How To Be Lucky
/“Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity”
Have you ever wondered how to be lucky? We often place luck in the domain of "fate," something we are either favored with or deprived of, coming from outside of us and beyond our control. Seneca's quote, that Luck is when preparation meets opportunity, offers us control over our luck. But, "preparation" implies we are preparing for something specific. How can we "prepare" to live lucky?
© Nick LeForce
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Timing. It's such a beautiful and mysterious thing in life. A need or desire can be incubating in us, so often without our knowing, preparing the soil of our soul to receive the seed of our future growth. We may not ever know how we ready ourselves for the ripe moment: the moment when the world delivers exactly what we need, as if on a silver platter, and we feel something acknowledged or something nourished; a moment that gives rise to new possibilities in our lives, that opens new channels in us or for us, that breaks us free of old limitations or initiates us into a greater presence, that brings us into contact with our heart’s desire, whether it be a person, a place, or a thing, and to which our whole being says “Yes!”
So many of us spend our life readying ourselves for just such a moment without realizing that the work to ready our lives and our selves is so often misplaced; especially when we invest our effort in finding the treasure in a predefined form. We then dismiss what life offers because it mismatches the shape and form we’ve given it in our minds. Readiness implies that we know what we are getting ready to have, do, or be, and this may actually steer us away from fulfillment of our deeper yearning in life. The beloved, the “treasure” we seek, the wish our heart tosses out to the world, may be right before us, but we are too busy looking for something else, too invested in our work of “preparation” for something specific, too deeply steeped in a “No, this isn’t it” to life and the moment, that we miss the opportunity at our feet.
Readiness may not be the best metaphor. The “preparation" in the equation of luck, is not so much preparation for a specific opportunity, which often results in this “no” to life; it is, instead, a “preparation” for life itself. For me, this is more a matter of cultivating that “Yes!” to life, a kind of ripening of myself into fullness, so that every moment could be the moment of my harvest. The “Yes!" to life does not wait for the right moment, does not sort only for the glittering gold treasure or ruby red jewels, does not tie the heart like bait on the fishing line hoping the beloved will bite or the world will deliver. The “Yes!" to life is what ripens the moment, what yields the harvest, what turns whatever is in the world around us into an opportunity. “Yes!” to life is the quintessential preparation. We then become the lucky ones, life delivering itself to us, constantly offering us its gifts, the gifts life would choose for us; and we, living ripe and full, harvest our moments one by one, with gratitude, feeling blessed beyond measure, wide-eyed and amazed at the wonder of it all. This turns the whole equation of luck on its tail: we now become the opportunity for which life has prepared this moment!
