Top ten things to start doing in 2021: 2 of 10.

[RangerMIke]

2. It's All Mostly Luck: I know we like to think we are masters of or destiny, but the truth is much of what happens to us is just good or bad fortune. You can certainly do things that increase you probability of success and minimize your chance for failure... but at the end of the day, much of what happens to us is just being in the right/wrong place at the right/wrong time. Nothing we do will guarantee success, but it also means that much of what bad happens to us isn't our fault either. It's just life.

Now you can take this fact of life and think that there really is little you can do since we don't actually control anything, or you can take this and realize the root of all negative emotion has it's roots in expectation. I know a lot of men in my life that have gone through months and years of pain because some relationship goes sideways, and spending a lot of time nursing beers with friends going though this, most of the time they are still hung up and depressed because they believe that if they had handled things different, things might have worked out. They remain hung up in limbo thinking they might be able to have another shot only this time... they'll do things different. It can be liberating knowing that luck has more to do with it than any particular action.

Time is what really defines if fortune, good or bad, you might think some thing that happens is bad luck, but in reality that 'bad luck' actually put you on a path of future success. You really shouldn't allow this realization to think about this too much because whatever you pay attention does grow in your mind, or cause you to believe that you have no control, because you can do things and take action that improves your chance for success. So rather taking action to try and achieve a result, you should do things that improve your luck.

So hang out with successful people, be optimistic, understand that failure can and often does happen, take some chances, and trust your gut.

 

[Serenity]

Hmm, I have found it useful to define exactly what I can control, what I might influence and what is out of my control. Not bunching a lot of things together in one category or the other. Has kept me from beating myself up over sh!t I can't control and to fix stuff I do have control over.

 

[Roober]

I do agree that there is quite a bit of luck. One can increase their luck by increasing their opportunities.

More opportunities = more chances luck will strike

 

[CAPSLOCK BANDIT]

Luck is directly related to your ability to recognize choices, that being related to your intelligence and experience. People with fewer choices will always be less lucky.

 

[EyeOnThePrize]

Hard work puts you where the good luck finds you.

I don't believe negative emotions or contemplating them is the problem most people have. I think they mistakingly identify with the negative emotions, and that starts the spiral to depression, etc. "This bad thing happened to me, therefore I'm a piece of shiit."

If you can introspect and study your negative emotions without identifying with them then you'll be more focused and rational about it. Thus your creativity will be uninhibited and you'll come up with the most creative solutions to your problems.

If you have the mindfulness to sense the space between reality and your imagination then you have much more control over both.

 

[BackInTheGame78]

The best definition of luck I have ever heard is being defined as when preparation meets opportunity.

There is a reason why the people who work the hardest, don't take no for an answer and study/prepare for things always seem to be the luckiest...it is because all of those things help put them in the right position for those opportunities to come their way and all they need to do is recognize and then take advantage of them.

Most of the time what people define as luck isn't really luck. They only think it is because they see the tip of the iceberg that makes the person look lucky but they never saw all of the things they did to get them to that point in the first place behind the scenes that has nothing to do with luck, just hard work, drive and ambition.

 

[metalwater]

Ecclesiastes 9:11-12 states, “I have seen something else under the sun: The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant or favor to the learned; but time and chance happen to them all. Moreover, no man knows when his hour will come: As fish are caught in a cruel net, or birds are taken in a snare, so men are trapped by evil times that fall unexpectedly upon them.”

 

[RangerMIke]

No it is actually NOT. just like your #1.

Why not just write a book about this instead of ramming it down our throats on an open forum?
Just curious...
The flip side os luck is not luck but the WILL of God...?
Or life?
You are a part of life right??
Whate are you actually getting at mikey??

This is posted on a 'discussion forum' too well, start a discussion. If you disagree, that's cool, tell me what you don't agree with. I'm always open to having my mind changed. If you don't like my opinions, prove me wrong, I honestly don't take anything personal, these are just my thoughts... not me. I have 8 more... you are free to ignore all of them, I'm not trying to cram anything down anyone's throat.

Truth is I'm getting bored with stuff on this forum... though I would shake things up.

 

[Lookatu]

I think OP has a point, especially when it comes to women.
Everything else but human relationships can have a certain predictability or high consistent statistics. For example, if you work really hard at something, you will achieve some sort of favorable outcome(job, hobby, exercising, etc).
But one area that doesn't guarantee anything is with women. You can work as hard as you want and put in your max effort to get nothing in the end.
In that regard, it does boil down to luck to a degree. How many times have you seen mismatched relationships out there where you thought how can this person be with this person?

