Can You "Make Your Own Luck"?

Everytime I hear some smug individual say, "I make my own luck," I want to smack him in the kisser. What is he doing, bragging about an uncanny ability to manipulate the universe to his own advantage?

On the other hand, I guess I'll have to admit the source of my reaction stems from the fact that yours fooly is someone who seems--seems!-to have bad luck following her around like Joe Btfsplk's dark cloud. I knew my habitual lack of good fortune was real when friends and relatives started remarking about it. And this goes all the way back to my college days (several Presidential administrations ago.)

I usually have less-than-spectacular luck browsing the web, and many times never find what I'd been searching for. But recently I came across this online article from Psychology Today which just might change my perspective on the whole concept of making one's own luck.

The article had been hooked at the very first paragraph. (When writing an essay, you can't go wrong by beginning with an interesting, illustrative anecdote.) The premise isn't the usual self-esteem, self-affirmation claptrap we've come to expect from pop psychology. As it turns out, there are ways you can improve your luck by using scientific principles.

One is to acquire good observational skills. That's good advice for writers, too-- as Henry Miller said, "keep your eyes and ears open."

Okay, fellow LitNutters-- some comments?




http://www.psychologytoday.com/artic...-your-own-luck

I don't "believe in luck" per se and what is in that article makes a lot of sense. You just stay ready for opportunities to present them selves and when one doesn't work out you start looking for the next one instead of getting down about the failure. That doesn't mean you don't do some introspection and try to figure out how you can avoid future failure, just that you recognize that if you take risks only some of them are going to pay off.

I always assumed that it meant that person was cheating somehow...