Luck - What Do You Conceive It To Be?

Off Topic
1

LUCK.

“Good luck, bad luck, hard luck, very lucky, Lady Luck shining upon you, the Luck of the Irish” - you’ve all used or heard or seen these terms before.

But what is LUCK?

Things to think about:

  1. Is everyone given only a certain amount of luck? Is it true that luck “runs” out?

  2. If you were lucky today and something went your way, is it possible you “used” up that luck so something in future won’t go your way?

  3. How many believe that objects, ornaments, talismans, positioning of your house and place or work (Feng Shui etc) actually changes the “luck” of the place or you?

  4. Why do some people “seem” luckier than others? Is this real or perceived?

So, what is LUCK all about?

What do YOU Conceive It To Be?

2

Give examples of number 4.

I really think luck has to do with chance and odds.

-Are people lucky to survive a shark attack or was it by chance the shark didn’t bite the victim’s head off?

-Are people lucky to win the lottery many times or were their odds of winning better than other people’s because they send more money on tickets?

I don’t think I’ve ever been “lucky” in my life. It’s kind of up in the air for me still if there is such a thing as luck.

3

Luck is when preparation meets opportunity. - (no clue, but I know it’s a quote and I agree with it)

4

[quote]Fuzzyapple wrote:

I really think luck has to do with chance and odds.
[/quote]

5

I make my own luck. The recipe is actually the same as the one for grilled cheese, you just add bacon.

6

[quote]PonceDeLeon wrote:
Luck is when preparation meets opportunity.[/quote]

The top goal scorers often score easy goals. They are “lucky”, but they deserve that luck, they have that instinct to be in the right place at the right time and know how to make the most of the opportunity when it appears.

A Swedish proverb with a little truth to it is “luck is something you deserve”.

7

[quote]PonceDeLeon wrote:
Luck is when preparation meets opportunity. - (no clue, but I know it’s a quote and I agree with it)[/quote]

Sounds like something John Wooden would say.

I think luck is a bit dependent on who it happens to and who is perceiving it to be “luck”. For instance, in sports the term “luck” is often thrown about, but in sports I have always felt that, for the most part, good teams/players make their own luck. Luck is nothing more than a good result under unlikely circumstances, but good things happen to good players/teams so when good things happen to them, to me it is only a natural result and not all that unlikely.

Case in point: I always used to hear people say that the 49ers were lucky back in the late Joe Montana era and the Steve Young era. Personally, I thought it was just a bunch of haters, but people said they were lucky to win and got lucky results. Well, back then no one was saying that the Raiders or the Saints or other really bad teams were getting lucky when they won, however infrequently it happened. If the 49ers’ winning ways was partially due to luck, fine. But they put themselves in position to win when they got lucky. I’d rather be lucky than good, but in sports it is the good that also get lucky. Their preparation has met the opportunity and their preparation has enabled them to grasp the opportunity and take it by the balls.

In life, this applies as well. Sure, there’s the guy who finds a $100 bill on the ground (which has actually happened to me), but that shit is just sheer, blind luck. It may seem to happen to certain people more than others, but there’s no way to quantify how much that sort of thing happens from person to person.

8

They actually did a study on this topic. They got a group of people who perceived themselves to be unlucky & and a group who consider themselves lucky. The study wanted to see if there was something tangible to being lucky or unlucky. The most interesting test was one where they gave both groups a newspaper to read. In the newspaper was a full page ad that said if you read this report to the test administrator and collect $50.

Overwhelmingly the vast majority of the “lucky group” about 85% and collected the money. The “unlucky” group only a small percentage of them saw the ad and collected the money about 29%.

They discerned that the Lucky group were overall a more easygoing confident group as a whole, thus they took their time and read the newspaper, they were more open to the different possibilities around them. The unlucky group were more susceptible to stress as a whole and described themselves as worriers. So they were more rushed and hurried while looking through the Newspaper unable to “see the forest for the trees” as they say.

So in summation. Leaving yourself open to all the possibilities and not being a worry wart helps you create your own luck.

