I’m lucky. This I’ve always appreciated. Loving family, decent education, good health, and I get to live in a country where I have so many options open to me. But there have been a few bumps in the road lately and at times I’ve thought ‘why me’ so it’s made me question if I am lucky as such, or is it really about outlook. It’s not just the things that happen to us that we describe as good/bad, lucky/unlucky, it’s how we react when they happen. Inevitably, instinct and initial reaction is to fight against things we don’t want to happen to us, to resist, to question, to claim it’s unfair, it shouldn’t have happened.
But I believe it’s what happens next that determines if we are lucky. And that really is all about outlook. Who do we 100% know we can turn to when we are at our lowest? How do we behave under pressure? Do we shut down or open up? Do we remain true to our values? Do we continue to treat others with respect or become aggressive out of fear? How are our relationships affected? Do they grow and thrive in the face of adversity or do they crumble when things get tough. Essentially do we sink or swim. We are so obsessed with being in control these days, deciding what happens and when it happens. But there are many forces outside of our control in life. Health scares, job losses, relationship breakdowns, things our kids do that worry us. These events arrive like a bolt out of the blue, we just don’t see them coming or we think the cliché ‘it won’t happen to me’. Until it happens.
On the surface luck could be an unexpected windfall, a new job we didn’t look for, making a flight on time when you were running late. But I think it’s more than that. I think it’s about our behaviour, our attitude and our outlook, when the good and the bad happen. And these are all things that we do have control over. This is where we have choice. The bad thing happens, it’s out of our control and we don’t have to like it, but what we do once it happens is entirely up to us.
When the tough times come, as inevitably they will, luck for me, is staying true to yourself, accepting that the fear is there, dealing with it and growing from it. Making the conscious choice to face the problem head on and to treat yourself and those around you gently as you go. It’s a lucky person who can do this, don’t you think?