what’s luck got to do with it?
I’m feeling very lucky today. Seriously, it’s a good job Clint Eastwood isn’t about as he’d be in big trouble.
It’s another beautiful day in sunny rainy sunny cloudy England and the trees are now looking lovely and covered with bright green leaves. I don’t why but this morning is the first time I really noticed it this year.
More importantly Little TFS has started to go to bed around 8:30pm the last three nights so we’ve actually got a half an evening to relax and a decent nights sleep. A bit of a rest and the sun being out, it’s amazing how much of a difference this can make to your mental state of mind! 🙂
reasons to be grateful
I could probably stop there but I’ve never done a proper “gratitude journal” before so I would like to give it a shot and keep it as a record for any time I’m feeling a bit down in the dumps. This is supposed to be good way to keep your outlook on life positive, which makes sense as if you think about the positive things in your life more than the negative ones, well that basically is your outlook isn’t it? We are what we think to a large degree!
Here we go then. I’ll try to keep the mushy stuff to a minimum:
- I have a lovely little daughter who, from reports from other recent parents, is on the whole a very well behaved baby 🙂
- I have a beautiful wife who loves me dearly and supports me in
allmost of my whacky ideas. - I live in a sturdy house which keeps the rain off and provides more than enough room to keep all of our stuff.
- I have a modest garden to chill out in, grow stuff and for baby T to play in when she’s older.
- I live in such a prosperous and materially abundant society that you can acquire many nearly new items for next to nothing.
- I have a great support network of family and friends.
- I went to a great set of schools and got a good education.
- I have on the whole great health and can enjoy being active with many sports and outdoor pastimes
- I started this blog a few years ago and it’s paid me back in multiples on the hours I’ve spent on it. I’ve met some great people and increased my knowledge exponentially through starting this blog and it’s still providing me with unexpected and exciting opportunities today.
- I have an employer that let me go part time when I requested it (well, after a bit of toing and froing) and therefore enjoy much more time to spend with above mentioned wife and daughter than the average working person 🙂
- I am living in a ridiculously exciting time technology wise, and it is amazing to see what human ingenuity is coming up with each day to improve our lives.
- I’m not living in a gutter, have made it through to the age of 34 with no major accidents, injuries or health scares, and have not been publicly shamed in a national newspaper for any reason 1
That last one was an attempt at negative visualisation. As well as focusing on being grateful on the positive things and avoiding thinking about anything negative, it is also a good idea IMHO to think about a few negative things that could have happened but have not done so. This in itself is surely a positive and another reason to be grateful!
lucky man
So, in the light of this interesting article in NY Mag about successful people not being able to admit that luck has played a part in their success (Thanks to the Monevator for pointing that one out in his consistently excellent weekly round up) I thought it was worth stating publicly:
Luck has been a massive factor in many of the awesome aspects about my life.
I just don’t get it when people cannot or will not admit that. It’s not like people are saying that their hard work and determination had nothing to do with their success, simply that luck in all likelihood must have played a part as well. In my mind it’s either that or they’re asserting that they are an omnipotent force that can control everything the universe…?!
This second scenario seems rather unlikely so I think it’s high time they admit that luck has indeed been a big factor in their path to success.
If you haven’t got time to read the article the gist of it is based on an interview of Robert Frank (who wrote a book about luck and success), a Fox business presenter Stuart Varney who gets all incredulous just because it is indirectly suggested that he may have been lucky to get where he is. The comments section as usual brings up some great points. In his rant he says:
“What about the RISK I took? Do you know what RISK is involved in coming to America with absolutely nothing?”
The obvious point here is that if the guy admits he took such large RISKS then he must have to admit that he has been somewhat fortunate for those risks to have panned out? Either that, or there was really no risk in the first place? He can’t have his cake and eat it!
Another commenter makes a very good point about the huge margin of error some people have whilst trying to get you to believe they’ve risked it all and come out a winner (Hello Donald Trump!??!):
{In the commenters mind Robert Frank tells a homeless guy} – “You were unlucky to be born in a country where people born with far larger margins for error stand in judgment of those who take the “easy way” out and sleep in the street.”
winner winner chicken dinner
There are clearly many issues here but I see the main one being that in the US and in the UK to a slightly lesser degree is the culture is to celebrate success so blindly. They love “winners” and that seems to be the only thing that matters, it doesn’t matter how they got there – again I’m thinking about Trump amongst many other cronies here. This guy is rich! Let’s not question for one moment what sort of privilege, luck or stupid risks they took to get there.
