GOOD LUCK
March 12, 2023
“On this earth as it is —
Fast runners do not always win the races, and the brave do not always win the battles.
The wise do not always earn a living, intelligent people do not always get rich, and capable people do not always rise to high positions.
Sooner or later bad luck hits us all.
No one can predict misfortune.”
Ecclesiastes 9: 11-12 Good News Translation
A woman was visiting her husband in the hospital. As they sat watching television, her husband motioned for her to come nearer. She smiled, and walked over to stand right beside him. His eyes filled with tears, he whispered to her — ”You know what? You have been with me all through the bad times. When I got fired, you were there to support me. When my business failed, you were there. When I got shot, you were by my side. When we lost the house, you stayed right here. When my health started failing, you were still by my side. You know what?"
"What dear?" she asked gently, smiling as her heart began to fill with warmth.
"I think you're bad luck."
This Friday is St. Patrick’s Day, when people will wear green, and we might hear some Irish music. In light of this upcoming holiday, I decided to spend some time talking about luck. Just how much of a role does luck play in our lives? Is there such a thing as good and bad luck?
Have you ever felt like you are a lucky person? Maybe you go to the casino and you always win. Maybe you always seem to be at the right place at the right time. No matter what you do, you seem to always come out a winner. Or maybe you feel just the opposite — like you are never lucky — or even cursed with bad luck. No matter what you do, you seem to get the short end of the stick.
In reality, we probably all have our fair share of good and bad luck. According to William Feather, “Most of us regard good luck as our right, and bad luck as a betrayal of that right.” William Feather
The role of luck in our daily lives, is actually a hotly debated topic. In fact, science has studied luck for many years, trying to figure out exactly what makes some people lucky and others, not so lucky. Probably one of the most involved studies on the role of luck was conducted by an English Professor of Psychology and author of The Luck Factor, Richard Wiseman. — Lucky name, there, Richard. Mr. Wiseman’s study was tailored to answer the question — Are some people in life lucky and others unlucky, or do we make our own luck?
Over a ten-year period, Wiseman kept track of 400 men and women volunteers of various ages who considered themselves especially lucky or unlucky. The results of the study was that lucky people are lucky because of certain things they do. Wiseman concluded that lucky people take advantage of opportunities that come their way. In contrast, "Unlucky people miss chance opportunities because they're too busy looking for something else.” Richard Wiseman, The Luck Factor
Wiseman also discovered a wide gap between the two groups regarding how they handled misfortune. The "lucky" people looked at the bad things that came their way, and after a time concluded, "It could have been worse." The unlucky ones let problems and trials immobilize or even devastate them.
Another principle that came out of the Wiseman study was that people who consider themselves lucky are people magnets. In the study, the lucky subjects could identify many more friends and acquaintances than people who labeled themselves unlucky. You know the old saying — it’s not what you know — it’s who you know.
In his book, Success and Luck: Good Fortune and the Myth of Meritocracy, Robert Frank writes about luck as a two-dimensional experience. The first dimension is
structural. I think we can all agree that “humans exert no control over where or to whom they are born, yet the impact of such ‘accidents of birth’ is substantial.” Half of the variance in income across people worldwide is attributable to country of residence and the corresponding distribution of income. A baby born to a Bangladeshi or Bolivian farm family, regardless of innate talent and willpower, suffers from an immediate disadvantage relative to a similar infant born to a Swedish or Canadian farm family.
The second dimension of luck, Frank argues, is the twists of fate that change an individual’s life trajectory. “All people, even the poor and disadvantaged, likely experience some form of good luck, however minor or inconsequential, during their lifetimes. But many fewer are blessed with a far more consequential, life-changing event or moment.” Such positive turns can initiate a cumulative advantage that drives a growing wedge between the fortunate and the less fortunate.
