Do you make your own luck? Do you go about your business trying to find an angle, trying to tilt the odds in your favour?
It’s natural to want an advantage. I’ll never criticise a go-ahead nature, the execution of that impulse can leave a lot to be desired of course. But, without it we wouldn’t have the wheel, fire, Plasticine™, you know …
I tend to stand back a bit and where others might “give people a chance”, I tend to “give ’em enough rope”. Is that cynical, jaded, a quirk built of experience?
Is being unlucky just laziness? Or is the cloud over your head obscuring the sunlight so that the obstacles in front of you are indistinct making it pretty certain your going to trip on them?
Everything is something from a certain point of view. That’s the trouble isn’t it? We don’t all have the same point of view, seeing that something from over there instead of over here really can make all the difference. Can’t it?
Interesting…
Personally I suffer greatly from pessimism and can’t even push as far as ‘expect the best, prepare for the worst’ because, ultimately, those who expect the best can never quite let their minds plummet the depths of the very worst.
I wonder how I developed this mindset and what it takes to change us from carefree toddlers to introvert teenagers and beyond.
Luck? Fate? Willpower? Strength? All curious things and hard to measure.
Nice mindbender.
C
A philophoser (Kierkegaard I think?) once said “life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards”
Not much help I know, but I think it kind of answers most of lifes unanswerable questions.
Hey folks.
Two quotes come to mind reading your comments there. “Nature or nurture” and “Hindsite has 20/20 vision”.
I’m quite realistic looking back. I’m where I’m at because of all the decisions I’ve made, good and bad. That gives me ownership of whatever predicament I find myself in and consequently that acceptance empowers me to either change it or endure it.
The moment you accept that only ouside factors are shaping your life is the moment you switched channels to see if Family Guy has started on BBC3 and when you switch back, Poirot has already unmasked the killer and the credits are rolling.
Too late.
A raised eyebrow, a healthy distrust for the mediocre and its exponents, an enthusiasm for the possible, the genuine, the exceptional that’s the fuel for me.