This sort of thinking breeds a culture of excessive risk taking and leads to things that set of financial crashes. Risk taking should be encouraged of course but not irresponsible risks that are often not borne by the people taking them.
the future?
I can see attitudes starting to change though and with things like the Panama Papers coming out shining a light on dodgy practices of the (usually already wildly) successful and wealthy, more people are starting to question things deeply and ditch the successful = good / unsuccessful = bad knee jerk reaction.
Information wants to be free and the truth will out, and all that. It might take a fair few more years to get there but I like the general way things are moving and am once again feeling very lucky to be alive in these exciting times.
What do you think readers?! Do you believe in luck or hard work, or like most of us a bit of both?
Are you feeling lucky like me right now? What are you grateful for right now? Let me know!
Update/Further Reading: Be sure to check out this comic strip which really hammers home the point. Thanks to Andrew from LivingRichCheaply for posting the link in the comments below!
Notes:
- Just to be clear, there is no reason why I would have been, that was just me being silly 😉 ↩
Discussion (20) ¬
Hey there TFS, I like your list and may be tempted to compile one of my own. I too am feeling very lucky right now. I’m financially free from working full time and have put that freedom to full use by giving up work. ie retired early. I too have met (online speaking) a great bunch of people (yourself included) through starting my own blog and giving it a go. My health is great and I now have even more time to stay fitter which will hopefully lead to a longer life. What is there not to be happy about?
Regarding your ‘winner winner….’ comment, totally agree. There seems to be a big increase in financial risk taking these days compared to years gone by. A lot of this, I reckon, is media driven. As soon as one person makes a fortune selling a house they bought for next to nothing and did up, everyone wants to become a property developer, again pushed along by the multitude of DIY programs on TV.
Often the people making these and other risky investments have only enough knowledge to make them dangerous. We shall see what happens eh
ps. I’m pleased to hear that you and Mrs FS are getting some decent sleep again.
Hi Martin,
Sounds like you have many reasons to be thankful.
I think you are right it is driven by the mass exposure of individuals who’ve done well from taking risks, by definition the lucky ones. Everyone else then thinks well why don’t I do that and follow them in like lemmings.
Thanks for the comment and yes I’m very glad about the sleep as you could probably tell from my upbeat start to this post 🙂
What a great post, and refreshing. It’s easy for anyone looking to improve their life massively to forget that we are improving our lives from a point where they are already quite great! Thanks for helping me realise this again this Semi Sunny Wednesday Morning in London! Best Regards
Hi,
Thanks! Glad it hit a note for you 🙂
I actually started writing the post on Tuesday when it was actually really sunny for most of the day, hence the number of crossing out about the weather there as it changed so many times before I hit “Post”!
All the best to you.
You definitely need hard work and luck. I know I’ve been lucky too, but I admit that I tend to feel slighted if others overlook the hard work aspect! We want to feel like we “earned” it, not that we just got lucky.
I know what you mean Andrew. The thing is you are doing OK for yourself but you are not wildly successful (no offence, neither am I of course) and you probably work just as hard as some people that have a lot less in life than you do, but conversely I bet you work even harder* than a lot of people that are materially more successful than you are as well. So let’s not pretend people who work hard are instantly rewarded with riches, it clearly does not work like that.
*Obviously it depends on what your definition of hard work is which could make that statement pretty meaningless… but hopefully the point stands.
Just read the article from NY Mag…very interesting. Made me think of this:
http://thewireless.co.nz/articles/the-pencilsword-on-a-plate
Check it out.
That is a brilliant comic strip Andrew… going to add it to the post. Thanks!
Great post. I think it is a bit of both. I’m lucky to have been born in Australia with parents who passed on good genes. But I do get annoyed when people say we are lucky we kept our investment property, or work part time, both of these things required effort, budgeting and good negotiation skills 🙂
I have a similar list of things I’m grateful for – we have a lot in common!