9

Luck is a way of describing the things that happen to you that are completely out of your control.

I’m very, very lucky. I was born into a good family with good health, and my kids were born healthy. Nothing catastrophic has ever happened to me that I didn’t bring about with my own actions, and I’ve gotten away with acting incredibly irresponsibly many times with no consequence.

10

I have nothing good to add here, except that this thread is making me hungry for children’s cereal

11


Rookies

Andrew Luck is the QB for Stanford, top draft prospect…Wait am I in the wrong thread?

12

[quote]ethanwest wrote:
I have nothing good to add here, except that this thread is making me hungry for children’s cereal[/quote]

And pop-tarts.

I likes pop-tarts.

13

[quote]PonceDeLeon wrote:
Luck is when preparation meets opportunity. - (no clue, but I know it’s a quote and I agree with it)[/quote]

I’ve read this quote too, the first time I heard it was from one of my first managers.

When you think about when you were “lucky” and you asked was I prepared for that moment in my life AND I was in the right place at the right time so I was “lucky”. Or rather I wasn’t lucky my skill and timing were that damn good.

14

[quote]PonceDeLeon wrote:
Luck is when preparation meets opportunity. - (no clue, but I know it’s a quote and I agree with it)[/quote]

I’ve read this quote too, the first time I heard it was from one of my first managers.

When you think about when you were “lucky” and you asked was I prepared for that moment in my life AND I was in the right place at the right time so I was “lucky”. Or rather I wasn’t lucky my skill and timing were that damn good.

15

Lady Luck is a term in reference to chance. - Professional Blackjack Player

16

I am the luckiest mutherfucker I know. Srsly

I have done more STUPID shit than anyone I’ve ever met, and I’m still alive.

You know those high speed chases you see in movies? I fucking DID one of those right before I rammed a roadblock and got arrested - THAT’S how stupid I was…

I picked a fight with 15 plus guys who then BROKE MY NECK…

When I was an electrician I used to close 4000 Amp switches that were stuck with a 2 x 4…

I fucked a shit ton of women and never got an STD - not even an itch…

I fought FIVE guys at one time in prison, each had knives, and though I got stabbed, I won the fight - AND I DIDN’T HAVE A KNIFE…

Before I was locked up, I was DEEP into some criminal bullshit, and I had decided to kill someone, I had dug the hole and everything, but I MISSED! He found out and put a gun to my head and I talked my way out of it…

I just happened to go to lunch with one of the most brilliant minds in the wholesale lending industry on the east coast the DAY before he quit wholesale - and we started a company together…

When I was in prison, someone was paid to “rag-doll” me. They snuck up behind me and I didn’t hear/feel them. I sneezed and he MISSED my spine by an inch and stuck the shank into my trapezius…

I could go on and on and on…

To me, luck is when the situation that you’ve gotten yourself in is TOTALLY hopeless and you resign yourself to the consequences, but then you make it through somehow with out a scratch (or at least still breathing).

17

[quote]angry chicken wrote:
I am the luckiest mutherfucker I know. Srsly

I have done more STUPID shit than anyone I’ve ever met, and I’m still alive.

You know those high speed chases you see in movies? I fucking DID one of those right before I rammed a roadblock and got arrested - THAT’S how stupid I was…

I picked a fight with 15 plus guys who then BROKE MY NECK…

When I was an electrician I used to close 4000 Amp switches that were stuck with a 2 x 4…

I fucked a shit ton of women and never got an STD - not even an itch…

I fought FIVE guys at one time in prison, each had knives, and though I got stabbed, I won the fight - AND I DIDN’T HAVE A KNIFE…

Before I was locked up, I was DEEP into some criminal bullshit, and I had decided to kill someone, I had dug the hole and everything, but I MISSED! He found out and put a gun to my head and I talked my way out of it…

I just happened to go to lunch with one of the most brilliant minds in the wholesale lending industry on the east coast the DAY before he quit wholesale - and we started a company together…

When I was in prison, someone was paid to “rag-doll” me. They snuck up behind me and I didn’t hear/feel them. I sneezed and he MISSED my spine by an inch and stuck the shank into my trapezius…

I could go on and on and on…

To me, luck is when the situation that you’ve gotten yourself in is TOTALLY hopeless and you resign yourself to the consequences, but then you make it through somehow with out a scratch (or at least still breathing).[/quote]

Wow! Lucky to be here then.

