What’s Luck?

“Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.” – Seneca
What’s Luck?
Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity is a fairly well known quote. But sitting in a workshop last week at the Maui Business Office, I wrote these words down as they flowed from the speaker’s mouth, feeling as if I were hearing them for the first time. I have a love of how words portray a particular feeling or idea and I hadn’t thought about luck in quite that way for a while. Of late, I’ve been looking at luck as a bit of “Grace” falling from the universe into my lap. But I liked hearing it in the context of having a co-creative participation in the blessing.
A few days later I was listening to a newscaster presenting his view on how President Barack Obama would manage the immensity of the legacy being handed to him. He said, “It seems to me that this President has good fortune; and I think it can’t hurt to have a President with that kind of luck for a change.” After reading our President’s first book, “Dreams from my Father,” and excerpts from his second book, “The Audacity of Hope,” and looking at it in the context of this definition of luck, I saw how everything he had accomplished to this point, prepared him for winning the presidency. It wasn’t just luck or “Grace.”
If we take literally the idea that luck is actually our being prepared for opportunity, then we are responsible for laying the ground for our future, paving our lives “brick by brick” as President Barack Obama would say. We pave it with all of our achievements and failures.
Dr. John Demartini puts it another way. He says something to the affect that it’s not really luck at all. He says that what we value, we put most of our energy into and that becomes our greatest form of wealth – be it our financial success, our family, our career, our spirituality, our freedom, etc.
If you agree with this philosophy and have a desire to have what you say you want, it means no more consciously or unconsciously “a wishin and a hopin” you’ll get it.  Instead it’s about taking a deeper look at what you are and are not sinking your time and attention into. This assessment of “what is,” will show you where you are placing your value. That’s a great beginning. If that’s all you do, at least you know why you are where you are. If you want to take the next step toward having what you want, then after getting clear on what that is, you’ll focus your energy and develop and follow a plan for getting it. If luck happens to cross your path, then you’ll be there to meet it.
Crisis is a great motivator for change. But we don’t have to wait for such a calamity. Feeling the need for something can be a great motivator as well. Often we turn a want into a need to justify having whatever that is. We might try this in reverse. Identify what you really want, and see how that might fulfill a deeper need. Whether it’s a desire for more money or for a sense of greater satisfaction, find out what need having the “more or greater” will satisfy. If the want is money, maybe the bottom line need is the peace you’ll have knowing you’ve secured your future. If it’s more satisfaction, maybe the bottom line is a better sense of you, which goes a long way toward feeling gratified and successful.
Self-reflection or having someone you trust ask you the important questions that evoke feelings and desires hidden just below the surface is a road that leads to discovery. In the film “Wisdom” one of the talking heads said, “We would rather investigate the dark corners of a room or of the world rather than peer into the dark corners of our psyche.” There’s probably a lot of truth in that; but when desire for what we want and need becomes strong enough, there’s really nowhere else to look. We have to get to the bottom of what motivates us so we can use it to align our needs and our values.
Our country in a state of crisis elected a president that promises to change the course of our nation’s future. With that and the energy of a new year, we can all jump on the ban wagon and take a hand in shaping our own.