Writer's Block: I can walk under ladders
Apr. 14th, 2010 10:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tabular_rasa[Error: unknown template qotd]
I tend to think of luck as a slightly different entity than circumstance or privilege, and it's totally different from hard work and karma. (It's definitely more of an external influence than internal-- and I believe in both). For instance, you can be born privileged but have terrible luck from then on, or have terrible karma and still be very lucky. While privilege deals with social structure and karma and hard work have to do with personal works, luck is all about randomness. In that way, luck is quite amoral. (If it could be personified, it would be mischievous :-P).
I think there lucky and unlucky people, and people who are neither-- but you may not stay any one of these things for your entire life. A lucky person is one who experiences good things at random. They may frequently win at gambling or find $20 on the street on multiple occasions. They go to the grocery store and happen to run into Steven Spielberg who happens to be buying the same exotic fruit and they decide to go out to lunch together because of this odd coincidence. They just seems to stumble into opportunities without actively searching for them. They didn't earn them through hard work and their character might be such that they don't necessarily deserve them-- but they still luck out.
I realized as a kid that I am not lucky, though I was born fairly privileged and I consistently work hard for my achievements both materially and karmically. When I've won contests, with the exception of one time (the breakfast drawing during orientation at WashU), it's because I demonstrated competence in a skill like writing or drawing, not because my name was pulled randomly from a hat. I've never found a four-leaf clover (and I look every time I'm in a clover patch!) and I never, ever win at Bingo until all the prizes are gone. I'm not unlucky-- I don't get more than my share of random curses-- but I'm not lucky in that when it comes to randomness, I usually don't benefit.
I don't like it when people say "I make my own luck," because that's contrary to the definition of luck-- all that means is that you don't believe in it. You can't control luck, that's the point. If you can control it, it falls under the domain of hard work or karma.
However, it's equally annoying when people chalk up poor work habits, bad karma, or (heaven forbid) the ills of a hierarchical society on "bad luck," all of which can be changed in ways luck cannot.
I tend to think of luck as a slightly different entity than circumstance or privilege, and it's totally different from hard work and karma. (It's definitely more of an external influence than internal-- and I believe in both). For instance, you can be born privileged but have terrible luck from then on, or have terrible karma and still be very lucky. While privilege deals with social structure and karma and hard work have to do with personal works, luck is all about randomness. In that way, luck is quite amoral. (If it could be personified, it would be mischievous :-P).
I think there lucky and unlucky people, and people who are neither-- but you may not stay any one of these things for your entire life. A lucky person is one who experiences good things at random. They may frequently win at gambling or find $20 on the street on multiple occasions. They go to the grocery store and happen to run into Steven Spielberg who happens to be buying the same exotic fruit and they decide to go out to lunch together because of this odd coincidence. They just seems to stumble into opportunities without actively searching for them. They didn't earn them through hard work and their character might be such that they don't necessarily deserve them-- but they still luck out.
I realized as a kid that I am not lucky, though I was born fairly privileged and I consistently work hard for my achievements both materially and karmically. When I've won contests, with the exception of one time (the breakfast drawing during orientation at WashU), it's because I demonstrated competence in a skill like writing or drawing, not because my name was pulled randomly from a hat. I've never found a four-leaf clover (and I look every time I'm in a clover patch!) and I never, ever win at Bingo until all the prizes are gone. I'm not unlucky-- I don't get more than my share of random curses-- but I'm not lucky in that when it comes to randomness, I usually don't benefit.
I don't like it when people say "I make my own luck," because that's contrary to the definition of luck-- all that means is that you don't believe in it. You can't control luck, that's the point. If you can control it, it falls under the domain of hard work or karma.
However, it's equally annoying when people chalk up poor work habits, bad karma, or (heaven forbid) the ills of a hierarchical society on "bad luck," all of which can be changed in ways luck cannot.
