Luck

Luck.  Some people seem to have it and others profess that they don't.  This has made me start to wonder, is luck something you have or something you create?  Is luck a perspective on life or is it just a thing?

There are arguments that say that luck is something that in inherent to how we perceive the world.

The key to good luck may be a heightened sensitivity to your surroundings.  Richard Wiseman, a professor at the University of Hertfordshire, spent a decade studying people who had self-identified as either lucky or unlucky. He posits that lucky people, through their superior observational skills, consistently encounter seemingly chance opportunities. In one experiment, Wiseman asked his subjects to count the photos in a newspaper. In the middle of the paper he placed a message that read “Tell the experimenter you have seen this and win 50 dollars.” The lucky people tended to notice this, but the unlucky — with their narrower focus — often missed it.

Think about it, some people will tell you they are unlucky, but maybe it is just that they miss the opportunity to be lucky by not perceiving the opportunities in their surroundings.  It is my belief that once you start to believe you are lucky, more luck tends to come your way.  Also, just like a positive attitude, lucky people tend to have a belief that they are lucky, and tend to ignore the bad things that happen to them.  Conversely, unlucky people tend to believe that they are unlucky and tend to ignore the good things that happen to them.

This makes me wonder, can you change your luck?  If you focus on being lucky and trying to be more aware of your surroundings can you turn the ship around? 

There is lots of research out there that basically points to the fact that luck is a matter of perception, just like a positive attitude you can have a lucky perception.  Research proves out that people who perceive themselves as lucky tend to minimize the bad things that happen, and look for the "silver lining."

Bob and I would say we are lucky.  Sure we have just gone through a rough patch, but we have had amazing support and it has hopefully, worked out ok for us in the end.  I look at life as a series of self-corrections.  I believe that when things start to go bad, it is time to try something else.

At the end of the day, can you change your luck?  I think so.