it, or it motivates them to work hard rather than get demotivated. So I believe in the "power" of positive thinking in so much as it leads a person to action. Positive thinking as discussed in the book The Secret, however, is a load of crap.
I think with respect to 'luck', one has to be open to possibilities and ready to take the chance when it comes along. With respect to writing: One cannot get 'lucky' if one doesn't complete and actually submit a manuscript. For example: The manuscript may be just the thing an editor was looking for to complete an anthology, or to follow another manuscript (for balance) that was recently accepted in the publisher's lineup of novels for 2010. Maybe the quality isn't quite there, but could be if with a little editorial guidance for the author. It could equally be unforutnate luck, in that an editor, whose slush pile has become so huge, and he is so far behind in his other editorial responsiblities and he has a healthy stack of solicited/respected agent represented submissions to review, that he decides to clear his desk and 'form rejects' the stack of 200 unsolicited slushpile manuscripts unread. But the bottom line is that if one does not engage in activity, luck in that area cannot occur. And even if one doesn't believe in luck, success certainly cannot occur. I think in the first Star Wars book, Yoda was discussing luck with Han Solo a comment emerged/view about luck that stuck with me over the years: In my experience there is no such thing as luck, only highly favorable adjustments of multiple factors to incline events in one's favor. Terry
I also find the term luck to be rather illusory. I think good luck and bad luck are just ways for us to describe the two ends of the bell curve of probability. I do believe we make our own destiny.
I think it's a combination of both. I own a very successful business I started two years ago. It wouldn't be nearly as successful today if I hadn't had a couple random moments of good fortune that put me in the right place at the right time. However, I also make sure that I'm always prepared for those situations to come along so that when they do, I'm ready and willing to take full advantage of them. It's a combination of good luck and fortune over which I have no control, and creating circumstances of my own control which I can use to my advantage. In my case, I feel the biggest influence is my own ability to create situations in my life that will be beneficial for my business. It's not luck or random good fortune - it's me being proactive to make sure I succeed, but if Lady Luck wants to toss her two cents in to help me out now and again, I'll never say no thanks! And yes, positive people have more "luck" than negative people. Positive people are on the look-out for positive situations that will bring them success or happiness. Negative people don't always see those situations as readily, nor are they often prepared when the situations come around.
Luck is that which happens when preparation meets opportunity. People who continually experience "good luck" have a habit of being prepared in life. Conversely, the opposite is also true. My son's fiancé graduated from college with a degree in photographic art. She takes wonderful, intriguing pictures of nature that she sells to magazines, publishers of calendars and writers specializing in outdoor themes. One time I commented about how "lucky" she was to get action pictures of a mother Bald Eagle teaching her two yearling eagles to skim the surface of the lake catching fish. She laughed and replied, "Anyone could have gotten those pictures if they sat in that damn boat as many days as I did."...there you go; preparation meets opportunity.
When I was in the service I learned two different little ditties that sing the same song. Those who fail to plan, plan to fail. and... The Seven P's Proper Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance.
I've known plenty of people who have wonderful (seeming) lives, everything just seems to go right for them, but they don't think of themselves as particulary fortunate, in fact some of them are downright unhappy. On the other hand, there are those people, loads of misfortune comes their way, but they never give up and always remain positive. They're the lucky ones. I suppose 'luck' is down to your personality and spiritual strength.
I have encountered situations where amazingly wonderful things happened without proper planning. With photos (as in Salty's example), I have been in the right place at the right time on several occasions to catch something just at the right time. For example, I happened to lose my footing while wading in a river and looked down to see a garter snake trying to eat a rainbow trout and got some amazing shots. Maybe luck is just fortunate (or unfortunate) coincidence.
I don't believe in luck. Luck is a figment of the imagination created to explain the improbable or the probable. Someone who wins a lot at blackjack isn't really lucky they just know how to play the odds to maximize their chances at winning (its improbable but it happens). Likewise someone who loses a lot creates bad luck to explain why they can't win even though the law of large numbers and probability in general says they probably can't. No such thing as luck. Stuff happens or it doesn't. Some people have the random chance of certain things happening and others just know how to play the odds. There are of course outside influences most of them beyond our control. As for positive and negative people having or not having luck, well, that's probably a play on the luck is an invention of the mind thing. Positive people are likely to see themselves as having luck while negative people are probably likely to see themselves as not having it.
I define luck as what happens when the situation is out of one's hands. There are things we can't control and that's where luck comes into play. Therefore, I don't believe it is possible to create luck. If you made it happen, it is not luck. Being in the right place at the right time and still getting screwed is bad luck. Being in the wrong place at the wrong time and coming out clean as a whistle is good luck. Any other combination of the two is just everyday life. Also, one's personal outlook can easily skew one's perception of fortunate or unfortunate events. Also, I consider probability a load of hogwash. For it to apply, we would have to have an infinite number of "attempts" and a controlled situation in which to analyze them. Real life doesn't work that way. Whatever you thought was the probable outcome can easily get wrecked by something that had absolutely nothing to do with the initial scenario. It's impossible to know how probable something is in real life, as the possibilites are endless. At best, we can take a guess based on past examples and hope for the best. I'd rather be lucky than prepared anyday. You can't prepare for everything. /my $0.02
I don't believe in luck. Luck is a mindset. If you are an optimist, you will more than likely received 'good' luck, because that is how you view the world. If you are a pessimist, you will more than likely receive 'bad' luck because of it. There's no such thing as good or bad luck really, if you're depressed you aren't going to notice good things happening around you, so you'll assume you're unlucky. Optimists are less likely to be dragged down by things like that and focus on positives, thus generating 'good' luck.
I feel that the universe is random. Bad things happen to good and bad people alike, randomly. Likewise with good occurences. However, how you deal with the vicissitudes of life is personal choice. Some people waste energy assigning blame. Others tear into their conscience to decide what they did to deserve punishment. But others do what they caqn to endure it and get beyond it. That is making your own luck. So is making good use of opportunities that present themselves.
If you sit around and wait for 'Luck' to come to you, don't hold your breath 'cause you'll never see the outside of your house. If you're proactive in life and don't take yourself too seriously, your optimism will deflect anything negative that passes your way. When that's the case, all positives taste so much better. Also, making something positive happen for someone else will certainly brighten your outlook.
People who have it good in life tend to think it was because of their own doing, their own hard work or decency, that they deserve to have good things happen to them and so therefore people who have had bad things happen to them must deserve that. No, I don't think we make our own luck. I think there's a very tiny amount of what we can control in life, and even that is debatable, so much of our behavior is unconsciously controlled.
