What Is Luck, and
What Can You Do About It?
Luck has been defined as the combination of chance circumstances that bring good or ill into a person’s life. If this definition is correct, luck is unpredictable. E. M. Forster (1879–1970), the English novelist, referred to this when he wrote: “There is much good luck in the world, but it is luck. We are none of us safe. We are children, playing or quarrelling on the line.” 1
Over the centuries, many people have tried to explain luck. Some people think the architect of the universe creates the situations in which good or bad luck can occur. Others believe trusting their intuition will bring them good luck. Still others claim there’s no such thing as luck, and pure chance is responsible for every instance of good or bad luck. Author Max Gunther wrote: “Luck is the supreme insult to human reason: You can’t plan for it, you can’t cultivate it, and you can’t find anybody to teach it to you. All you can do is hope for it.” 2
I would strongly disagree! We do have influence over our luck, which is reassuring when life can often feel like you’re at chance’s whim. Although luck doesn’t directly govern our lives, it affects nearly everything we do. Consequently, people have tried throughout history to improve their luck by using rituals, lucky charms, positive thinking, philosophies such as feng shui, and divination—techniques we’ll be reviewing in this book.
Good Luck
Luck is a mysterious force that seems to operate for good or ill in people’s lives. Sir Winston Churchill (1874–1965) was known as “that lucky devil Churchill” because most of the time, events seemed to work out in a way that favored him. In recent years, scientists have started looking at some of these practices to determine if they can help people improve their luck. Lysann Damisch of the University of Cologne became interested in the superstitions of professional athletes such as Michael Jordan, and created a test to see if these practices genuinely gave them more luck. In one experiment, she asked volunteers to bring a lucky charm with them when they took a test. The charms were taken away to be photographed, and half the volunteers received them back before the test began. The people who had their lucky charm with them did better at the test because they felt more confident. Professor Damisch found that even wishing someone “good luck” improved his or her results as it created confidence.3
It seems that superstitious practices can increase luck, as they give people more confidence and the illusion of control in stressful situations. Giora Keinan of the University of Tel Aviv found that people knocked on wood more frequently after being asked stress-inducing questions, such as: “Have you ever been involved in a terrible road accident?”4
Random chances of fate can create good or bad luck. Winning a lottery is an example of this. Winning a large sum of money when the odds are millions to one against you is certainly an example of luck. This may not necessarily be good luck, either, as statistically two out of every three lottery winners spend or lose their winnings in less than five years.
People often refer to other people’s amazing successes as luck, ignoring the fact that talent, hard work, persistence, and other factors were probably more important in achieving success than pure luck. Often, apparent overnight success is the result of many years of hard work that has ultimately paid off with a seemingly lucky result.
Of course, while there are ways you can influence luck, some things can’t be changed. Your ancestors and country of birth are obvious examples. In some countries, parents feel luckier if they produce a boy rather than a girl. This is because the boy will grow up and help support the family, whereas a girl will grow up and ultimately help the family she marries into. For this reason, someone born in a first-world country would probably be considered lucky compared to someone born in a third-world country. Someone born to loving parents would be considered luckier than someone born to parents who hated each other. Wealthy parents might be considered luckier than parents who have to struggle to make a living.
However, even in these situations, the opposite might well be true. A child born to wealthy parents who showered him or her with expensive gifts but withheld love is not as lucky as someone with poor parents who constantly demonstrate how much they love their child.
Bad Luck
There is also bad luck. So-called “acts of God” such as earthquakes, tsunamis, and tornados can cause unbelievable devastation and destroy people’s lives in a matter of moments. A friend of mine was diagnosed with cancer shortly after he retired, and died just a few months later. He was looking forward to starting a new career as an artist. That’s definitely an example of bad luck.
What’s Your Opinion of Luck?
Many years ago I met a man who told me he was never lucky. He felt life had conspired against him, and it was a waste of time even trying to get ahead because fate would work against him. I’ve thought about him often over the years, as I felt it was his thoughts that created his apparent bad luck. I’ve always been grateful to him. If this chance meeting had not occurred, I may not have become interested in the subject of luck, and this book would never have been written. This probably means that meeting him was lucky for me.
Not surprisingly, there are numerous proverbs that relate to luck. Here are some examples:
No matter what your current beliefs on luck may be, I challenge you to put them aside and test new waters! Try the practices here and watch as you begin attracting good luck. I don’t accept that luck is totally random and unpredictable; I believe we create our own luck, good or bad, by the way we live our lives. The primary purpose of this book is to demonstrate the idea and show you how you can improve your own luck. You may not be able to control what happens to you, but you always retain the ability to control your reactions. If you want to become lucky, like that “lucky devil Churchill,” it is entirely up to you. With the help of this book, you can create your own good luck. It’s never too late.
This book also looks at a variety of different items and rituals people have used over the years to try to improve their luck. These methods work as long as you believe they will. I own a collection of “lucky” objects, and frequently select one to take with me when I particularly want luck on my side. I find it fascinating that I always seem to do better when I’m carrying a lucky charm than when I don’t. I don’t believe that good luck is imbued in the object, though. I’m luckier on these occasions because the charm makes me think of luck, and reminds me how lucky I am. Because I feel lucky, I act in a confident, positive way, and as a result, good things tend to occur. I hope you’ll experiment with some of the items you read about in this book, and see how lucky you become while using them.
How to Use This Book
This book is divided into four parts. Part one discusses a variety of ways to attract luck into your life by changing your attitude and approach to life. Most of these are simple adjustments that will help you find new and fresh opportunities that may well prove lucky for you. Part two explores some of the traditional methods used to attract good luck, such as magical words, gemstones, and lucky charms. No matter what your view may be on these, you’ll find it an interesting exercise to choose one or two to experiment with. Part three looks at how to create luck in the important areas of love, marriage, and the home. As luck often involves timing, this part also looks at the seasons, days, months, and years. Part four discusses the folk traditions concerning luck. These include lucky animals, food and drink, and folklore. It also looks at luck in Asia, as people there have been examining different ways to attract and enhance good luck for thousands of years.
You can use this book in a number of ways. You might read it from start to finish. Alternatively, you might start by reading the entries that interest you the most before looking at some of the others. You might prefer to dip into the book at random and see what you find. You might keep it as a reference book and flip through it occasionally. There are enough entries to try something different every day for a whole year, if that is what you’d like to do. No matter how you use it, I hope you’ll find a number of ways to help you create good luck well before you finish the book.