“You can be what they’ve made you into or you can make your own luck.” – From “If We Never Meet Again” by Tommy Conwell & the Young Rumblers (1988)
Luck, the dictionary says, is a force of combination of chance and opportunity that can lead to good or bad fortune. You buy a lottery ticket that wins some cash, you have good luck; but if you buy your ticket one person ahead of or behind a winner, you have bad luck.
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Have you ever claimed something worked because of beginner’s luck? Crossed your fingers? Knocked on wood? Wished upon a shooting star? Tossed a coin into a fountain? Walked a longer route to avoid crossing a black cat or going under a ladder?
According to a survey by paysbig.com, around 68% of Americans believe in some kind of luck. While the other 32% said they don’t believe in luck at all, a full 31% of them said they still follow lucky superstitions – just to be on the safe side. Not sure what’s actually safe about superstitions, but there you go.
In a paper published in the journal Developmental Psychology, psychology professor Jacqueline Woolley of the University of Texas defined luck in three different ways:
1) a supernatural event;
2) an explanation people use to make sense of certain events;
3) a personal attribute one has within themselves.
Woolley concluded that scientific data shows luck does indeed play a significant role in achieving success. While luck may seem random, it is important to recognize that it is often the result of hard work, talent and perseverance.
“It’s hard to detect good luck,” Albert Einstein once put it. “It looks so much like something you’ve earned.”
Richard Wiseman, a psychology professor at the University of Hertfordshire who literally wrote a book on luck, told pbs.org he’s found there really are such things as lucky and unlucky people.
“There are huge differences in their lives. [Luck] manifests itself in a different way in different societies. But what’s underpinning that is that we like to be in control,” he said.
While “lucky people are always in the right place at the right time,” unlucky people can’t catch a break. We think.
So, if luck is based on psychological behavior, as Wisemen claims, can you change your luck?
“You absolutely can,” he said.
Wisemen suggested making small changes in your everyday routine, like writing down notes of gratitude and how you felt lucky at the end of a day for several weeks. You can also switch up something as simple as taking a different route to work or school.
“Another thing is … being a flexible thinker and having a flexible approach to life,” he said. “Anything like that will mean you’re more open to opportunities when they come along. So these are very simple things everyone can do, but they have quite a large impact.”
We might be behind the lucky 8-ball a bit in our state, as an analysis by GamblingSites.Com names North Carolina the 11th unluckiest – or, to be more positive, 39th luckiest – state in America.
Factors included in that analysis are:
- number of lottery winners;
- life expectancy;
- automobile accidents;
- natural disasters;
- crime rate.
Mississippi was deemed the most unluckiest state in America, followed by Arkansas and Louisiana. Meanwhile, lots of luck was found in New Hampshire, the luckiest state, followed by Vermont and New Jersey, which makes no sense to me, but I’m just the messenger here.
Wiseman said people who believe lucky things happen to them tended to fare better than people who felt unlucky.
“Lucky people knew how to bounce back. The unlucky ones tended to get dragged down by that failure,” he said.
The best way to court good luck is to get yourself ready for when a door opens. In the words of Roman philosopher Seneca, “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.”
David Brown is publisher of the Cherokee Scout. Call him at 828-837-5122 or email dbrown@cherokeescout.com.