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.