Are you lucky?

Recently, I have been thinking about the concept and nature of luck. Throughout time there have been omens, signs and symbols that purport to predict or indicate good or bad luck.  

Following are some common superstitions around luck:

If you break a looking-glass you will have seven years of bad luck.

If the palm of your right hand itches, money is coming to you. If your left hand itches, money will be leaving you.

If you see a shooting star, make a wish and it will come true.

If you find a four-leaf clover it is a sign of good luck.

If you can, don’t plan anything on Friday the 13th because if anything could go wrong, it will on this date.

Before considering my question about whether or not you’re lucky, it may be helpful to first consider a definition of luck that may have common agreement. According to the Cambridge English Dictionary, luck is “the force that causes things, especially good things, to happen to you by chance and not as a result of your own efforts or abilities.”

Starting with the premise of good things happening—hence being lucky—do you think that being lucky is solely by chance, a proverbial roll of the dice? Or do you think that nothing happens serendipitously?

While enjoying a lovely dinner and an enviable view of Camelback Mountain at sunset with a dear friend, I asked my friend to tell me her thoughts on being lucky. Her cogent and assured response was impressive. As I listened, it seemed that the idea of being lucky was not something that she would ordinarily forward as the cause of good fortune. That became clear as she used three powerful terms to elucidate her idea of having good fortune: faith; surrender; and free will.

We were in complete agreement and harmony on the idea of faith or belief as a foundational requirement for positive outcomes. Having a strong faith is a touchstone of both of our lives. However, I needed to have her tell me more about what free will and surrender meant to her in responding to the question about being lucky. Though I dare not attempt to relay or summarize her ideas about free will and surrender, I was inspired to think about what these concepts meant to me in regard to luck.

As I continue to mull around with ideas about being lucky, I encounter big questions about the universe and our very existence. What I’m finding is that to live as a human, if we’re lucky—and though some of us may be uncomfortable with this kind of thinking—we will be open to conflating the ideas of logic, chance, serendipity, synchronicity with faith, free will, and surrender.