To Be Or Not To Be Lucky

To be or not to be lucky. That’s the question.
In one session of my German language class, we discussed about what the important things for building a career were. We’re divided into two small groups then we had to present the result to the other group.
I was in a group with a Korean flute player, Eun, and an economist from Urkraine. Oh, okay. Too many details. We agree that talent and diligence are two best characters one should have, not only in building a career but also in every aspects of life. Eun believed that one must have a talent, for example in music – because she is a musician. In other words, he/she must be accustomed to music – bars and notes and tunes, good body coordination, sense of music and so on and so forth. It doesn’t mean that people without so-called talent couldn’t be a musician. In fact, music can be learnt, they only need more time, efforts and hard works.
Then it’s time for us to present. The other group agree that hard work and diligence were good characters to have. But, they added something so called LUCK. Hussein from Libya told us a story in his previous office. There was a girl who didn’t study high enough – no bachelor degree, no master degree and other degree required by any offices nowadays. She was promoted because she was lucky, he said. She came in the right time at the right place. Not long after her working, the manager resigned and she was the only candidate to be his successor. So, in a short time, 2-3 years, she was a manager. The others had been working for years but stayed the same or only made a small significance in their careers. In conclusion, Hussein believed that hard work and diligence were important, but the X factor is LUCK.
Trying to think mathematically, here comes the formula
Success = hard work x diligence x luck
Hmm… Looks easy, right? Life is never easy, so forget about the formula.
Talking about luck. What is luck, anyway? Is it man made or it come from nowhere? When can we say that one person is lucky? When not?
When I visited a bookstore in Jakarta, coincidentally my eyes struck on a book discussing about luck. It explained luck from several points of view – ratio, religious, myth and on and on. Don’t really remember the details, but the book try to understand what so-called luck from ratio or logic point of view, especially in marketing (the book was written by a motivator and marketer).
Then, when we say somebody is lucky, is he really lucky or he created the luck? For example, the story of Hussein’s friend. Was she lucky because she was the only candidate to replace her manager? Was she lucky because she could work in a multinational company without having any ‘written’ degree?
Well, a friend of mine once wrote about lucky day. There was a day when we feel lucky. We had a good family, we had a great and caring boss, we got promoted, our projects were successful and many more. Did you know, all of those things didn’t come just right away? I mean, all that good things are the effects/results from our doings in the past. Every single thing we do will create effect(s). We have a good family now because we have been working hard to solve any problems that emerged during our family life. We had a caring boss because we do care about our company or the place we are working on. We got promoted because our supervisor has been recording our accomplishment. The projects were successful because we had been working on it for days, weeks, months or even years. So, everything we have right now is the result from everything we did in the past. If that’s so easy, why are there still people with what so-called bad luck?
There are always stories about people who have been working hard nights and days but it seemed like it was very difficult for them to have a good life/career/family/condition. It sounds sad and ironic. But I do believe, that’s not because of bad luck. I mean, there must be something that is wrong during the process of living a life, building a career or family. But the problem is, not many people want to look that deep. Here is another story from my friend. A friend of her always says and acts clean, no corruption. She reminds everybody to avoid corruption. But, one day, she reminded my friend to send a ‘parcel’ to one of the committee before a tender day. Okay, she might avoid corruption (which is good) but she did bribery (which is bad). People who see her with anti-corruption campaign will think “she has been a good and honest woman, why her career was just so-so?
However, cause and effect (or karma) can’t be really predicted. I mean, we can’t really say that helping an old woman crossing a road will result in winning a jackpot. It could lead to that thing but also there are a lot of possibilities and until now nobody can really ‘see’ that. But one thing for sure, it creates an effect, which will come into our life when the time is right or in Buddhism, we call it ‘ripen’. Like a fruit that ripens at certain time, karma also work at the same concept. We can’t harvest the fruit farm when the time is not right. So does karma.
Okay, let’s have a little break. What I’m trying to say here is, if you want to have something good in your life, start and work on the right process. Besides, for me, what is important is the process to reach the goal, not the goal itself. We may set our target as high as possible, but what should be in our mind is, how am I going to reach my goal/target? Whether or not you can accomplish the target depends on the process, the ways you take, not merely because you are unlucky. You are the one who creates the what so-called LUCK. Wanna be lucky? Start and walk on the right process.