I once met a gentleman in Atlanta, who told me a story of a chance encounter that changed a person’s life trajectory. Sterling was an actor in Atlanta, and now in his golden years, he stayed highly busy in the Atlanta community theatre scene. When he was much younger, he had his sights set on becoming a famous actor, so he moved to New York City and like most actors, he started waiting tables. He was lucky enough to land a job at a restaurant often frequented by Broadway directors and actors. Since most of the wait staff were aspiring actors, they had a well-devised system in place. There was an established rotation among the servers. If a guest arrived in the restaurant who had anything to do with the NY theatre scene, the next one up on the rotation got to go to that table and serve, despite the location of the table.
Well, the day finally came. Sterling was next on the list. But the director he spent an hour tending to, turned out to be a lesser known person with little interest in his waiter. So when Katherine Hepburn walked in, it was Sterling’s buddy who got to wait on her. Katherine and her waiter got along like they had known each other for years. Sterling fumed as he watched his friend over the course of the afternoon engaged in conversation and exchanging phone numbers with Miss Hepburn. When she finally left, his buddy walked into the kitchen, took off his apron and quit. He smiled and said goodbye. “I’ve got an audition tomorrow,” he said. And then Dustin Hoffman turned and exited the restaurant.
Was that luck? Was it chance? Did God cause that to happen? I’ll tell you: I don’t know. But let’s go ahead and tackle the difficult question:
Does God control every moment of our lives, and therefore cause good and bad experiences for us?
As you know, there are two differing schools of thought — God is in COMPLETE control of everything, and there is no such thing as luck, or God is NOT in complete control of everything, and there is a great deal of randomness to our lives. Things just happen.
Many people are encouraged by the notion that God is in control, because there is a sense of safety to that idea. If each of our steps are already predestined, then no matter what I do, it was God’s will for my life.
I actually favor the notion that God is NOT is control of each of our moments, because if God has a complete plan for every step of every person’s life, then why do some of us get cancer and others do not? Why would God cause bad things to happen to people? To punish us? To TEACH us something? Because life isn’t tough enough and isn’t already teaching us things?
IF God is controlling each facet of our lives, it is much more difficult to see God as loving and kind, which is MY choice of how to view God.
Take any sports game. I am certain there are people praying for a victory on both sides of the stadium. Why in the name of all that is holy would God decide to bless one side of the stadium over the other? Doesn’t God love each of us equally? I choose to believe that the win comes from hard work, talent, and luck of that team. Not from God.
I don’t mean to step on toes or to tell you how to think. This is my spiritual journey. Perhaps this will cause you to think about what you believe. Is there a loving or a punishing God? Do bad things happen because of bad luck or because of God? Do good things happen to certain people because God has given them that opportunity? See how messy this is?
I challenge you to spend some time thinking about what you believe….and then make sure you are consistent in your beliefs. I believe that even though bad things happen in my life some times, God loves me and didn’t cause those things to happen to me. However — and this is a crucial however: God is there to help me as I face those challenges. Every. Single. Time. Without fail.
I have always had the feeling that we become what we think we are. If we feel like we are lucky, then perhaps we act like we are lucky. And then we feel gratitude for what we have. And then we feel lucky. And when good things come our way we say we are lucky, or we say we are blessed. But when we don’t feel gratitude for what we have in our lives, we feel negative, despondent and unsatisfied. We then feel unlucky. Could the solution be as simple as finding gratitude for what we have and as a result feeling lucky and blessed? Playwright Tennessee Williams once wrote: “Luck is believing you’re lucky.”
I believe there are times that luck comes along in the form of opportunities and experiences, and I believe we need to be open to them. Follow the advice of the experts. Let’s do what we can to maximize fate and destiny in our lives. Look at the chances that are available to us. Let’s not be afraid to take them. Amen.
Although many people would state that there is no mention of luck in the Bible, I beg to differ. There is a beautiful and somewhat haunting passage in Ecclesiastes that goes like this:
“On this earth as it is —
Fast runners do not always win the races, and the brave do not always win the battles.
The wise do not always earn a living, intelligent people do not always get rich, and capable people do not always rise to high positions.
Sooner or later bad luck hits us all.
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