Pathwalking 71
“Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Luck is an interesting topic. Many people believe that it is luck, good or bad, that makes our lives.
Luck of the draw. Luck of the Irish. Good luck. Bad luck. Lucky in love. Unlucky in love.
Pathwalking is about finding and making your own path in life. Luck has nothing to do with this.
Yes, I will not deny that sometimes it is “luck” that gets a person where they wish to be. But cause and effect and actions are far more powerful than hoping for luck.
People talk about being in the “right place at the right time” in regards to luck. But I think it is much more effective to find the place and make the time than to just hope it will come together.
Consciousness creates reality. And as such, if you believe you are lucky, or you believe you are unlucky, you’re right.
The trouble with luck is the same issue most people have with life itself. Rather than MAKE your own choices and plans, you let life live you. You go along with the routine, letting whatever will happen, happen, not choosing for yourself what you want. And some people will get what they want this way, but happenstance is not the same as choice.
Luck is the same thing. Good luck or bad, it is a perception that is colored wholly by your own life experience. And you cannot control luck, because it is chaotic and random.
Some people wait to “get lucky”. They play the lottery. They make no move or take no action to have a life as they want it, they simply hope “luck” will find them, and what they want will fall into their lap.
The biggest problem with this, though, is that dependence on luck is not satisfying. Sure, it’s nice to be lucky and win a prize or inherit a large sum of money…but there is also a hollowness to this, because we do not and cannot control the circumstances. And that is why studies show people who win vast sums of money, rather than earn it, are more likely to squander, spend, or lose it as randomly and quickly as they came by it.
There is something about the superstition that surrounds the notion of luck that has a broad appeal. We root for the “hard luck case” to succeed in TV and movies frequently. We carry a rabbit’s foot, we look in a patch of clover for a four-leafer. It is easy to fall into the trap of luck as a tangible, desirable thing to attain.
But it is utterly intangible. Luck is what you believe it to be. And it is very easy to get caught up in the notion that some people are born lucky, whilst others are not. But luck is a choice that can be made.
If you choose to believe you have bad luck, then I would bet more often than not your luck is less-than-stellar? Now if, on the other hand, you choose to believe you are a lucky person, what do you think the odds become of THAT becoming your life experience?
“The best luck of all is the luck you make for yourself.” – Douglas MacArthur.
As with all aspects of Pathwalking, it is about choice. Choosing to hope you will “get lucky” is pretty much the equivalent of NOT choosing your own path.
We Pathwalk because we want to make our lives in the way we most desire. I do the things I do because I am choosing to do them. I don’t just want to dream my dreams – I want to live them. And while good luck in the process may be helpful, it will be of far greater value to make my own luck along the way.
How does luck factor into your path?
This is the seventy-first entry in my series. These weekly posts are specifically about walking along the path of life, and my desire to make a difference in this world along the way. Thank you for joining me.
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