That Thing Called “LUCK” - #1 Introduction

LUCK, DESTINY, GOD’S WILL name can be anything yet the thing we speak about is the same. I had been doing some thinking on this phenomenon called “LUCK”. Before putting forward my conclusions I would like to put forward some of my observations.

Consider this, a student fails by 2 marks, a fielder misses a catch by fraction and batsman goes on to score a century, a person misses a train by seconds,. What is the immediate response? “Ahh! Bad luck…” At the same time what do skeptics say in such situations? “He should have done better or he didn’t do enough!”

Now consider, a person becoming a millionaire courtesy of a flash of an idea, a champion cyclist achieving unbelievable feats, a seemingly underdog attaining great heights, what’s the immediate response? “Yeah I did it…!” At the same time the same skeptics say, “Well he just got lucky...!”

As you can see we as people always tend to consider or ignore the “Luck Factor”. It’s a human tendency to take credit for the achievements and blame the failures on luck. So the question arises “Where exactly does this luck factor lie?” or “Up to what extent does the result depend on it?” Well I did a survey by asking the question that “What is the % of effort and % of luck in any outcome” to some of my friends. I received a wide variety of answers. Some said outcome largely depends on efforts. Some said it was more about luck. My brother put it in a neat perspective he said “50% on effort and +/- 50% on luck, where u need a total of 100 for a positive outcome.” I received another similar response that one needs to do his part but at the end of the day nothing can be accomplished without the luck factor.

Imagine this, there is a tall building having an elevator at the second floor. The elevator moves upwards as well as downwards. One has to walk up the steps to reach the elevator. But the trick is that one can’t control the elevator. So one’s job is to reach the 2^nd floor via stairs and then the rest is not in his hands. I know this may seem like seemingly negative state of mind as assuming that ultimately the outcome is not decided by efforts but if you observe closely the world around us that’s the way it is.

This particular question has been bugging me for quite some years now. I found almost satisfactory answers in Hindu philosophy. I read some extensive works on Hindu philosophy of ‘Karma’. I also read Aristotelian as well as Zen philosophy. Considering the size of these topics I feel I should dedicate separate articles to each one of them.

At the moment this topic is far from over and will be writing shortly on the same considering different aspects and the views of different philosophies.

© Devendra Oak.

A few lingering thoughts.....

As I had mentioned in my earlier post, here are a few more thoughts on love....
I have been doing some research on views of great people on love. As I found there are many different views on the subject. I read thoughts from Einstein till Shakespeare. So now with the help of thoughts of these great people I am going to elaborate my views on the topic.
Some say love is an ultimate feeling, some say it’s a biochemical disaster, some say it’s presence of God. The topic is so vast that I felt I should perhaps write separately on different forms of love.
In the words of Shakespeare,
...Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or Bends with the remover to remove.
O, no! It is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests and is never shaken.
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
A mysterious definition as it sounds, but I guess not for those who have experienced the feeling. So love is something that can’t be broken, that can’t be defeated, a rejuvenating miraculous tonic! One of the key self questions of self assessment for me is “Did I love unconditionally?” As I feel only unconditional love can have the kind of strength that Shakespeare talks about. Also as HE puts it, “They do not love that do not show their love.” So it’s not enough to love unconditionally but also to show it. For greatest gift that one can receive is to know that he was loved. To sum up on the definition, Shakespeare says,
“Doubt thou the stars are fire,
Doubt the sun doth move,
Doubt truth to be a liar
but never doubt thy love.”
So I guess Shakespeare defines Love in a most precise way possible.
As I was reading these thoughts what got me thinking was “Does such love really exist or is it just an idealism?” It’s ironic really that greatest things in life are simplest and hence hard to believe! But as I have observed such unconditional really exists. Purest form of such love is mother-child. There can be some other relations bearing similar strength but nothing for me can be purer than this form. But the relation between mother-child is very interesting thing. The energy or strength here is so ultimate that sometimes mother can do things for the sake the children which can actually be destructive to the relationship. But I guess doing good for the children is so important for a mother that sometimes ‘love that heals’ can become ‘love that harms’. However the love felt by the mother is so high that she can undertake destructive behavior having only one goal in mind, ‘doing good for the children’. If we see in animals, a female with an offspring is way dangerous than any strong male. A woman has always been a nest defender and hence I guess has to have that ultimate strength.
It reminds me of an incident. “Once I was waiting at Karjat station. There was a very poor woman getting down from Mumbai-Pune passenger. She had 4 children with her. Two of them got down but one kept lingering so what she did was she just threw him out. I was really amazed. How can a mother be so rude on children?” But as I wrote earlier it’s not really rudeness but just an ultimate form of love. Because train was about to leave and she had 2-3 big bags as well. And the child may have fallen somewhere so she had to get him away. May be she was wrong or perhaps what I perceived is wrong.
Will write on another form of love in next article…..
©Devendra Oak.