Is it possible to control your luck?
100 Things #022 - Tempt Fate
If one were to open up any given philosophy book to a random page, there is a more than decent chance that one would encounter references to ideas of “fate,” “destiny,” or “karma.”
Fatalism, determinism, and notions of predetermined realities make up a large part of the way that society has come to understand the world around us.
These ideas inevitably lead to conversations of free will, agency, and autonomy, which open up a whole new can of worms that, in my opinion, often serves little practical use and typically ends up playing out as more of a game of semantics and subjective definitions than it does actually serve humanity in its goal to better understand itself and its place in the universe.
So why bother getting into the nitty-gritty of how to best define ideas of “fate” and “destiny” when the collective understanding of these ideas is already so inherently self-contradicting?
Well, as has been said by many philosophers before us, our understanding of real-world phenomena is inextricably linked to the ways that we use language to describe the world that we see and interact with.
That is to say, the extent to which we can comprehend something as complex as fate is naturally limited by the extent to which we can describe it.
One specific notion that I believe has fallen victim to a similar fate of having its meaning and cultural understanding warped is the idea of “luck.”
The way that we understand luck is inherently tied up in the contexts in which we believe we interact with it.
You start a game of poker, where randomness plays a hand in the drawing and dealing of the cards—that’s luck.
You scratch a lottery ticket, where randomness is involved in determining which piece of paper holds the winning combination of numbers—that’s luck.
What I would argue isn’t luck, though, are situations where the circumstances we place ourselves in, the people we interact with, and the intuitive feelings that we rely on result in specific outcomes that we do or do not enjoy.
Consider the way that people will refer to being successful in a certain industry as getting a “lucky break” or the influencer whose viral video feels like a stroke of pure luck for the sake of their business; while, yes, good fortune does play a role, determination, effort, networking, studying, consistency, practice and a vast number of other factors generally play a much larger role, in many cases, entirely outweighing the function of luck in the equation.
For many, there is a tendency to over-emphasize the effects of luck on the lives and careers of others, as it softens the blow of not having received the results you were hoping for yourself. Though, a more charitable view of the situation would often have it that the other person in question, barring other biases and influencing factors at play, likely deserved their results “fair and square.”
“Lucky” and “unlucky” become scapegoat terms for the circumstances and positions that people find themselves or place themselves in, which begs the question, to what extent can we control our luck?
Obviously, if we are still talking about things related to purely random chance, like a game of bingo, let's say, the only thing you could do to control your odds is have more than one bingo sheet, and I’m pretty sure that’s considered cheating.
In the real world, “odds” are never quite so random.
Actual studies have been conducted to determine if some people are actually just “luckier” than others, and it turns out, through research conducted by Richard Wiseman, a certain number of personality traits and characteristics can be traced back to some people having an increased feeling of “luckiness” in their day to day lives, which Wiseman writes about in his book, The Luck Factor.
These traits are not-so-coincidentally linked back to these ideas we discussed earlier about the kinds of circumstances, social circles, and intuition that we interact with on a daily basis.
A heightened sense of extraversion might make a person more likely to strike up conversation, expanding their social circle, and thereby increasing their odds of having better fortune by association.
One’s openness to unique, novel experiences makes them more likely to be an early adopter of unique situations, which, in some cases, may result in benefitting from being an early adopter, before the masses have had a chance to adapt and over-saturate the new trend.
Those who do not hold on to their routine too rigidly are more likely to trust their intuition on a day-to-day basis, meaning they open themselves up to more novel experiences, giving them a much, much wider pool of life-experience to pull from, which is another characteristic that can be traced back to better fortune.
While, no, it’s not necessarily possible to increase your odds of winning millions on the lottery (outside of just buying more tickets), these research-based traits do hold the potential to lead an individual to have a more fortunate life, again, barring any sort of unforeseen circumstantial setbacks.
If you’re in the middle of an unlucky streak yourself right now, I wish you the best, and maybe channelling some of these traits might help pull you out of your funk.
I’ll leave you here with a few journaling prompts for those who want to do a bit of guided thinking around this topic:
Reflect on your mindset and attitude towards luck and opportunity. Do you believe that you have the power to influence your own luck?
Based on your reflections, what strategies can you implement to increase your luck and create more opportunities for success in your life?
Do any of the “lucky” traits or characteristics mentioned describe you? How have they potentially helped you in the past to be more lucky?
Thanks for reading! If you have any thoughts, I’d love to hear them in the comments or send me an email.
For now, have a good week, and I’ll see you at 100.
I tell people that it's 40% luck and 60% just showing up. I think after I went viral, I really believe that. Life is a lot like baseball that way, you have to learn how to swing and know when to swing and when not to, as long as you average okay, you'll do well but you need to swing.