Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas
Don’t minimize the importance of luck in determining life’s course. Alex Trebek
Where does luck fit in our lives, do we consider ourselves lucky, or unlucky?
When a situation could have been terrible but isn’t what can we call it but luck? Last Thursday I planned on giving a speech at Toastmasters about the exhilaration one feels after a close call. When I was nineteen a girlfriend and I drove down Highway 401, I was in the passenger seat, when she hit black ice and the car skidded out of control. A police officer was speaking to the driver of a car he’d pulled over. Our car’s front end came within inches of his legs as it did a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree donut coming to a stop in the same lane, going the same way we started. The police officer didn’t motion to us to pull over so we drove off. It is times like that when time seems to stand still and I still feel lucky that we didn’t end up in a horrific accident hitting the police officer and parked car.
On Wednesday night I went for a bike ride and as I was heading home riding down a path, a woman turned the corner to come down the path so I moved to the right, and my handlebar must have touched the wire fence on the right because the next thing I know I was picking myself off the pavement. It happened so fast that I felt momentarily stunned, but I picked myself up, mumbled, “I’m okay,” to the woman,” I wasn’t expecting that,” got on the bike and rode home.
Bruised but not broken, another instance of wow, that could have been so much worse. My face was swollen and bruised enough that I didn’t go to Toastmasters and give my speech, which was going to be about how fear, especially a fear of death, also results in a fear of life.
You never know what worse luck your bad luck has saved you from. Cormac McCarthy
Luck often comes if we are prepared for it through hard work. But, if a bullet misses killing you by a quarter of an inch you’re lucky. When things could have been terrible but aren’t, we are lucky. If we are born healthy, into a good family, and in a great country, we are lucky.
There are things we work hard for and if luck comes our way we might prosper, but some circumstances in life come down to luck. We might do better in life if we feel we are lucky than if we feel we aren’t. Some of us might feel if something bad happens we are unlucky, and some might feel lucky because they escaped a worse outcome. A lot of life is about perspective, and feeling lucky or unlucky might be one of those things. We can look at almost any situation and think if I was lucky that wouldn’t have happened, or wow, I’m so lucky, because it could have been worse. Is it true, that luck favors those who believe they are lucky?
If you are lucky enough to find a way of life you love, you have to find the courage to live it. Bette Davis
Luck is a thing that comes in many forms and who can recognize her. Ernest Hemingway
All of us have bad luck and good luck. The man who persists through the bad luck – who keeps right on going – is the man who is there when the good luck comes – and is ready to receive it. Robert Collier
Thank you for reading this post. Please come back and read some more. Have a blessed day filled with gratitude, joy, and love.
