The Will to Be Lucky
The conscious steering of our actions, which is the peculiar privilege of man, is a skill that must be learned. The successful steersman in life, the lucky man, requires a degree of mastery of difficult arts of behavior and self-expression. Certain specific qualities of character and personality must be developed in us before we can find a lucky way through life.
When men have a keen sense of responsibility for their own fortunes, they can influence their luck far more than they dream. The chances of life, from which luck flows, are a kind of cosmic committee, constantly testing our readiness for membership in the lodge of the lucky. The will to be lucky is the crux of our internal development.
To modify destructive habits, which often have strong roots, we must feel active resentment of the insecurity feelings that push us into inferior patterns of behavior—and that make us unlucky in life. That gives us the requisite strength of feeling to challenge and change depleting habits of behavior.
Any effort we make, however slight, to prevent the dictation of our behavior by insecurity feelings is a step toward luckiness. A single modest improvement at a time is often enough to produce far-reaching consequences in one’s fortunes. We have examined the importance to our luck of a number of characteristics which have a close relationship to the workings of chance: zest and generosity, with the power to attract luck into our lives; alertness, self-knowledge, judgment, self-respect, and intuition—all of high value in the recognition of favorable chances; and qualities of special significance in our responses to chance—energy, with its bearing on the presence of mind, confidence, and determination—imagination—and courage, sense of proportion, and integrity, which grow out of faith.
By doing a few relatively simple things over a period of a few months, you can often develop the lucky side of your personality to an extent that can seem miraculous. Vast and ungovernable is the power of chance; and yet, as we have seen, its influence on our luck is profoundly shaped by our own actions. The presence of this book is itself a chance, and your response to it may go far to affect your fortune to come.