I think where we as men have to learn to identify is this luck and whether we're on the right path with a woman or if we're wasting our time, sooner than later preferably.

I know personally, I've gotten "lucky" a few times in my life where I was acting all beta, non-interesting, stupid, yet the girl still wanted to get with me for whatever reason. That reason I believe was luck, looking back.

My $.02

 

[RangerMIke]

Well admirable it is then. I do like your posts but im 70/30 on the luck thing.
I do believe in nature but i also know a spirit is providing everything.
I don't think life is random at all.
That coulđ be terrifying.

But hey don't discount being a writer if you got it in you.

When i see the topic of luck im reminded of my Christian upbringing and the bible has many sayings that point to predestination, foreknowledge and will of life.
Maybe its our minds that resist to much? Egos? Against the ebb and flow of life? So maybe your #1 is true in the sense that its not our "dreams" to chase but what is laid out.
Im reminded of a proverb.

Man chooses his path and God provides the steps.
Something like that.

I do envy people of faith and the belief there is a plan for all of us, heck you might be right. I'm not foolish enough to think that I have all the answers. But it is true that everyone is the sum total of their experiences. What you are now is a byproduct of what happens to you in life.... so who is to say that life is a plan for getting you to where you are now. If there is a God, then predestination is the only logical conclusion you can draw since an all knowing God, would already know exactly how you are going to turn out, eons before you were born.

Just too many things have happened in my life that if things had gone the other way, I would not be here.

Once in Panama during Operation Just Cause, I was the platoon leader of a the QRF supporting another Company's search and clear mission. This was in February, almost two months after all the heavy fighting... and we had been doing these things on a regular basis and had not seen anything in all that time. In fact several soldiers in our battalion started calling us the "Ghostbusters Battalion". We had every expectation that this mission would be the same. So there I am, sitting in the assembly area with my platoon and had just grabbed our MREs to eat lunch. The company commander came up and asked me to come with him while he led a UH-1 filled with one of his squads in his OH-58. He noticed that I'd just opened an MRE and told me to just go ahead and eat, that he would come back and we would do our aerial recon after he had positioned them. Well, as it turned out there was one PDF unit that had not surrendered and picked that morning to come out of hiding... they shot down both the OH-58 and UH-1 with all hands killed on both aircraft. I should have been on the helicopter, to was it fate, our luck I wasn't.

During Operation Provide Comfort, the stability mission in Northern Iraq after the Gulf War, there were a bunch of UN VIPs that were being flown around in Blackhawks going from site to site on a tour. I was supposed to be on that tour, but as a CPT, I was low man on the totem poll and got bumped for a staff member of a visiting dignitary. Well..... you may recall an incident where two Blackhawk helicopters were accidently shot down by an Air National Guard pilot enforcing the no-fly zone. Again, I was supposed to be on one of those helicopters... was it luck or fate? I do know that the other Captain I was with, who also got bumped, and therefore spared... really believed it was divine intervention that kept us off the aircraft.... Mark later became a minister and to my knowledge is still preaching somewhere in New Mexico.

A few years later... in what used to be Yugoslavia, the vehicle I was in rolled over a land mine... now this was on a road that supposedly had been cleared and literally hundreds of vehicles had driven on that road... but fate or luck it blew up when we rolled over it. My neck, back, knee, and shoulder were jacked up, and I was medevacked to a hospital in Germany. Now... before this happened, I was on a path to make flag rank... I'd hit all the gates, and top notch evaluations across the board, had all the right assignments... had been selected for French Command and Staff College (which is fairly significant) and was selected for promotion ahead of peers in my year group for Major (again another indicator I was going places). In a matter of seconds, my infantry days were OVER... Well, I was reassigned to another branch Acquisition Corps, and the likelihood of progressing past Lt. Col went to almost zero. But... this allowed me to attend the MAM course, get my masters in Systems Engineering, made a lot of contacts in private sector with a DAWIA Level IV certification, and this put me on a path to being an expert in government contracting, and I've been making money doing that ever since. So while the land mine, in one way to look at it was bad luck: in another it ended up leading me to becoming what I am today.

So whether it is fate, or luck is just arguing semantics.... the same reaction should be the same... run with with 'God' or the fates, have dealt you. Either way, it works.

