I'm not a particularly superstitious person and I don't necessarily chalk things up in my life to good or bad luck. I don't think there's anything wrong in believing that there's good or bad luck, though, it simply doesn't fit into my perspective or worldview. Although I do think that in certain aspects "luck" plays a part in the things that happen in our lives.
I think the way that Dr. James H. Austin, a neurologist, defines "luck" is somewhat similar to how I would view it. In fact, he wrote a book titled Chase, Chance, and Creativity: The Lucky Art of Novelty. In it, he mentions four different types of luck: Blind Luck, Luck from Motion, Luck from Awareness, and Luck from Uniqueness.
Whenever I think of the word "luck", it would probably be akin to the first type that Austin describes in his book. Blind Luck refers to those circumstances or random events that happen in life over which we have no control. Where we were born, who our parents are, and other things on which we simply have no influence. In my mind, "luck" refers to these uncontrollable external factors.
Luck from Motion is basically proactivity. These are things that happen because we make the effort to cause them to happen. The actions that we take may not directly cause the outcome we want, however, taking those actions may influence other factors which can ultimately bring us to our original intended destination.
One example I can give is from my friend. He has been looking for a job although he's not sure exactly where to find it or which channels to use. He doesn't know a lot of people, but while we were volunteering together, he was able to connect with a member of the community, who was apparently looking for people to hire at his small business.
And because that entrepreneur saw how dedicated and hardworking my friend was, he decided to give my friend a job offer at the end of the volunteering activity. My friend didn't ask for it, he wasn't expecting it, but along the way, we had discussions about life, relationships, career, and other things. It came up that he was currently looking for a job while he was asking me about my career, and the entrepreneur heard about it, and the rest is history.
Luck from Awareness is having the ability to recognize opportunities as they come. This is all about knowing how to turn opportunities to one's advantage and maximizing it. And finally, Luck from Uniqueness refers to qualities, experiences, or perspectives that we possess which open us up to unique opportunities.
One example that I can think of for Luck from Uniqueness comes from my own. Having studied and worked in Korea for some time, I was able to connect with a lady from my own community whose husband was Korean and was looking for people to collaborate with him for a project. Since I had that unique experience, that opened up the opportunity to be able to work with the guy, and that led me to other prospects and networks as well.
There's this saying that goes, "Fortune favors the bold," which is a Latin proverb. Certainly, there are times when opportunities just come knocking at our door, albeit those are very rare. Most of the time, we have to go out and look for those opportunities ourselves. We might not always directly find them, but there are others ways in which we can get to our chosen destination.
Opening ourselves up to different types of opportunities, learning to recognize them despite not being exactly how we expect them to be, and actively engaging with others is ultimately how we can make the most out of what we have and what we are given.
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