Luck doesn’t discriminate people. How could it? Shit just happens, and we’re the ones who put an interpretive layer on an event, or a chance meeting, and we retrospectively dub it “good luck” or “bad luck”

For example, if you get shot in the stomach as an innocent bystander, are you lucky or unlucky?

It depends on you - I would say unlucky, since I don’t want to be shot. What if you were considering euthanasia prior to being shot? Well, you might consider yourself lucky.

Luck is a quality we give to events to understand em better.

18

I still sort of think luck is a combination of probability and subjective perspective. Basically it is pretty much perceived in my opinion.

If luck were real we have never truly been unlucky.
How many people born each year will make it to 1 years old, 10 years old, 50 years old?
Odds are not many. The few that do make it could be perceived as lucky but most of the time people die because of some illness which is all attached to probability based on how they live, where they live, genetics and so on.

Cause and effect has no room for luck.

19

[quote]BruceLeeFan wrote:
I still sort of think luck is a combination of probability and subjective perspective. Basically it is pretty much perceived in my opinion.

If luck were real we have never truly been unlucky.
How many people born each year will make it to 1 years old, 10 years old, 50 years old?
Odds are not many. The few that do make it could be perceived as lucky but most of the time people die because of some illness which is all attached to probability based on how they live, where they live, genetics and so on.

Cause and effect has no room for luck.[/quote]

Really the Odds are not many? So the majority of people die before they are 1, 10, 50 years old?

20

[quote]Brother Chris wrote:

[quote]BruceLeeFan wrote:
I still sort of think luck is a combination of probability and subjective perspective. Basically it is pretty much perceived in my opinion.

If luck were real we have never truly been unlucky.
How many people born each year will make it to 1 years old, 10 years old, 50 years old?
Odds are not many. The few that do make it could be perceived as lucky but most of the time people die because of some illness which is all attached to probability based on how they live, where they live, genetics and so on.

Cause and effect has no room for luck.[/quote]

Really the Odds are not many? So the majority of people die before they are 1, 10, 50 years old?[/quote]
I don’t know the odds off hand. I think the first few years as an infant death rate is still pretty high in the west.

But think about it like this…

Most old people know each other… It seems odd from a young mans perspective.

We may know a lot of people but there is no way we know all of the young people in our communities. If you are lucky enough to make it over 60 or unlucky enough - I wont get into the philosophy of that, then you tend to know most people in your community of that age group. They may not of even have been your friends in high school, they may have been the geek, the jock or whatever. But a lot of the people you know do die as you get older in life. It’s a given. A lot of people perish from whatever.

Death isn’t exclusively for the elderly.

You hear so many times as well of people who live healthy lifestyles going in their 50s and 90 year old ladies who drink, smoke and everything like that. I think to a large extent it is genetic.

We shouldn’t take anything for granted really.
In high school I knew loads of kids who died from illnesses you wouldn’t expect 12 and 14 year olds to have.
Then you have loads of people die in car crashes, being ran over, simply hitting their head on a wall. It’s misfortune but I don’t think it’s just a case that their luck ran out. Being involved in a car crash is such an intricate tapestry in the sense that everything prior to that car crash had a knock on effect which causes it.

I don’t even think you can stack the odds in your favor beyond a point.

Our whole universe is affected by cause and effect. It sucks to say this but it is of my opinion that our lives are probably pre-determined. I actually wrote about it in a few places and aptly named it causal determinism. I stopped pursuing the whole philosophy thing because it became maddening and depressing.

I was however part of a group called the world academy of art and science which was founded by people like Einstein and Oppenheimer and to this day only has a few hundred people in the world in the group. It’s like mensa except a high iq wont get you in.

Having said this. None of those guys on there had the foresight or intelligence to pursue the relentless and proud endeavor of muscle building.