 

[RickTheToad]

I will like to add reading and expanding one's mind is a big help. At least it is to me.

 

[RangerMIke]

What do mean sum total?

So i suppose that language is not pointing to luck or randomness,??

And as far as being an indifferent man, not outcome dependent, to me they go hand in hand?

Sum total = Your life experience defines who you are. If you had been born and raised in Saudi Arabia you would be a Muslim quoting from the Koran and not a Christian quoting the New Testament. You are who you are because old your exposure and how you were raised. New you could say that it was all God's plan... And you were places in life to be a Christian.... In which case it would not be 'random" but part of a plan.

Honestly we are arguing semantics... Luck or divine will.... You can take everything I typed and replace 'luck' with 'divine will' and the overall meaning is the same. Neither is anything you can control. Its a chicken or egg arguement.

 

[RangerMIke]

Christ is culture-less.

The principle strength of Christianity is the religion's willingness to adapt to culture. This is why there are so many denominations. So I agree... Christianity is cultureless. This was a problem 600 years ago, when there were religious wars between Protestants and Catholics... but really those wars were not about 'religion' per se, they were a continuation of culture wars that had been going on in Europe since Julius Caesar first invaded the Celtic regions of France... When you look where Protestantism spread it was in Northern Europe, Southern Europe remained Roman Catholic... in the exceptions in Northern Europe where Roman Catholicism remained strong (ie. Poland, Ireland), this became an identity which separated themselves from their enemies. For Poland, you had Orthodox Catholics from Russia, and Protestant Prussia, both fighting over dominance over Poland, so they adopted a brand of Christianity opposed to their enemies. Same can be said for Catholic Ireland and Protestant England.

Heck... even in the US there is a huge difference between African American Baptist Churches in the South and the Southern Baptist Convention. While Christianity is indeed 'cultureless' a White Southern Baptist would not be comfortable in a Southern Black Baptist Church and vis a vis. But they are all Christian.

 

[metalwater]

Ecclesiastes 9:11-12 states, “I have seen something else under the sun: The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant or favor to the learned; but time and chance happen to them all. Moreover, no man knows when his hour will come: As fish are caught in a cruel net, or birds are taken in a snare, so men are trapped by evil times that fall unexpectedly upon them.”

Ecclesiastes is writing that tells how regardless of intent or ability results can vary and be good or bad. This writing is opposed to most of the other Christian teaching and other similar religion or philosophy. The point of it is exactly in support of the premise of this thread.

I am a staunch supporter that focused and sustained effort will produce improvement or results. I have seen it and done it. On other things, I have applied max effort and focus and not achieved the goals. It means that everyone is not capable of everything and luck does rule. What about the man that dies during the moment he is winning. Or the tiger that kills the trainer after years of effort. Or the woman that rebels regardless of the man's efforts even if they are all correct as per whatever dogma he had been taught

There is a guy that loves dogs, he cares for them, they help him and he loves them, this situation provides him great joy. Eventually, all the dogs are gone except one and he spends most of his time with that one, and his joy increases. One day that dog gets rabies and goes crazy, biting and harming him badly. He did not expect it and is hurt both mentally and physically. This was bad luck.. The result is now he hates dogs, keeps them tied and managed, like a servant or a tool. In this way, he knows that luck can not happen again. This man is now a master dog handler.

 

[metalwater]

How and were? Show me the verses.

Christ taught all of what is in the Old Testament.

Good or bad?

"He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous"

Explain it

One of them is what I place into this thread above. I recognize that you have study some of this topic before. Are you already familiar with this specific book? Many groups tend to ignore it, as it goes counter to the message of just reward.

 

[metalwater]

Well if he understood rabies he wouldnt hate dogs.
Ever watch Old Yeller?

yes; agree. Understanding the cause is key. That is a great movie. In that case, it was not really any fault of the humans or was it..

 

[samspade]

I think 'luck' is a product of mindset. Obviously we can't control everything that happens to us. But I'm the type of guy who considers himself 'lucky' - good things tend to happen to me. That's my mindset. When something lousy happens, my attitude is always, well, I'll land on my feet....that's what happens to me.

Whereas others are always thinking they have rotten luck. 'Just my luck...' Always waiting for the other shoe to drop. The problem is people like this also try to spread their mindset to the lucky. That's why we say 'avoid the unhappy and the unlucky.'