“If it wasn’t for bad luck I’d have no luck at all.” This maxim is one I like to spout out jokingly from time to time around friends and family. I’m not sure why I started saying it but for years I believed it. I saw my life going a certain way but every time I looked around things weren’t adding up. This must be bad luck, right?
It’s taken me years but I no longer believe in luck. Sure there are random events we cannot plan for and do not know the outcome. Weather patterns, games of chance, and even our genetics are all out of our control, to name a few, but that’s not the kind of luck I’m talking about here.
Many times our lives feel like they are left up to chance. Should I have gone left instead of right? Should I have taken that once in a lifetime trip around the world? Should I have finished college instead of quitting halfway through it? Our choices can sometimes feel like a crap shoot with the outcomes feeling no better than flipping a coin.
The problem with this line of thinking is we lose all control over our lives, over our destiny. We become powerless passengers to our life floating down the river without a paddle. If we accept our life is random it becomes pointless. It becomes meaningless.
It’s easy to feel this way when the decisions we make don’t pan out. When we choose right instead of left and life decides to go sideways, it’s easy to feel like the only luck we have is bad luck. One seemingly bad decision, leads to another, to another, and soon it’s easy to feel life spiraling out of control. “It’s not my fault… It’s bad luck. If I had better luck things would be different.”
The thing is it is our fault. We are making the bad decisions not some Two-Face type evil villain who’s flipping a coin to determine our fate. It’s just us choosing left or right.
While it may feel shitty at times, that’s the good news. As long as we are still breathing we get to choose how our life goes. We can examine the direction our life has gone and work towards shifting it back in the right direction. We can work on being present in our lives so when the chance to head in the right direction occurs we don’t miss it.
One of my favorite stories is about Sir Richard Branson and how he started Virgin Airlines, exemplifies this point. He was at an airport when his flight to the Caribbean was canceled. Instead of being pissed off, yelling at the counter agent, or leaving defeated he contacted a charter company at the airport. After he got the price to rent the plane he held up a sign offering flights to the Caribbean for $39. Branson filled up the plane in no time and the idea for Virgin Airlines was born. Now if he hadn’t been present, mentally, Virgin Airlines would have been created.
I’m sure there were plenty of decisions Sir Richard made to get him to that specific moment. Some good and some bad but when he was dealt cards he didn’t like he decided to change his fate. He wrote his own destiny blazing a new path. We can do this too.
We need to remember though negative choice may have lasting effects on our lives so do the positive ones. We aren’t able to change the past but we can ensure the choices we make have a positive affect the future.
We need to start by having plan and ensuring we don’t follow it so rigidly it fucks us up. The plan has to allow for growth and change by guiding our decision making process not dictating it. The we will make smart, thoughtful decisions, in the moment, consistently until soon it’ll comes naturally, much in the same way as Sir Richard Branson.
We don’t need to fear bad luck anymore because we make our own luck. We are the masters of our own fate… if we choose!
I want to thank my buddy, Darren, for helping with this post.
