Feeling lucky?

Feeling lucky?

 

 

There's an interesting question. What is luck?
How do you define it? Some people say luck is a force in the universe that you have no control over. Others say it is simply a statement that sums up how well something turns out for you when things go right, 'Oh that's lucky'.

Or how badly they can turn out instead...

So which is it? Or is it a combination of both? Well I suppose it depends on who you ask.

 

 

                       

  

“Here's the thing about luck...you don't know if it's good or bad until you have some perspective.”
― Alice Hoffman, Local Girls                                                

 

 

“Shallow men believe in luck or in circumstance. Strong men believe in cause and effect.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson        

 

 

“Shallow men believe in luck or in circumstance. Strong men believe in cause and effect.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson              

 

 

 

 

I personally believe that luck is a state of mind. I'm not saying that things work out equally for everyone of course and that people who are suffering or hard done by should just change the way they think about their situation. You only have to look at the state of the world to know that this isn't the case. People have hard lives when they have done nothing to deserve it and others have success and happiness that many would say they don't deserve because they haven't earned it. Life is unfair.   

 

But there are those of us who believe that luck is a force within the universe that we can take control of. That we can buy or find a lucky charm that makes everything alright. Here is the reason why I disagree...

Let's say I have a lucky coin. This coin is so lucky that every time I scratch off a scratch card with it it's an instant winner. I can quit my job and live off this coins luck forever. Now how did I get my hands on this coin to begin with? Was it given to me? Handed down through the generations of my family? Was it change for something I bought, did I find it somewhere? None of this matters. The real question is, given that luck is in this case a magical force within the universe that can assign itself to an item or person, how lucky did I have to be to get my hands on this coin in the first place? When you think about it I would literally have to be as lucky as the coin already is which makes it obsolete.

Now lets say I give this coin to a rich billionaire. If all that the coin does is get people more money, then they won't care that I've given it to them because it's useless to them. They don't need it. If I instead gave it to a homeless man without telling him what it does or about its lucky powers, he'll be thrilled just to have some money. Then he'd probably spend the coin and give this luck to someone else (which isn't lucky at all).

People all over the world believe in or claim to own what they call, 'lucky items'. But all it really does is alter your perspective to focus on the positive things in your life rather than the negative. You can even buy lucky charms, but who discovered or decided that they were lucky and how? Were any tests performed? Most of them are man made anyway so how were they made, what were they made from and how did the person who made them make them to be lucky?

 

 

One classic example of a common lucky charm is that of a rabbits foot. People will carry these around with them to attract good fortune. But how lucky can it really be? Lets not forget that the rabbit it belonged to in the first place is now dead! It probably ended up in a stew. You wouldn't say your foot was lucky if the moment you did so someone killed you to sever it from your body and claim that luck for themselves.

 

 

Where did this idea come from?  

 

 

This tradition goes back quite far. As far back as 600 BC the Celts would associate rabbits with good fortune. The whole rabbit though not just the foot. This could be because of the totemic belief that we are descended from animals and so to worship our animal ancestors tribes would carry around body parts as totems. It would either be a rabbits foot or a racoon penis bone or a vultures head. Folklore and misinterpretation has then played a part through the years with witchcraft and magic being thrown into the mix confusing matters making people believe the same superstitions but for different reasons and in different ways. Suddenly these so called ingredients were being used in magic potions and spells. And through Chinese whispers and exaggeration the belief itself has evolved:

 

• It must be the rabbits left foot
• It has to have died in a cemetery
• It has to have died at midnight
• It had to have been a full moon

and so on.....


Other lucky items and traditions have emerged for the same reasons. Going back to the coin hypothesis above, some people say, 'See a penny, pick it up, all day long you'll have good luck'. But even this has changed through the years. At one time people believed in such things as fairies and leprechauns and that they would bring people luck. They believed then when they found a coin it had been left there by one of these beings and so traditionally they would spit on it and then throw it back into the bushes as payment to them in exchange for good luck. I believe that at some point someone who was most likely at the very least an open minded sceptic or just wanted to test a theory decided it would be luckier to just keep the coin- and so things started to change from there.  


Scientific studies have been done as well by scientists like Richard Wiseman. He did a ten year study on luck and reached the conclusion that people make their own good and bad fortune in life through the way they think. Optimistic people focus more on the good and consider themselves lucky. They then achieve this way of life by setting themselves self fulfilling prophesies through positive expectations. These types of people are more likely to be cured through the placebo effect. Pessimistic people do the opposite.



This is of course just my opinion. As always you have every right to disagree; but tell me why you disagree or what I might have overlooked.

Prove me wrong.


Riddle me this: ANSWER- The answer to the last riddle is, the prisoner uses his 5 minute window when the guard isn't looking to get half way across the yard. Then he turns round and walks back towards the prison. He walks up to the guard and tells him he is there to visit someone, but he has no visiting papers so the guard turns him away. LOL.

NEXT RIDDLE: A man walks into a bar and asks the bartender for a glass of water. The bar tender instead points a gun at the man. A few moments later the man smiles and thanks the bar tender, then leaves without his drink. Why?