The way I see it, there are always two sides to luck. For example, I am a huge football fan. Setting the stage, when a game is tied with two seconds remaining and the team with the ball sends the place kicker onto the field. The attempt will be from 50 yards back. The snap is perfect and the hold is stable. The kicker boots the ball and it bounces off the upright. No good. Half the stadium is feeling so lucky and the other half feels the sting of an unlucky loss. Same outcome with two different viewpoints. Both are in hindsight.
The crazy thing is that there are plenty of people watching the football game that really don’t care either way. Does that make them lucky or unlucky? I guess that depends on what side they want to take. The way I see it is that in order humans to call luck a factor, it has to matter to us.
I have two problems with luck: it applies only to past events, and luck cheapens hard work. Luck is never applied to future events. You can’t be lucky on the lotto until you win. You can’t win a jackpot on a slot machine until it rings out a winner. Therefore, luck is our way of applying a reasoning to events that might very easily not have happened.
Secondly, luck cheapens hard work. I am a true believer that people can create their own opportunities through hard work and determination. Opportunities, viewed through one lens, may seem like luck however, hard work is at the root. No doubt, the harder someone works, the luckier people will see them as being. That is simply because they are relying on hard work and discipline not a game of chance.
Therefore, if luck makes one feel better about participating in a game of chance, so be it. I however, will choose to work hard and create opportunities for myself and those around me. I choose to look forward and gauge future plans not backward and discount the work as good or bad luck.
Until next time...
No comments:
Post a Comment