How to Get Lucky

Do you know Shalu? She was a classmate of mine in college. She was unlucky (or so she thought). She told everyone about how terribly lacking in prosperity her life was. She looked at smiling faces and found reasons to explain why she could not smile like that.

She whined day in and day out about how unfair the world was to her. She believed everything was futile and had a million reasons to prove why nothing would ever work and why life is terrible and why it would never get any better.

Most likely you don’t know Shalu. But you are sure to know someone very much like her. Someone who is never happy and in fact, seems to go looking for unhappiness. Someone extremely talented when it comes to looking for faults. So talented that even when good things are pointed out to them, all they can see is faults.

I learned a lot of things from Shalu. I learned that depression can become an addiction. I learned that depression can be contagious. Most importantly, I learned the secret behind good luck from her.

Of course, I didn’t know it at the time. The lesson kind of grew on me in course of the years that followed.

Luck is a strange and powerful word. We throw it about in daily conversations, seek it more than anything else, even grow jealous when others show signs of possessing it. Most of us seem convinced it is a crucial deciding factor in all matters in life. Many also believe there is little we can do about luck. You either have it, or you don’t.

I have been called lucky all my life. At times, to the point of frustration. Imagine working hard for something, getting it, and then the credit going to your lucky stars.

Perhaps this was because I never looked like I am working hard. And when I do look like I am hard at work, I fail, miserably (Want to see my high school math grades?). Then again, areas that I have done well in, have never really been hard work either. I have had fun doing things that brought me happiness and success.

I do believe luck exists. But not as something outside us. It is not something we all must reach out for. Something that is short in supply and must be guarded with jealous zeal.

We are all born with all the luck we are ever going to need. We become lucky or unlucky depending on whether we accept it or deny it.

I have this thing with my attitude. Some have called me a bullheaded optimist. Barring the flowery language, I have nothing against the definition. I have mostly been, from as far back as I can remember, utterly blind to the possibility of failure. I have always believed that the odds don’t apply to me. I admit there have been times when events have come close to shaking my faith, but I am happy to report that the demons returned empty handed.

Of course, this theory is rooted in the general faith that one’s mind rules one’s reality. You may have heard of the case where a hypnotist told a subject he was being touched with a red hot iron and instead touched him with a pen. The subject instantly developed a blister at the point of contact. What determined his reality wasn’t what happened. What was eventually real to him was what he thought was real. (see details here)

How about if you stop saying, ‘That’s it. I’m screwed.‘ or, ‘I’m never going to make it now!‘?

What if you started, instead, to tell yourself that you can do it. No bright and flashy, “YES, I CAN!” trip. A moderate affirmation will do. Something that will convince you. Something you say as if it can’t be anything but true.

Here’s an example. Try saying, “I will make 50,000 bucks more this month,” in the same tone as you might say, “I take the bus to work every morning.”

If you make a habit of it, nothing like it. Don’t sound dreamy. Don’t sound like you wish for it to happen more than anything else. Just say it like its true. Like it has already happened.