Luck (part 1)
There is an ongoing debate about luck. Some say there is no such thing. Luck is simply the result of very specific causes. Either it is the result of determined hard work, or of having unfair advantages. But either way luck seems to find its way into the story.
Some insist hard work, not fate or breaks, or whatever, leads to success. Lady luck, if there is such a thing, smiles only on those who are working hard. A person is “lucky” only because they are actively taking steps toward their goal.
This is basically the idea that we make our own luck. As Roman philosopher Seneca once said, “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.” Being prepared is our task, the rest is karmic response (favored results tilted toward hard workers).
Others insist that “luck” happens in the birth canal. If you are lucky enough to win what Warren Buffet called “the ovarian lottery,” you have a disparagingly better chance of winning. Success has less to do with hard work and more to do with connections.
And only the lucky have such connections.
This view, of course, inevitably brings up discussions of fate and free will. Who gets lucky and why. Some in response will tighten their view that success must be the result of hard work, not the random chance of being born into the right home.
Either way…
Luck is divisive. That it may exist means to some degree our control is limited. There are certain factors of life we can not predict. As the bumper sticker goes: “sh$% happens.” We can not totally control or predict what’s coming, or if luck will show up.
Ironically, if luck does not exist, and everything is determined, our control is also limited.
(Here it does not matter so much if that determination comes by the natural ability to work hard and excel in a certain area or by the “unfair advantage” of being born in the upper class with educational and economic benefits not available to most.)
A closed system ultimately assumes a strict connection between cause and effect: this leads to that. Every time. When it comes to success or “making it,” a closed system approach assumes the system of success is already determined.
And usually I am not in it.
Those who are “in” (by capabilty or advantage) can only get others in. There are no true outsiders. You either know somebody, have connections, or simply have a better story. The biz loves to make itself the hero and occasionally “help” the disadvantaged.
Our successes, on the other hand, we tend to credit to our own hard work and skill. We tend to credit luck less and our own will and work more. See the hypocrisy? It assumes the “system” is naturally fated against us and toward others. And that’s not fair.
We play it out that we are excluded from the benefits of the “in” system. We are not invited. Our membership is over. We’ve been revoked from entrance. And the fee to get back in is simply too steep. There’s no way we can swing it.
Once we get into this sort of thinking, we are in an extremely dangerous territory. Life moves from being a great adventure with superb challenges to exclusionary and awful. It becomes only about money and power, and we have none. We lose.
From here we turn toward despair or to any means necessary to get the money and power what we perceive we need. If life isn’t fair, then we don’t have to play by its rules. We can do whatever we feel we need to. See the danger?
