The following words popped up on my Facebook a few weeks ago: “Good luck will come today to those who ‘like’ this post. Money will come to those who ‘share’ this post.” This Facebook message (opportunity?) prompted the questions, “What is luck and why do some people seem to have it and others do not?”
Luck Experienced
There is nothing new about wanting good luck. People have desired it for centuries. Historically luck has been experienced in three different ways: Supernatural events. Improves one’s situation through sacrifices to the gods. Such sacrifices may be animal or in some cases human. Another example is when we “knock on wood” for good luck, we are employing a ritual that dates back to pagan rituals that summoned the help of the powerful tree gods.
Make sense of specific events. Charms, amulets, and talismans can be found in virtually all civilizations since the beginning of recorded history. They are used to bring good favor to individuals. It can go so far as a football coach wearing the same socks to every game to bring good luck. Such items may also ward off the fear associated with such days as Friday the 13th that is unlucky because Judas was the 13th guest to arrive at Jesus’s Last Supper. Today there are still hotels that do not have a 13th floor.
Personal attribute that some people have within themselves. There are some people that just seem to be lucky, like they were born that way. Others are convinced that they were unfortunately born unlucky. It seems bad luck follows some people:
LOST DOG
Has three legs
Blind in left eye
Missing right ear
Tail broken
Accidentally neutered
Answers to name of
“Lucky”
Coincidence or life circumstances may bring us unprovoked bad luck. Coincidence, however, does not tell the whole story about luck.
Four Principles of Luck
Dr. Richard Wiseman, author of the influential book The Luck Factor, has done extensive research on why some people are lucky and others not. After conducting and analyzing hundreds of interviews he concluded there are four main differences between lucky and unlucky people. Lucky people:
- Maximize their chance opportunities. Lucky people accidently meet people who have positive effects on their lives. They find interesting opportunities in magazines, newspapers, or online. Unlucky people rarely have these types of experiences. They meet people who have negative effects on their lives.
- Listen to their lucky hunches. Lucky people make good decisions without knowing why. They just seem to know when something should or should not be trusted. Unlucky people tend to act on hunches that end up failing.
- Expect good fortune. Lucky people often expect dreams to come true and work towards that end. For unlucky people dreams remain the realm of fantasy and are never realized.
- Turn bad luck into good. Lucky people learn from failure and turn it into good fortune. Unlucky people experience failure as nothing but ruin.
Creating Good Luck
There is a word, synchronicity, that was used in the 1920s by the famed psychologist Carl Jung. It refers to the idea that some events are meaningfully linked or related, despite having no causal relationship. Jung believed synchronicity was evidence of a unifying consciousness at play in the universe and that it is manifested in our daily lives. He acknowledged that this inspiration came from the exciting new physics of relativity and quantum mechanics championed by Albert Einstein and Wolfgang Pauli. Synchronicity is the universe saying you are on the right path. Examples: A friend you haven’t seen in 20 years pops into your mind and that same afternoon you run into him. The death of a loved one who loved hummingbirds and then having a hummingbird follow you all afternoon, providing a sense of connectedness on the day of great loss. We may experience oneness with the environment, animals, or other people. Countless individuals continue to enjoy the beauty of synchronicity in a wide variety of ways.
Jung believed synchronicity is more than coincidence which is an “unexpected convergence of events” with no particular significance. It is appropriate to conclude that both quantum physics and spirituality lift up the inseparable influence of observer and observed, of the material and immaterial.
There is an ancient Sanskrit word for this: Santi. It means resting within one’s own peace of mind. Santi beckons us to the external conditions of our environment in rapport with our internal feelings.
Santi, as synchronicity, blends the observed and the observer. This leads to several personal qualities that result in people being lucky:
- Mindful. Nonjudgmental and aware of what is going on around them.
- Proactive. Taking the initiative to make one’s future happen.
- Opportunistic. Taking advantage when opportunities arise.
- Insightful. Insight is based in learned knowledge combined with trusting intuition.
- Flexible. Taking advantage of new situations or when failure is experienced learn from it and get back on your feet.
- Optimistic. One person says, “Look at my coffee. It is half empty.” While the friend sitting with him responds, “That is too bad. My coffee is half full.”
When I lost a job as a young man with two children a friend of mine gave me this advice: “Stay amongst them.” I now know that meant to stay in tune with life, open myself and listen to the synchronicity that is always with us, live proactively, and let optimism reign. Luck follows.
Conclusion
There is an old story of a father who wanted to show his son who always seemed lucky to realize that life could be hard. “My son is just too happy, finds meaning in all that happens, and is the luckiest kid I know. He needs to be more realistic and not think he is just lucky all the time,” said the father. So, at Christmas he gave his son a huge pile of manure. Christmas afternoon he saw his son jump into the manure and start throwing it everywhere as he exclaimed with glee, “In all this manure there has to be a pony somewhere!”
May good luck be with us all the days of our lives.
Written by: Hartzell Cobbs
About the Author: With a sprinkling of exuberance and vitality, Dr. Cobbs is an accomplished author of three books and numerous articles published in different venues throughout his life. Dr. Cobbs’ first book, Thanatos and the Sage: A spiritual approach to aging (2008), offers a thought-provoking interpretation of the interplay between how to live life with meaningful intentions and the eventuality of coming to terms with death. His second book, RavenWind (2019) delves into the raven’s role as it relates to Native American myths, legends, and folktales and global history. His reflections on the spirituality of living and dying depicted in his books are threaded throughout the short essays posted on the website for “Smart Strategies for Successful Living” and in his latest book, The Moon at the Window: Senior Reflections.
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