Feelin' Lucky?

I once found a little dog on the side of the road. He had no collar, his fur was matted and dirty, he was blind in one eye, missing a front leg and a sizable piece of his tail. I carried him home and named him "Lucky"...

Now I'm sure most everyone has heard some version of this sad, silly little joke, but I'd been thinking about it recently, and it just kind of struck home with me. I have a few thoughts about luck. While I'm not one to poke a stick in the eye of fate, I do believe luck has a lot to do with the self.

Luck, by my definition, is the dependence on supernatural forces that control our destiny. When we look to luck, we give up our sense of control, and depend more on things happening to us, as opposed  to what we are doing to induce change.

I believe that positioning ourselves appropriately, through alignments and allegiances we make, the education we possess, as well as the education in which we continue to attain, our level of work ethic, and the goals we formulate and make strides to achieve regularly all have an impact on the luck we experience. I also believe our mindset; how we choose to experience the occurrences in our lives have a lot to do with what we perceive to be lucky.

I had an old car (this is true) when I was younger, that I'd drive back and forth to work up an old country road almost every day. This was a time before cell phones, and there was one pay phone at a junction about 10 miles from my job-site, and about 17 miles from my house. I did shift work, usually either 7am-3pm, or 3pm-11pm, but at times, I'd work doubles, from 7am-11pm in an effort to have extra days off and reduce the amount of break-downs I'd experience. Over a period of about 6 months, I'd break down on average, once a week. I'd cuss my car, figure out which way was the closest to walk, then get out and start walking. Sometimes it wasn't a bad walk, middle of the day, pleasant outside, and only 2-3 miles. Other times, it was bad... walking at 1am on a highway in 30 degree weather, chicken and cattle trucks passing, and the wonderful "misting" I received as they went by. Most times, I'd make it to the pay phone (and it'd be working), home, or back to work within a few hours. My wife, who, at the time was my girlfriend, would always say, "You have the worst luck with that car; we need to buy you a new one". Well, I knew that wasn't an option. Money was extremely tight, and we just simply couldn't afford it at the time. I got to where when she fussed about me continually having to walk, I was able to retort, "well, at least the payphone was working this time", or, "well, at least the chicken truck moved over and I wasn't squirted so much this time". I was able to come up with several "at leasts" before I broke down and asked for a loan from my grandmother to buy a new car.

The point of this story was that while I could have focused on the negative, I changed my mindset (in an effort to avoid an argument), and looked for ways to focus on the positive, the lucky side of the situation. In the end, I took control of the situation, took responsibility for the areas I could change, and changed my "luck".

We all get down and have negative thoughts, sometimes. It's sometimes easier to blame external forces than to do the hard work it sometimes takes in order to make our lives "better". I do believe that we are all blessed, and that sometimes we overlook or misread our blessings, or forget to use the talent with which we are blessed.

What have you done today, this week, this month, or this year to improve your luck?

What situations have you been faced with that you felt shafted, that with a simple shift of mindset, you are able to realize the underlying blessing?

              Thank you for reading my blog... Good Luck Ya'll!!!