Luck is a Four-Letter Word

Or... How to get lucky!

Or... How to get lucky!

“I'm a greater believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it” Thomas Jefferson.

Have you ever watched Succession? If you haven't, then run (and I mean run) to whatever channel shows it in your country and binge, baby, binge. In Succession, Logan Roy is a billionaire patriarch with a gaggle of disloyal, ungrateful, and extremely unlikeable children. Even though Logan has billions of dollars and tremendous power, you wouldn't call him lucky. You wouldn't call him lucky because Succession is a story, and when watching, reading, or listening to a story, we understand the very clear relationship between cause and effect. We learn that Logan was born to a disadvantaged family in the working class city of Dundee, Scotland, and pulled himself up by his bootstraps, working as hard as Thomas Jefferson claims to have done in order to make something of himself and raise horrible, entitled children.

The only real luck in this world is the "accident of birth." If born in a Western country, you would be luckier than a vast swath of the global population. If you were born white, you're even more fortunate. If you were born male... jackpot. I’m not saying that it doesn’t suck that there is such a wide spectrum of economic and social advantages and disadvantages, but it is true that, for the most part, luck looks a lot like a privilege.

Even bad luck is a bit of a fallacy. I’m not saying you won't ever find yourself in a crappy circumstance beyond your control. But I don't believe you are experiencing “bad luck." You are experiencing an unfortunate circumstance beyond your control. And now you're in that circumstance, and you'd better do your darndest to control it.

Luck, privilege, and accident of birth are just code words for opportunity. You can win the lottery, but that doesn't make you lucky (30-70% of lottery winners end up in bankruptcy court). But winning the lottery is an opportunity—an opportunity to make your life, and the lives of loved ones and even strangers, a little bit better.

You've heard the saying, "You make your own luck." But there is a process for making luck, and it's not just hard work. Luck won't come your way without putting a spark to the trail of kindling on the dirt path before you (That's a terrible analogy! We don't want to burn down the forest; we want a fire to warm us and scare away the animals. Please think of a better one).

That spark is... Choice.

"Getting lucky" requires you to make choices.

Choice creates change. Change creates opportunity. Opportunity = Luck.

This morning I got up at 7:00 am, pulled on my still damp bathing suit from last night, open the patio doors to a warm breeze and whispering palm leaves, and swam in my bathtub temperature pool. Today, I'll scratch the ears of our teeny extra-purry foster kitten, sit in silence, looking out across the Bahamian ocean, and do one of my favorite things: write. Tonight, we'll probably take our guest, Colin, for a delicious meal of fried red snapper. We'll sit outside and listen to rake and scrape in the cooling tropical evening, and maybe I'll splurge on a Rum Dum Yum.

Man, I'm lucky! Seriously, pinch me! The world is my backyard, and I'm crafting stories while I journey through its wonders. Without a doubt, some of my life is due to pure luck - remember what I said? Luck is essentially privilege. If luck is redefined as privilege, then, to be fair, I've had that. I was born white in a Western country.

Sure, I had some disadvantages—I'm female, after all, and I came from a lower middle-class background that my parents worked very hard to drag themselves out of. This included a major, risky, terrifying, courageous leap into the unknown when they bundled up their four children and emigrated to the United States. See what I did there? Choosing is the secret.

My parents made a choice that created change, and that change created boatloads of opportunity. Take it from an immigrant: there truly is such a thing as the American dream.

Here's the thing: So many folks tell me how lucky I am and how they would love to travel like we do and live our nomadic lives. Well, guess what? The majority of people who say this to me actually could. It would just require a great deal of choosing and changing—which most people don't want to do.

Living the way we do is more affordable than the "Keeping up with the Jones'" habits of most of middle-class America. Hubby and I share used cars, which we buy with saved cash and then run into the ground before we purchase another. We own a home (most digital nomads don't), but we rent out the Bahamian house while we are traveling, which covers our costs and gives us a small income. But even without that income, our annual outgoings are manageable for anyone on a pension or fixed income. We don't have car payments, commuting costs, or regular bills, but most of all, we are clear on what we want to spend our money on, so we funnel it all to travel and food—no $300 trips to Target for us.

But most people won't do it. Because the idea of a change that big is entirely foreign. It's foreign because they have never practiced choosing. They let the status quo choose for them.

Routine is the enemy of opportunity. If you are stuck in a routine, especially the one handed to you as a teenager: go to college, get a job, get married, buy a house, etc., then you don't have an opportunity to practice choosing. You're letting others choose for you. Choosing is like a muscle. The muscle will die unless you flex it and force yourself to discover that the worst-case scenario is never as bad as the images you've painted in your mind.

Without choosing, you can't create change; without change, you can't create opportunity. Without opportunity, there is no luck. Luck doesn't magically drop down on you from above, a gift from a benevolent universe. It is hard work to get and hard work to keep.

So what's the first step? Start choosing. Every day. Flex that muscle. You got this, my heroine! Start with small choices - maybe you choose to get out of bed and go for a walk instead of scrolling on your phone. Maybe you choose to go to that work event you've been avoiding because you don't feel like you belong. Maybe you just choose to have a bowl of soup instead of your usual sandwich that day. If you're stuck in a routine, start making choices that scare you. Embrace the odd, the weird, and the uncomfortable. Recognize your privilege and use it to create change.

Maybe you're not Logan Roy's love child, but you still have power.

Journal Prompt

Grab your journal—it's a scary time! What small change can you make today that feels uncomfortable but could lead to new opportunities? Write it down and take action. Start choosing, and then write down what happens. As you build that muscle, your choices can get bigger. The bigger the choices you make, the more opportunities you create. You'll get lucky!

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