Ah great to be getting some more traffic from down under!
Loving the fact you are also working part time… it’s great isn’t it? 🙂
Luck is probably the largest single factor for any American. We are preposterously lucky to be born in this country. If you are a man, hey, you won the lottery twice. If you’re a white man, or a half-white-half-Asian man like me, you’ve got the triple crown.
Now, within the context of being very lucky, yes, working hard and getting smart is what’s going to take you from a good situation to a great one. At least that’s may take.
Interesting and good post. We’re all really lucky, as the Egyptian merchants reminded me as Mrs Done by Forty and I passed, yelling: “Lucky man, lucky man. Shakira!” Since Mrs. Done by Forty apparently looks like Shakira, and her hips don’t lie.
As usual you’ve hit the nail on the head. DB40!
There are a huge variety of life outcomes from any starting point but from some of them working hard might just not be enough and a big slice of luck might be needed.
Haha, well you certainly hit the marriage jackpot as well so I make that a 4 timer 😉
Fun fact: My favourite Shakira lyrics have got to be “Lucky my breasts are small and humble, so you don’t confuse them with mountains” – Sheer genius 😀
Hey TFS
It’s funny – at work, we were having our usual lotto jackpot winning discussions and I piped up that I didn’t want to win a ‘life-changing’ amount of money because to be frank, my life is actually very good that I don’t want it to change!
So that’s a great ‘reasons to be greatful’ list and I’d easily be able to write my own.
Anyway, as someone who likes a gamble, I totally believe in luck, but then, my family culture too is all based around fortune and good luck!
I think in life, people do well as result of both hard work and luck – eg being at the right place at the right time etc. Hard work brings about more opportunities for you to be lucky, as luck doesn’t often just land in your lap!
With regards to the chap who asks ‘what about the risks he took?’, well what about the thousands of others who took exactly the same risks but were not as lucky as he was?
Anyway, I consider myself well lucky that I stumbled across the likes of MMM and then ultimately your website to put me on the good path that I am on now!
Cheers!
Err, that’s ‘reasons to be grateful’ haha!
Hi weenie,
Great comment as usual!
“With regards to the chap who asks ‘what about the risks he took?’, well what about the thousands of others who took exactly the same risks but were not as lucky as he was?”
Totally agreed, there is a definite blindness to the survivor bias that is clearly at play with this sort of thing. It’s bad enough when third parties are looking at “successful” people, let alone actually getting the people themselves to see it!
Yes that (finding MMM et al) is probably the biggest stroke of luck I’ve had in the last few years (financially at least) but in addition to the luck we were both on the look out for that kind of info and were open minded enough to take it on board. Some people would have just read one post and skipped on with their daily lives… right!?
You have to be on the ball enough to make the most of your good luck and opportunities when it does finally arrive.
Some people just won’t acknowledge their good fortune I think partly because they see it as diminishing their achievements.
You see this a lot with people who went to great (or even mediocre) public schools, and benefited from the education, connections, family and mindset that gave them.
“Anyone can work — and I still had to pass my exams!” Totally oblivious to the reality at the other end of the spectrum.
Ho hum.
Thanks for the name check and link in the post, glad the roundup is still hitting the spot! 🙂
Hi TI,
Yes of course that must be a big part of it!
Love the round up I just wish I had the time to read every single one of them each week! 🙁
Cheers!
I love your outlook on life. You see all the great things and that is exactly how I am. People tell me im lucky all the time but its not really luck. I just see the postive in everything and I express that in how I talk so people naturally just think everything always goes my way.
Glad to hear youre doing great!
Alexander @ Cash Flow Diaries recently posted…May 2016 Net Worth Update
Thanks Alexander!
It’s a bit chicken and egg isn’t it? Negative people will tend to focus on negative things so they think they are unlucky, positive people will tend to be the opposite.
But where does it start?
For example is it nature or nurture? Is it all down to genes (in which case the positive people really are lucky to inherit the positive gene?)? And even if not then the upbringing someone has could affect them, which again you could argue is down to luck?
It’s hard to criticise when you think about it like that but the best I could offer is try to do things like a gratitude journal and stuff like that, as that is proven to help most people who may be of a negative slant by default.
Cheers!